highways in hiding george o. smith a lancer book copyright by george o. smith _highways in hiding_ is based upon material originally copyrighted by greenleaf publishing co., . all rights reserved library of congress catalog card no.: - printed in the u.s.a. _cover painting by roy g. krenkel_ lancer books, inc., madison avenue, new york, n.y. [transcriber's note: this is a rule clearance. pg has not been able to find a u.s. copyright renewal.] _for my drinking uncle don and, of course marian_ _historical note_ in the founding days of rhine institute the need arose for a new punctuation mark which would indicate on the printed page that the passage was of mental origin, just as the familiar quotation marks indicate that the words between them were of verbal origin. accordingly, the symbol # was chosen, primarily because it appears on every typewriter. up to the present time, the use of the symbol # to indicate directed mental communication has been restricted to technical papers, term theses, and scholarly treatises by professors, scholars, and students of telepathy. here, for the first time in any popular work, the symbol # is used to signify that the passage between the marks was mental communication. steve cornell, _m. ing._ stalemate macklin said, "please put that weapon down, mr. cornell. let's not add attempted murder to your other crimes." "don't force me to it, then," i told him. but i knew i couldn't do it. i hated them all. i wanted the whole highways in hiding rolled up like an old discarded carpet, with every mekstrom on earth rolled up in it. but i couldn't pull the trigger. the survivors would have enough savvy to clean up the mess before our bodies got cold, and the highways crowd would be doing business at the same old stand. without, i might add, the minor nuisance that people call steve cornell. what i really wanted was to find catherine. and then it came to me that what i really wanted second of all was to possess a body of mekstrom flesh, to be a physical superman.... i i came up out of the blackness just enough to know that i was no longer pinned down by a couple of tons of wrecked automobile. i floated on soft sheets with only a light blanket over me. i hurt all over like a hundred and sixty pounds of boil. my right arm was numb and my left thigh was aching. breathing felt like being stabbed with rapiers and the skin of my face felt stretched tight. there was a bandage over my eyes and the place was as quiet as the grave. but i knew that i was not in any grave because my nose was working just barely well enough to register the unmistakable pungent odor that only goes with hospitals. i tried my sense of perception, but like any delicate and critical sense, perception was one of the first to go. i could not dig out beyond a few inches. i could sense the bed and the white sheets and that was all. some brave soul had hauled me out of that crack-up before the fuel tank went up in the fire. i hope that whoever he was, he'd had enough sense to haul catherine out of the mess first. the thought of living without catherine was too dark to bear, and so i just let the blackness close down over me again because it cut out all pain, both physical and mental. the next time i awoke there was light and a pleasant male voice saying, "steve cornell. steve, can you hear me?" i tried to answer but no sound came out. not even a hoarse croak. the voice went on, "don't try to talk, steve. just think it." #catherine?# i thought sharply, because most medicos are telepath, not perceptive. "catherine is all right," he replied. #can i see her?# "lord no!" he said quickly. "you'd scare her half to death the way you look right now." #how bad off am i?# "you're a mess, steve. broken ribs, compound fracture of the left tibia, broken humerus. scars, mars, abrasions, some flashburn and post-accident shock. and if you're interested, not a trace of mekstrom's disease." #mekstrom's disease--?# was my thought of horror. "forget it, steve. i always check for it because it's been my specialty. don't worry." #okay. so how long have i been here?# "eight days." #eight days? couldn't you do the usual job?# "you were pretty badly ground up, steve. that's what took the time. now, suppose you tell me what happened?" #catherine and i were eloping. just like most other couples do since rhine institute made it difficult to find personal privacy. then we cracked up.# "what did it?" asked the doctor. "perceptives like you usually sense danger before you can see it." #catherine called my attention to a peculiar road sign, and i sent my perception back to take another dig. we hit the fallen limb of a tree and went over and over. you know the rest.# "bad," said the doctor. "but what kind of a sign would call your interest so deep that you didn't at least see the limb, even if you were perceiving the sign?" #peculiar sign,# i thought. ornamental wrought iron gizmo with curlicues and a little decorative circle that sort of looks like the boy scout tenderfoot badge suspended on three spokes. one of the spokes were broken away; i got involved because i was trying to guess whether it had been shot away by some vandal who missed the central design. then--blooie!# "it's really too bad, steve. but you'll be all right in a while." #thanks, doctor. doctor? doctor--?# "sorry, steve. i forget that everybody is not telepath like i am. i'm james thorndyke." much later i began to wake up again, and with better clarity of mind, i found that i could extend my esper as far as the wall and through the door by a few inches. it was strictly hospital all right; sere white and stainless steel as far as my esper could reach. in my room was a nurse, rustling in starched white. i tried to speak, croaked once, and then paused to form my voice. "can--i see--how is--? where is?" i stopped again, because the nurse was probably as esper as i was and required a full sentence to get the thought behind it. only a telepath like the doctor could have followed my jumbled ideas. but the nurse was good. she tried: "mr. cornell? you're awake!" "look--nurse--" "take it easy. i'm miss farrow. i'll get the doctor." "no--wait. i've been here eight days--?" "but you were badly hurt, you know." "but the doctor. he said that she was here, too." "don't worry about it, mr. cornell." "but he said that she was not badly hurt." "she wasn't." "then why was--is--she here so long?" miss farrow laughed cheerfully. "your christine is in fine shape. she is still here because she wouldn't leave until you were well out of danger. now stop fretting. you'll see her soon enough." her laugh was light but strained. it sounded off-key because it was as off-key as a ten-yard-strip of baldfaced perjury. she left in a hurry and i was able to esper as far as outside the door, where she leaned back against the wood and began to cry. she was hating herself because she had blown her lines and she knew that i knew it. and catherine had never been in this hospital, because if she had been brought in with me, the nurse would have known the right name. not that it mattered to me now, but miss farrow was no esper or she'd have dug my belongings and found catherine's name on the license. miss farrow was a telepath; i'd not called my girl by name, only by an affectionate mental image. ii i was fighting my body upright when doctor thorndyke came running. "easy, steve," he said with a quiet gesture. he pushed me gently back down in the bed with hands that were as soft as a mother's, but as firm as the kind that tie bow knots in half-inch bars. "easy," he repeated soothingly. "catherine?" i croaked pleadingly. thorndyke fingered the call button in some code or other before he answered me. "steve," he said honestly, "you can't be kept in ignorance forever. we hoped it would be a little longer, when you were stronger--" "stop beating around!" i yelled. at least it felt like i was yelling, but maybe it was only my mind welling. "easy, steve. you've had a rough time. shock--" the door opened and a nurse came in with a hypo all loaded, its needle buried in a fluff of cotton. thorndyke eyed it professionally and took it; the nurse faded quietly from the room. "take it easy, steve. this will--" "no! not until i know--" "easy," he repeated. he held the needle up before my eyes. "steve," he said, "i don't know whether you have enough esper training to dig the contents of this needle, but if you haven't, will you please trust me? this contains a neurohypnotic. it won't put you under. it will leave you as wide awake as you are now, but it will disconnect your running gear and keep you from blowing a fuse." then with swift deftness that amazed me, the doctor slid the needle into my arm and let me have the full load. i was feeling the excitement rise in me because something was wrong, but i could also feel the stuff going to work. within half a minute i was in a chilled-off frame of mind that was capable of recognizing the facts but not caring much one way or the other. when he saw the stuff taking hold, thorndyke asked, "steve, just who is catherine?" the shock almost cut through the drug. my mind whirled with all the things that catherine was to me, and the doctor followed it every bit of the way. "steve, you've been under an accident shock. there was no catherine with you. there was no one with you at all. understand that and accept it. no one. you were alone. do you understand?" i shook my head. i sounded to myself like an actor reading the script of a play for the first time. i wanted to pound on the table and add the vigor of physical violence to my hoarse voice, but all i could do was to reply in a calm voice: "catherine was with me. we were--" i let it trail off because thorndyke knew very well what we were doing. we were eloping in the new definition of the word. rhine institute and its associated studies had changed a lot of customs; a couple intending to commit matrimony today were inclined to take off quietly and disappear from their usual haunts until they'd managed to get intimately acquainted with one another. elopement was a means of finding some personal privacy. we should have stayed at home and faced the crude jokes that haven't changed since pithecanthropus first discovered that sex was funny. but our mutual desire to find some privacy in this modern fish-bowl had put me in the hospital and catherine--where--? "steve, listen to me!" "yeah?" "i know you espers. you're sensitive, maybe more so than telepaths. more imagination--" this was for the birds in my estimation. among the customs that rhine has changed was the old argument as to whether women or men were smarter. now the big argument was whether espers or telepaths could get along better with the rest of the world. thorndyke laughed at my objections and went on: "you're in accident shock. you piled up your car. you begin to imagine how terrible it would have been if your catherine had been with you. next you carefully build up in your subconscious mind a whole and complete story, so well put together that to you it seems to be fact." but, #--how could anyone have taken a look at the scene of the accident and not seen traces of woman? my woman.# "we looked," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "there was not a trace, steve." #fingerprints?# "you'd been dating her." #naturally!# thorndyke nodded quietly. "there were a lot of her prints on the remains of your car. but no one could begin to put a date on them, or tell how recent was the latest, due to the fire. then we made a door to door canvas of the neighborhood to be sure she hadn't wandered off in a daze and shock. not even a footprint. nary a trace." he shook his head unhappily. "i suppose you're going to ask about that travelling bag you claim to have put in the trunk beside your own. there was no trace of any travelling bag." "doctor," i asked pointedly, "if we weren't together, suppose you tell me first why i had a marriage license in my pocket; second, how come i made a date with the reverend towle in midtown; and third, why did i bother to reserve the bridal suite in the reignoir hotel in westlake? or was i nuts a long time before this accident. maybe," i added, "after making reservations, i had to go out and pile myself up as an excuse for not turning up with a bride." "i--all i can say is that there was not a trace of woman in that accident." "you've been digging in my mind. did you dig her telephone number?" he looked at me blankly. "and you found what, when you tried to call her?" "i--er--" "her landlady told you that miss lewis was not in her apartment because miss lewis was on her honeymoon, operating under the name of mrs. steve cornell. that about it?" "all right. so now you know." "then where the hell is she, doc?" the drug was not as all-powerful as it had been and i was beginning to feel excitement again. "we don't know, steve." "how about the guy that hauled me out of that wreck? what does he say?" "he was there when we arrived. the car had been hauled off you by block and tackle. by the time we got there the tackle had been burned and the car was back down again in a crumpled mass. he is a farmer by the name of harrison. he had one of his older sons with him, a man about twenty-four, named phillip. they both swore later that there was no woman in that car nor a trace of one." "oh, he did, did he?" dr. thorndyke shook his head slowly and then said very gently. "steve, there's no predicting what a man's mind will do in a case of shock. i've seen 'em come up with a completely false identity, all the way back to childhood. now, let's take your case once more. among the other incredible items--" "incredible?" i roared. "easy. hear me out. after all, am i to believe your unsubstantiated story or the evidence of a whole raft of witnesses, the police detail, the accident squad, and the guys who hauled you out of a burning car before it blew up? as i was saying, how can we credit much of your tale when you raved about one man lifting the car and the other hauling you out from underneath?" i shrugged. "that's obviously a mistaken impression. no one could--" "so when you admit that one hunk of your story is mistaken--" "that doesn't prove the rest is false!" "the police have been tracking this affair hard," said the doctor slowly. "they've gotten nowhere. tell me, did anyone see you leave that apartment with miss lewis?" "no," i said slowly. "no one that knew us." thorndyke shook his head unhappily. "that's why we have to assume that you are in post-accident shock." i snorted angrily. "then explain the license, the date with the reverend, the hotel reservation?" thorndyke said quietly, "hear me out, steve. this is not my own idea alone, but the combined ideas of a number of people who have studied the human mind--" "in other words, i'm nuts?" "no. shock." "shock?" he nodded very slowly. "let's put it this way. let's assume that you wanted this marriage with miss lewis. you made preparations, furnished an apartment, got a license, made a date with a preacher, reserved a honeymoon suite, and bought flowers for the bride. you take off from work, arrive at her door, only to find that miss lewis has taken off for parts unknown. maybe she left you a letter--" "letter!" "hear me out, steve. you arrive at her apartment and find her gone. you read a letter from her saying that she cannot marry you. this is a rather deep shock to you and you can't face it. know what happens?" "i blow my brains out along a country road at ninety miles per hour." "please, this is serious." "it sounds incredibly stupid to me." "you're rejecting it in the same way you rejected the fact that miss lewis ran away rather than marry you." "do go on, doctor." "you drive along the same road you'd planned to take, but the frustration and shock pile up to put you in an accident-prone frame of mind. you then pile up, not consciously, but as soon as you come upon something like that tree limb which can be used to make an accident authentic." "oh, sure." thorndyke eyed me soberly. "steve," he asked me in a brittle voice, "you won't try to convince me that any esper will let physical danger of that sort get close enough to--" "i've told you how it happened. my attention was on that busted sign!" "fine. more evidence to the fact that miss lewis was with you? now listen to me. in accident-shock you'd not remember anything that your mind didn't want you to recall. failure is a hard thing to take. so now you can blame your misfortune on that accident." "so now you tell me how you justify the fact that catherine told landladies, friends, bosses, and all the rest that she was going to marry me a good long time before i was ready to be verbal about my plans?" "i--" "suppose i've succeeded in bribing everybody to perjure themselves. maybe we all had it in for catherine, and did her in?" thorndyke shrugged. "i don't know," he said. "i really don't know, steve. i wish i did." "that makes two of us," i grunted. "hasn't anybody thought of arresting me for kidnapping, suspicion of murder, reckless driving and cluttering up the highway with junk?" "yes," he said quietly. "the police were most thorough. they had two of their top men look into you." "what did they find?" i asked angrily. no man likes to have his mind turned inside out and laid out flat so that all the little wheels, cables and levers are open to the public gaze. on the other hand, since i was not only innocent of any crime but as baffled as the rest of them, i'd have gone to them willingly to let them dig, to see if they could dig past my conscious mind into the real truth. "they found that your story was substantially an honest one." "then why all this balderdash about shock, rejection, and so on?" he shook his head. "none of us are supermen," he said simply. "your story was honest, you weren't lying. you believe every word of it. you saw it, you went through it. that doesn't prove your story true." "now see here--" "it does prove one thing; that you, steve cornell, did not have any malicious, premeditated plans against catherine lewis. they've checked everything from hell to breakfast, and so far all we can do is make long-distance guesses as to what happened." i snorted in my disgust. "that's a telepath for you. everything so neatly laid out in rows of slats like a snow fence. me--i'm going to consult a scholar and have him really dig me deep." thorndyke shook his head. "they had their top men, steve. scholar redfern and scholar berks. both of them rhine scholars, _magna cum laude_." i blinked as i always do when i am flabbergasted. i've known a lot of doctors of this and that, from medicine to languages. i've even known a scholar or two, but none of them intimately. but when a doctor of psi is invited to take his scholarte at rhine, that's it, brother; i pass. thorndyke smiled. "you weren't too bad yourself, steve. ran twelfth in your class at illinois, didn't you?" i nodded glumly. "i forgot to cover the facts. they'd called all the bright boys out and collected them under one special-study roof. i majored in mechanical ingenuity not psi. hoped to get a d. ing. out of it, at least, but had to stop. partly because i'm not ingenious enough and partly because i ran out of cash." doctor thorndyke nodded. "i know how it is," he said. i realized that he was leading me away from the main subject gently, but i couldn't see how to lead him back without starting another verbal hassle. he had me cold. he could dig my mind and get the best way to lead me away, while i couldn't read his. i gave up. it felt better, too, getting my mind off this completely baffling puzzle even for a moment. he caught my thoughts but his face didn't twitch a bit as he picked up his narrative smoothly: "i didn't make it either," he said unhappily. "i'm psi and good. but i'm telepath and not esper. i weasled my way through pre-med and medical by main force and awkwardness, so to speak." he grinned at me sheepishly. "i'm not much different than you or any other psi. the espers all think that perception is superior to the ability to read minds, and vice versa. i was going to show 'em that a telepath can make scholar of medicine. so i 'pathed my way through med by reading the minds of my fellows, who were all good espers. i got so good that i could read the mind of an esper watching me do a delicate dissecting job, and move my hands according to his perception. i could diagnose the deep ills with the best of them--so long as there was an esper in the place." "so what tripped you up?" "telepaths make out best dealing with people. espers do better with things." "isn't medicine a field that deals with people?" he shook his head. "not when a headache means spinal tumor, or indigestion, or a bad cold. 'doctor,' says the patient, 'i've a bad ache along my left side just below the ribs,' and after you diagnose, it turns out to be acute appendicitis. you see, steve, the patient doesn't know what's wrong with him. only the symptoms. a telepath can follow the patient's symptoms perfectly, but it takes an esper to dig in his guts and perceive the tumor that's pressing on the spine or the striae on his liver." "yeah." "so i flopped on a couple of tests that the rest of the class sailed through, just because i was not fast enough to read their minds and put my own ability to work. it made 'em suspicious and so here i am, a mere doctor instead of a scholar." "there are fields for you, i'm sure." he nodded. "two. psychiatry and psychology, neither of which i have any love for. and medical research, where the ability to grasp another doctor or scholar's plan, ideas and theories is slightly more important than the ability to dig esper into the experiments." "don't see that," i said with a shake of my head. "well, steve, let's take mekstrom's disease, for instance." "let's take something simple. what i know about mekstrom's disease could be carved on the head of a pin with a blunt butter knife." "let's take mekstrom's. that's my chance to make scholar of medicine, steve, if i can come up with an answer to one of the minor questions. i'll be in the clinical laboratory where the only cases present are those rare cases of mekstrom's. the other doctors, espers every one of them, and the scholars over them, will dig the man's body right down to the last cell, looking and combing--you know some of the better espers can actually dig into the constituency of a cell?--but i'll be the doctor who can collect all their information, correlate it, and maybe come up with an answer." "you picked a dilly," i told him. it was a real one, all right. otto mekstrom had been a mechanic-tech at white sands space station during the first flight to venus, mars and moon round-trip with landings. about two weeks after the ship came home, otto mekstrom's left fingertips began to grow hard. the hardening crawled up slowly until his hand was like a rock. they studied him and worked over him and took all sorts of samples and made all sorts of tests until otto's forearm was as hard as his hand. then they amputated at the shoulder. but by that time, otto mekstrom's toes on both feet were getting solid and his other hand was beginning to show signs of the same. on one side of the creepline the flesh was soft and normal, but on the other it was all you could do to poke a sharp needle into the skin. poor otto ended up a basket case, just in time to have the damned stuff start all over again at the stumps of his arms and legs. he died when hardening reached his vitals. since that day, some twenty-odd years ago, there had been about thirty cases a year turn up. all fatal, despite amputations and everything else known to modern medical science. god alone knew how many unfortunate human beings took to suicide without contacting the big medical research center at marion, indiana. well, if thorndyke could uncover something, no one could claim that a telepath had no place in medicine. i wished him luck. i did not see thorndyke again in that hospital. they released me the next day and then i had nothing to do but to chew my fingernails and wonder what had happened to catherine. iii i'd rather not go into the next week and a half in detail. i became known as the bridegroom who lost his bride, and between the veiled accusations and the half-covered snickers, life was pretty miserable. i talked to the police a couple-three times, first as a citizen asking for information and ending up as a complainant against party or parties unknown. the latter got me nowhere. apparently the police had more lines out than the grand bank fishing fleet and were getting no more nibbles than they'd get in the dead sea. they admitted it; the day had gone when the police gave out news reports that an arrest was expected hourly, meaning that they were baffled. the police, with their fine collection of psi boys, were willing to admit when they were really baffled. i talked to telepaths who could tell me what i'd had for breakfast on the day i'd entered pre-school classes, and espers who could sense the color of the clothing i wore yesterday. i've a poor color-esper, primitive so to speak. these guys were good, but no matter how good they were, catherine lewis had vanished as neatly as ambrose bierce. i even read charles fort, although i have no belief in the supernatural, and rather faint faith in the hereafter. and people who enter the hereafter leave their remains behind for evidence. having to face catherine's mother and father, who came east to see me, made me a complete mental wreck. it is harder than you think to face the parents of a woman you loved, and find that all you can tell them is that somehow you fouled your drive, cracked up, and lost their daughter. not even dead-for-sure. death, i think, we all could have faced. but this uncertainty was something that gnawed at the soul's roots and left it rotting. to stand there and watch the tears in the eyes of a woman as she asks you, "but can't you remember, son?" is a little too much, and i don't care to go into details. the upshot of it was, after about ten days of lying awake nights and wondering where she was and why. watching her eyes peer out of a metal casting at me from a position sidewise of my head. nightmares, either the one about us turning over and over and over, or mrs. lewis pleading with me only to tell her the truth. then having the police inform me that they were marking this case down as "unexplained." i gave up. i finally swore that i was going to find her and return with her, or i was going to join her in whatever strange, unknown world she had entered. * * * * * the first thing i did was to go back to the hospital in the hope that dr. thorndyke might be able to add something. in my unconscious ramblings there might be something that fell into a pattern if it could be pieced together. but this was a failure, too. the hospital super was sorry, but dr. thorndyke had left for the medical research center a couple of days before. nor could i get in touch with him because he had a six-week interim vacation and planned a long, slow jaunt through yellowstone, with neither schedule nor forwarding addresses. i was standing there on the steps hoping to wave down a cruising coptercab when the door opened and a woman came out. i turned to look and she recognized me. it was miss farrow, my former nurse. "why, mr. cornell, what are you doing back here?" "mostly looking for thorndyke. he's not here." "i know. isn't it wonderful, though? he'll get his chance to study for his scholarte now." i nodded glumly. "yeah," i said. it probably sounded resentful, but it is hard to show cheer over the good fortune of someone else when your own world has come unglued. "still hoping," she said. it was a statement and not a question. i nodded slowly. "i'm hoping," i said. "someone has the answer to this puzzle. i'll have to find it myself. everyone else has given up." "i wish you luck," said miss farrow with a smile. "you certainly have the determination." i grunted. "it's about all i have. what i need is training. here i am, a mechanical engineer, about to tackle the job of a professional detective and tracer of missing persons. about all i know about the job is what i have read. one gets the idea that these writers must know something of the job, the way they write about it. but once you're faced with it yourself, you realize that the writer has planted his own clues." miss farrow nodded. "one thing," she suggested, "have you talked to the people who got you out from under your car yet?" "no, i haven't. the police talked to them and claimed they knew nothing. i doubt that i can ask them anything that the police have not satisfied themselves about." miss farrow looked up at me sidewise. "you won't find anything by asking people who have never heard of you." "i suppose not." a coptercab came along at that moment, and probably sensing my intention, he gave his horn a tap. i'd have liked to talk longer with miss farrow, but a cab was what i wanted, so with a wave i took it and she went on down the steps to her own business. i had to pause long enough to buy a new car, but a few hours afterward i was rolling along that same highway with my esper extended as far as i could in all directions. i was driving slowly, this time both alert and ready. i went past the scene of the accident slowly and shut my mind off as i saw the black-burned patch. the block was still hanging from an overhead branch, and the rope that had burned off was still dangling, about two feet of it, looped through the pulleys and ending in a tapered, burned end. i turned left into a driveway toward the home of the harrisons and went along a winding dirt road, growing more and more conscious of a dead area ahead of me. it was not a real dead zone, because i could still penetrate some of the region. but as far as really digging any of the details of the rambling harrison house, i could get more from my eyesight than from any sense of perception. but even if they couldn't find a really dead area, the harrisons had done very well in finding one that made my sense of perception ineffective. it was sort of like looking through a light fog, and the closer i got to the house the thicker it became. just about the point where the dead area was first beginning to make its effect tell, i came upon a tall, browned man of about twenty-four who had been probing into the interior of a tractor up to the time he heard my car. he waved, and i stopped. "mr. harrison?" "i'm phillip. and you are mr. cornell." "call me steve like everybody else," i said. "how'd you guess?" "recognized you," he said with a grin. "i'm the guy that pulled you out." "thanks," i said, offering a hand. he chuckled. "steve, consider the hand taken and shook, because i've enough grime to muss up a regiment." "it won't bother me," i said. "thanks, but it's still a gesture, and i appreciate it, but let's be sensible. i know you can wash, but let's shake later. what can i do for you?" "i'd like a first-hand account, phil." "not much to tell. dad and i were pulling stumps over about a thousand feet from the wreck. we heard the racket. i am esper enough to dig that distance with clarity, so we knew we'd better bring along the block and tackle. the tractor wouldn't go through. so we came on the double, dad rigged the tackle and hoisted and i took a running dive, grabbed and hauled you out before the whole thing went _whoosh!_ we were both lucky, steve." i grunted a bit but managed to nod with a smile. "i suppose you know that i'm still trying to find my fiancée?" "i'd heard tell," he said. he looked at me sharply. i'm a total blank as a telepath, like all espers, but i could tell what he was thinking. "everybody is convinced that catherine was not with me," i admitted. "but i'm not. i know she was." he shook his head slowly. "as soon as we heard the screech of brakes and rubber we esped the place," he said quietly. "we dug you, of course. but no one else. even if she'd jumped as soon as that tree limb came into view, she could not have run far enough to be out of range. as for removing a bag, she'd have had to wait until the slam-bang was over to get it out, and by the time your car was finished rolling, dad and i were on the way with help. she was not there, steve." #you're a goddam liar!# phillip harrison did not move a muscle. he was blank telepathically. i was esping the muscles in his stomach, under his loose clothing, for that first tensing sign of anger, but nothing showed. he had not been reading my mind. i smiled thinly at phil harrison and shrugged. he smiled back sympathetically, but behind it i could see that he was wishing that i'd stop harping on a dead subject. "i sincerely wish i could be of help," he said. in that he was sincere. but somewhere, someone was not, and i wanted to find out who it was. the impasse looked as though it might go on forever unless i turned away and left. i had no desire to leave. not that phil could help me, but even though this was a dead end, i was loath to leave the place because it was the last place where i had been close to catherine. the silence between us must have been a bit strained at this point, but luckily we had an interruption. i perceived motion, turned and caught sight of a woman coming along the road toward us. "my sister," said phil. "marian." marian harrison was quite a girl; if i'd not been emotionally tied to catherine lewis, i'd have been happy to invite myself in. marian was almost as tall as i am, a dark, brown-haired woman with eyes of a startling, electricity colored blue. she was about twenty-two, young and healthy. her skin was tanned toast brown so that the bright blue eyes fairly sparked out at you. her red mouth made a pleasing blend with the tan of her skin and her teeth gleamed white against the dark when she smiled. insultingly, i made some complimentary but impolite mental observations about her figure, but marion did not appear to notice. she was no telepath. "you're mr. cornell," she said, "i remembered you," she said quietly. "please believe us, mr. cornell, when we extend our sympathy." "thanks," i said glumly. "please understand me, miss harrison. i appreciate your sympathy, but what i need is action and information and answers. once i get those, the sympathy won't be needed." "of course i understand," she replied instantly. "we are all aware that sympathy is a poor substitute. all the world grieving with you doesn't turn a stitch to help you out of your trouble. all we can do is to wish, with you, that it hadn't happened." "that's the point," i said helplessly. "i don't even know what happened." "that makes it even worse," she said softly. marian had a pleasant voice, throaty and low, that sounded intimate even when talking about something pragmatic. "i wish we could help you, steve." "i wish someone could." she nodded. "they asked me about it, too, even though i was not present until afterward. they asked me," she said thoughtfully, "about the mental attitude of a woman running off to get married. i told them that i couldn't speak for your woman, but that i might be able to speak for me, putting myself in the same circumstances." she paused a moment, and her brother turned idly back to his tractor and fitted a small end wrench to a bolt-head and gave it a twist. he seemed to think that as long as marian and i were talking, he could well afford to get along with his work. i agreed with him. i wanted information, but i did not expect the entire world to stop progress to help me. he spun the bolt and started on another, lost in his job while marian went on: "i told them that your story was authentic--the one about the bridal nightgown." a very slight color came under the deep tan. "i told them that i have one, too, still in its wrapper, and that someday i'd be planning marriage and packing a go-away bag with the gown shaken out and then packed neatly. i told them that i'd be doing the same thing no matter whether we were having a formal church wedding with a four-alarm reception and all the trimmings or a quiet elopement such as you were. i told them that it was the essentials that count, not the trimmings and the tinsel. my questioner's remark was to the effect that either you were telling the truth, or that you had esped a woman about to marry and identified her actions with your own wishes." "i know which," i said with a sour smile. "it was both." marian nodded. "then they asked me if it were probable that a woman would take this step completely unprepared and i laughed at them. i told them that long before rhine, women were putting their nuptial affairs in order about the time the gentleman was beginning to view marriage with an attitude slightly less than loathing, and that by the time he popped the question, she'd been practicing writing her name as 'mrs.' and picking out the china-ware and prospective names for the children, and that if any woman had ever been so stunned by a proposal of marriage that she'd take off without so much as a toothbrush, no one in history had ever heard of her." "then you begin to agree with me?" she shrugged. "please," she said in that low voice, "don't ask me my opinion of your veracity. you believe it, but all the evidence lies against you. there was not a shred of woman-trace anywhere along your course, from the point along the road where you first caught sight of the limb that threw you to the place where you piled up. nor was there a trace anywhere in a vast circle--almost a half mile they searched--from the crack-up. they had doctors of psi digging for footprints, shreds of clothing, everything. not a trace." "but where did she go?" i cried, and when i say 'cried' i mean just that. marian shook her head very slowly. "steve," she said in a voice so low that i could hardly hear her over the faint shrill of bolts being unscrewed by her brother, "so far as we know, she was never here. why don't you forget her--" i looked at her. she stood there, poised and a bit tensed as though she were trying to force some feeling of affectionate kinhood across the gap that separated us, as though she wanted to give me both physical and mental comfort despite the fact that we were strangers on a ten-minute first-meeting. there was distress in her face. "forget her--?" i ground out. "i'd rather die!" "oh steve--no!" one hand went to her throat and the other came out to fasten around my forearm. her grip was hard. i stood there wondering what to do next. marian's grip on my arm relaxed and she stepped back. i pulled myself together. "i'm sorry," i told her honestly. "i'm putting you through a set of emotional hurdles by bringing my problems here. i'd better take them away." she nodded very slowly. "please go. but please come back once you get yourself squared away, no matter how. we'd all like to see you when you aren't all tied up inside." phil looked up from the guts of the tractor. "take it easy, steve," he said. "and remember that you do have friends here." blindly i turned from them and stumbled back to my car. they were a pair of very fine people, firm, upright. marian's grip on my arm had been no weaker than her sympathy, and phil's less-emotional approach to my trouble was no less deep, actually. it was as strong as his good right arm, loosening the head bolts of a tractor engine with a small adjustable wrench. i'd be back. i wanted to see them again. i wanted to go back there with catherine and introduce them to her. but i was definitely going to go back. i was quite a way toward home before i realized that i had not met the old man. i bet myself that father harrison was quite the firm, active patriarch. iv the days dragged slowly. i faced each morning hopefully at first, but as the days dragged on and on, i began to feel that each morning was opening another day of futility, to be barely borne until it was time to flop down in weariness. i faced the night in loneliness and in anger at my own inability to do something productive. i pestered the police until they escorted me to the door and told me that if i came again, they'd take me to another kind of door and loose thereafter the key. i shrugged and left disconsolately, because by that time i had been able to esp, page by page, the entire file that dealt with the case of "missing person: lewis, catherine," stamped "inactive, but not closed." i hated the words. but as the days dragged out, one after another, with no respite and no hope, my raw nervous system began to heal. it was probably a case of numbness; you maul your thumb with a hammer and it will hurt just so long before it stops. i was numb for a long time. i remember night after night, lying awake and staring into the darkness at the wall i knew was beside me, and i hated my esper because i wanted to project my mind out across some unknown space to reach for catherine's mind. if we'd both been telepaths we could cross the universe to touch each other with that affectionate tenderness that mated telepaths always claim they have. instead i found myself more aware of a clouded-veil perception of marian harrison as she took my arm and looked into my face on that day when i admitted that i found little worth living for. i knew what that meant--nothing. it was a case of my subconscious mind pointing out that the available present was more desirable than the unavailable not-present. at first i resented my apparent inconstancy in forming an esper projection of marian harrison when i was trying to project my blank telepathic inadequacy to catherine. but as the weeks faded into the past, the shock and the frustration began to pale and i found marian's projective image less and less an unwanted intrusion and more and more pleasant. i had two deeply depressed spells in those six weeks. at the end of the fourth week i received a small carton containing some of my personal junk that had been in catherine's apartment. a man can't date his girl for weeks without dropping a few things like a cigarette lighter, a tie clip, one odd cuff-link, some papers, a few letters, some books, and stuff both valuable and worthless that had turned up as gifts for one reason or another. it was a shock to get this box and its arrival bounced me deep into a doldrum-period of three or four days. then at the end of the sixth week i received a card from dr. thorndyke. it contained a lithograph in stereo of some scene in yellowstone other than old faithful blowing its stack. on the message side was a cryptic note: _steve: i just drove along that road in the right side of the picture. it reminded me of yours, so i'm writing because i want to know how you are making out. i'll be at the med-center in a couple of weeks, you can write me there. jim thorndyke._ i turned the postcard over and eyed it critically. then i got it. along the roadside was a tall ornamental standard of wrought iron. the same design as the road signs along that fatal highway of mine. i sat there with a magnifying glass on the roadsign; its stereo image standing up alongside the road in full color and solidity. it took me back to that moment when catherine had wriggled against my side, thrilling me with her warmth and eagerness. that put me down a few days, too. * * * * * another month passed. i'd come out of my shell quite a bit in the meantime. i now felt that i could walk in a bar and have a drink without wondering whether all the other people in the place were pointing at me. i'd cut myself off from all my previous friends, and i'd made no new friends in the weeks gone by. but i was getting more and more lonely and consequently more and more inclined to speak to people and want friends. the accident had paled from its original horror; the vital scene returned only infrequently. catherine was assuming the position of a lost love rather than a sweetheart expected to return soon. i remembered the warmth of her arms and the eagerness of her kiss in a nostalgic way and my mind, especially when in a doze, would play me tricks. i would recall catherine, but when she came into my arms, i'd be holding marian, brown and tawny, with her electric blue eyes and her vibrant nature. but i did nothing about it. i knew that once i had asked marian harrison for a date i would be emotionally involved. and then if--no, when--catherine turned up i would be torn between desires. i would wake up and call myself all sorts of a fool. i had seen marian for a total of perhaps fifteen minutes--in the company of her brother. but eventually dreaming loses its sting just as futile waiting and searching does, and i awoke one morning in a long and involved debate between my id and my conscience. i decided at that moment that i would take that highway out and pay a visit to the harrison farm. i was salving my slightly rusty conscience by telling myself that it was because i had never paid my respects to father harrison, but not too deep inside i knew that if father were missing and daughter were present i'd enjoy my visit to the farm with more relish. but my id took a licking because the doorbell rang about nine o'clock that morning and when i dug the doorstep i came up with two gentlemen wearing gold badges in leather folders in their jacket pockets. i opened the door because i couldn't have played absent to a team consisting of one esper and one telepath. they both knew i was home. "mr. cornell, we'll waste no time. we want to know how well you know doctor james thorndyke." i didn't blink at the bluntness of it. it is standard technique when an esper-telepath team go investigating. the telepath knew all about me, including the fact that i'd dug their wallets and identification cards, badges and the serial numbers of the nasty little automatics they carried. the idea was to drive the important question hard and first; it being impossible to not-think the several quick answers that pop through your mind. what i knew about thorndyke was sketchy enough but they got it all because i didn't have any reason for covering up. i let them know that, too. finally, #that's about all,# i thought. #now--why?# the telepath half of the team answered. "normally we wouldn't answer, mr. cornell, unless you said it aloud. but we don't mind letting you know which of us is the telepath this time. to answer, you are the last person to have received any message from thorndyke." "i--what?" "that postcard. it was the last contact thorndyke made with anyone. he has disappeared." "but--" "thorndyke was due to arrive at the medical research center in marion, indiana, three weeks ago. we've been tracking him ever since he failed to turn up. we've been able to retrace his meanderings very well up to a certain point in yellowstone. there the trail stops. he had a telephoned reservation to a small hotel; there he dropped out of sight. now, mr. cornell, may i see that postcard?" "certainly." i got it for them. the esper took it over to the window and eyed it in the light, and as he did that i went over to stand beside him and together we espered that postcard until i thought the edges would start to curl. but if there were any codes, concealed writings or any other form of hidden meaning or message in or on that card, i didn't dig any. i gave up. i'm no trained investigator. but i knew that thorndyke was fairly well acquainted with the depth of my perceptive sense, and he would not have concealed anything too deep for me. then the esper shook his head. he handed me the card. "not a trace." the telepath nodded. he looked at me and smiled sort of thin and strained. "we're naturally interested in you, mr. cornell. this seems to be the second disappearance. and you know nothing about either." "i know," i said slowly. the puzzle began to go around and around in my head again, all the way back to that gleaming road and the crack-up. "we'll probably be back, mr. cornell. you don't mind?" "look," i told them rather firmly, "if this puzzle can be unwound, i'll be one of the happiest men on the planet. if i can do anything to help, just say the word." they left after that and so did i. i was still going to pay my visit to the harrison farm. another wild goose chase, but somewhere along this cockeyed row there was an angle. honest people who are healthy and fairly happy with good prospects ahead of them do not just drop out of sight without a trace. * * * * * a couple of hours later i was making a good pace along the highway again. it was getting familiar to me. i could not avoid letting my perceptive sense rest on the sign as i drove past. not long enough to put me in danger, but long enough to discover to my surprise that someone had taken the trouble to repair the broken spoke. someone must have been a perfectionist. the break was so slight that it seemed like calling in a mechanic because the ashtray in the car is full. then i noticed other changes that time had caused. the burned scar was fading in a growth of tall weeds. the limb of the tree that hung out over the scene, from which block and tackle had hung, was beginning to lose its smoke-blackened appearance. the block was gone from the limb. _give us a year_, i thought, _and the only remaining scar will be the one on my mind, and even that will be fading_. i turned into the drive, wound around the homestead road, and pulled up in front of the big, rambling house. it looked bleak. the front lawn was a bit shaggy and there were some wisps of paper on the front porch. the venetian blinds were down and slatted shut behind closed windows. since it was summer by now, the closed windows and the tight door, neither of which had flyscreens installed, quickly gave the fact away. the harrisons were gone. another disappearance? i turned quickly and drove to the nearest town and went to the post office. "i'm looking for the harrison family," i told the man behind the wicket. "why, they moved several weeks ago." "moved?" i asked with a blank-sounding voice. the clerk nodded. then he leaned forward and said in a confidential whisper, "heard a rumor that the girl got a touch of that spacemen's disease." "mekstrom's?" i blurted. the clerk looked at me as if i'd shouted a dirty word. "she was a fine girl," he said softly. "it's a shame." i nodded and he went into the back files. i tried to dig alone behind him, but the files were in a small dead area in the rear of the building. i swore under my breath although i'd expected to find files in dead areas. just as rhine institute was opened, the government combed the countryside for dead or cloudy areas for their secret and confidential files. there had been one mad claim-staking rush with the government about six feet ahead of the rest of the general public, business and the underworld. he came back with a sorrowful look. "they left a concealed address," he said. i felt like flashing a twenty at him like a private eye did in the old tough-books, but i knew it wouldn't work. rhine also made it impossible for a public official to take a bribe. so instead, i tried to look distressed. "this is extremely important. i'd say it was a matter of life and death." "i'm sorry. a concealed forwarding address is still concealed. if you must get in touch with them, you might drop them a letter to be forwarded. then if they care to answer, they'll reply to your home." "later," i told him. "i'll probably be back to mail it direct from here." he waved at the writing desk. i nodded and left. i drove back to the ex-harrison farm slowly, thinking it over. wondering. people did not just go around catching mekstrom's disease, from what little i knew of it. and somehow the idea of marian harrison withering away or becoming a basket case, or maybe taking the painless way out was a thought that my mind kept avoiding except for occasional flashes of horror. i drove in toward the farmhouse again and parked in front of the verandah. i was not sure of why i was there except that i wanted to wander through it to see what i could find before i went back to the post-office to write that card or letter. the back of the house was locked with an old-fashioned slide bolt that was turned with what they used to call an "e" key. i shrugged, oiled my conscience and found a bit of bent wire. probing a lock like that would have been easy for a total blank; with esper i lifted the simple keepers and slid back the bolt almost as swiftly as if i had used a proper key. this was no case of disappearance. in every one of the fourteen rooms were the unmistakable signs of a deliberate removal. discarded stuff was mixed with the odds and ends of packing case materials, a scattered collection of temporary nails, a half-finished but never used box filled with old clothing. i pawed through this but found nothing, even though i separated it from the rest to help my esper dig it without interference. i roamed the house slowly letting my perception wander from point to point. i tried to time-dig the place but that was futile. i didn't have enough perception. i caught only one response. it was in one of the upper bedrooms. but then as i stopped in the room where marian had slept, i began again to doubt my senses. it could have been esper, but it was more likely that i'd caught the dying traces of perfume. then i suddenly realized that the entire premises were clear to me! an esper map of the world looked sort of like a mottled sky, with bright places and cloudy patches strewn in disorder across it. a mottled sky, except that the psi-pattern usually does not change. but this house had been in a murky area, if not dead. now it was clear. i left the house and went to the big combination barn and garage. it was as unsatisfying as the house had been. phillip harrison, or someone, had had a workshop out there. i found the bench and a small table where bolt-holes, oil marks, and other traces said that there had been one of those big combination woodworking machines there, the kind that combines circular saw, drill, lathe, planer, router, dado, and does everything. there had been some metal-working stuff there, too, but nothing as elaborate as the woodshop. mostly things like hacksaws and an electric drill, and a circular scar where a blowtorch had been sitting. i don't know why i kept on standing there esping the abandoned set-up. maybe it was because my esper dug the fact that there was something there that i should know about, but which was so minute or remote that the impression did not come through. i stood there puzzled at my own reluctance to leave until something satisfied that almost imperceptible impression. idly i leaned down and picked up a bit of metal from the floor and fumbled it in my hand nervously. i looked around the place with my eyes and saw nothing. i gave the whole garage a thorough scanning with my esper and got zero for my trouble. finally i snarled at myself for being an imbecile, and left. everyone has done what i did, time and time again. i do not recall anything of my walk back to the car, lost in a whirl of thoughts, ideas, plans and questions. i would probably have driven all the way back to my apartment with my mind in that whirligig, driving by habit and training, but i was shaken out of it because i could not start my car by poking that bit of metal in the lock. it did not fit. i laughed, a bit ashamed of my preoccupation, and flung the bit of metal into the grass, poked my key in the lock-- and then i was out pawing the grass for that piece of metal. for the small piece of metal i had found on the floor of the abandoned workshop was the spoke of that road sign that had been missing when catherine and i cracked up! i drove out along the highway and stopped near one of the standards. i esped the sign, compared my impression against my eyesight. i made sure. that bit of metal, a half inch long and a bit under a quarter inch in diameter, with both ends faintly broken-ragged, was identical in size and shape to the unbroken spokes in the sign! then i noticed something else. the trefoil ornament in the middle did not look the same as i recalled them. i took thorndyke's card out of my pocket and looked at the stereo. i compared the picture against the real thing before me and i knew that i was right. the trefoil gizmo was a take-off on the fleur-de-lis or the boy scout tenderfoot badge, or the design they use to signify north on a compass. but the lower flare of the leaves was wider than any of the more familiar emblems; almost as wide as the top. it took a comparison to tell the difference between one of them right-side-up and another one upside-down. one assumes for this design that the larger foils are supposed to be up. if that were so, then the ones along that road out there in or near yellowstone were right-side-up, while the ones along my familiar highway were upside-down. i goaded myself. #memory, have these things been turned or were they always upside-down?# the last thing i did as i turned off the highway was to stop and let my esper dig that design once more. i covered the design itself, let my perception roam along the spokes, and then around the circlet that supported the spokes that held the trefoil emblem. oh, it was not obvious. it was designed in, so to speak. if i were asked even today for my professional opinion i would have to admit that the way the circlet snapped into the rest of the ornamental scrollwork was a matter of good assembly design, and not a design deliberately created so that the emblem could be turned upside down. in fact, if it had not been for that tiny, broken spoke i found on the floor of the harrison garage, never in a million years would i have considered these road signs significant. * * * * * at the post office i wrote a letter to phillip harrison: _dear phil:_ _i was by your old place today and was sorry to find that you had moved. i'd like to get in touch with you again. if i may ask, please send me your forwarding address. i'll keep it concealed if you like, or i'll reply through the post office, concealed forward._ _as an item of interest, did you know that your house has lost its deadness? a medium-equipped esper can dig it with ease. have you ever heard of the psi-pattern changing before?_ _ah, and another item, that road sign with the busted spoke has been replaced. you must be a bum shot, not to hit that curlicue in the middle. i found the spoke you hit on the floor of your garage, if you'd like it for a souvenir of one close miss._ _please write and let me know how things are going. rumor has it that marian contracted mekstrom's and if you will pardon my mentioning a delicate subject, i am doing so because i really want to help if i am able. after all, no matter how lightly you hold it, i still owe you my life. this is a debt i do not intend to forget._ _sincerely,_ _steve cornell._ v i did not go to the police. they were sick of my face and already considering me a candidate for the paranoid ward. all i would have to do is go roaring into the station to tell them that i had uncovered some deep plot where the underground was using ornamental road signs to conceal their own network of roads and directions, and that the disappearance of catherine lewis, dr. thorndyke and the removal of the harrisons were all tied together. instead, i closed my apartment and told everyone that i was going to take a long, rambling tourist jaunt to settle my nerves; that i thought getting away from the scene might finish the job that time and rest had started. then i started to drive. i drove for several days, not attempting to pace off miles, but covering a lot of aimless-direction territory. i was just as likely to spend four hours going north on one highway, and then take the next four coming back south on a parallel highway, and sometimes i even came back to the original starting place. after a week i had come no farther west than across that sliver of west virginia into eastern ohio. and in eastern ohio i saw some more of the now familiar and suspicious road signs. the emblem was right side up, and the signs looked as though they had not been up long. i followed that road for seventy-five miles, and as i went the signs kept getting newer and newer until i finally came to a truck loaded with pipe, hardware, and ornamental ironwork. leading the truck was one of those iron mole things. i watched the automatic gear hoist one of the old pipe and white and black enamel roadsigns up by its roots, and place it on a truck full of discards. i watched the mole drive a corkscrew blade into the ground with a roaring of engine and bucking of the truck. it paused, pulled upward to bring out the screw and its load of dirt, stones and gravel. the crew placed one of the new signs in the cradle and i watched the machine set the sign upright, pour the concrete, tamp down the earth, and then move along down the road. there was little point in asking questions of the crew, so i just took off and drove to columbus as hard as i could make it. * * * * * shined, cleaned, polished, and very conservatively dressed, i presented myself to the state commissioner of roads and highways. i toyed briefly with the idea of representing myself as a minor official from some distant state like alaska or the virgin islands, inquiring about these signs for official reasons. but then i knew that if i bumped into a hot telepath i'd be in the soup. on the other hand, mere curiosity on the part of a citizen, well oiled with compliments, would get me at the very least a polite answer. the commissioner's fifth-under-secretary bucked me down the hall; another office bucked me upstairs. a third buck-around brought me to the department of highways marking and road maps. a sub-secretary finally admitted that he might be able to help me. his name was houghton. but whether he was telepath or esper did not matter because the commission building was constructed right in the middle of a dead area. i still played it straight. i told him i was a citizen of new york, interested in the new road signs, ohio was to be commended, et cetera. "i'm glad you feel that way," he said beaming. "i presume these signs cost quite a bit more than the stark, black and white enamel jobs?" "on the contrary," he said with pride. "they might, but mass-production methods brought the cost down. you see, the enamel jobs, while we buy several thousand of the plates for any highway, must be set up, stamped out, enamelled, and so on. the new signs are all made in one plant as they are needed; i don't suppose you know, but the highway number and any other information is put on the plate from loose, snap-in letters. that means we can buy so many thousand of this or that letter or number, and the necessary base plates and put them together as needed. they admitted that they were still running at a loss, but if they could get enough states interested, they'd eventually come out even, and maybe they could reduce the cost. why, they even have a contingent-clause in the contract stating that if the cost were lowered, they would make a rebate to cover it. that's so the first users will not bide their time instead of buying now." he went on and on and on like any bureaucrat. i was glad we were in a dead area because he'd have thrown me out of his office for what i was thinking. eventually mr. houghton ran down and i left. i toyed around with the idea of barging in on the main office of the company but i figured that might be too much like poking my head into a hornet's nest. i pocketed the card he gave me from the company, and i studied the ink-fresh road map, which he had proudly supplied. it pointed out in a replica panel of the fancy signs, that the state of ohio was beautifying their highways with these new signs at no increased cost to the taxpayer, and that the dates in green on the various highways here and there gave the dates when the new signs would be installed. the bottom of the panel gave the road commissioner's name in boldface with houghton's name below in slightly smaller print. i smiled. usually i get mad at signs that proclaim that such and such a tunnel is being created by mayor so-and-so, as if the good mayor were out there with a shovel and hoe digging the tunnel. but this sort of thing would have been a worthy cause if it hadn't been for the sinister side. i selected a highway that had been completed toward cincinnati and made my way there with no waste of time. * * * * * the road was new and it was another beaut. the signs led me on, mile after mile and sign after sign. i did not know what i was following, and i was not sure i knew what i was looking for. but i was on the trail of something and a bit of activity, both mental and physical, after weeks of blank-wall frustration made my spirits rise and my mental equipment sharper. the radio in the car was yangling with hillbilly songs, the only thing you can pick up in ohio, but i didn't care. i was looking for something significant. i found it late in the afternoon about half-way between dayton and cincinnati. one of the spokes was missing. fifty yards ahead was a crossroad. i hauled in with a whine of rubber and brakes, and sat there trying to reason out my next move by logic. do i turn with the missing spoke, or do i turn with the one that is not missing? memory came to my aid. the "ten o'clock" spoke had been missing back there near the harrison farm. the harrisons had lived on the left side of the highway. one follows the missing spoke. here the "two o'clock" spoke was missing, so i turned to the right along the crossroad until i came to another sign that was complete. then, wondering, i u-turned and drove back across the main highway and drove for about five miles watching the signs as i went. the ones on my right had that trefoil emblem upside down. the ones on my left were right side up. the difference was so small that only someone who knew the significance would distinguish one from the other. so far as i could reason out, it meant that what i sought was in the other direction. when the emblem was upside down i was going away from, and when right side up, i was going toward. away from or toward what? i u-turned again and started following the signs. twenty miles beyond the main highway where i'd seen the sign that announced the turn, i came upon another missing spoke. this indicated a turn to the left, and so i slowed down until i came upon a homestead road leading off toward a farmhouse. i turned, determined to make like a man lost and hoping that i'd not bump into a telepath. a few hundred yards in from the main road i came upon a girl who was walking briskly toward me. i stopped. she looked at me with a quizzical smile and asked me if she could be of any help. brashly, i nodded. "i'm looking for some old friends of mine," i said. "haven't seen them for years. named harrison." she smiled up at me. "i don't know of any harrison around here." her voice had the ohio twang. "no?" "just where do they live?" i eyed her carefully, hoping my glance did not look like a wolf eyeing a lamb. "well, they gave me some crude directions. said i was to turn at the main highway onto this road and come about twenty miles and stop on the left side when i came upon one of those new road signs where someone had shot one of the spokes out." "spokes? left side--" she mumbled the words and was apparently mulling the idea around in her mind. she was not more than about seventeen, sun-tanned and animal-alive from living in the open. i wondered about her. as far as i was concerned, she was part and parcel of this whole mysterious affair. no matter what she said or did, it was an obvious fact that the hidden road sign directions pointed to this farm. and since no one at seventeen can be kept in complete ignorance of the business of the parents, she must be aware of some of the ramifications. after some thought she said, "no, i don't know of any harrisons." i grunted. i was really making the least of this, now that i'd arrived. "your folks at home?" i asked. "yes," she replied. "i think i'll drop in and ask them, too." she shrugged. "go ahead," she said with the noncommittal attitude of youth. "you didn't happen to notice whether the mailbox flag was up, did you?" i hadn't, but i espied back quickly and said, "no, it isn't." "then the mailman hasn't been to deliver," she said. "mind if i ride back to the house with you, mister?" "hop in." she smiled brightly and got in quickly. i took off down the road toward the house at an easy pace. she seemed interested in the car, and finally said, "i've never been in a car like this before. new?" "few weeks," i responded. "fast?" "if you want to make it go fast. she'll take this rocky road at fifty, if anyone wants to be so foolish." "let's see." i laughed. "nobody but an idiot would tackle a road like this at fifty." "i like to go fast. my brother takes it at sixty." that, so far as i was concerned, was youthful exaggeration. i was busy telling her all the perils of fast driving when a rabbit came barrelling out of the bushes along one side and streaked across in front of me. i twitched the wheel. the car went out of the narrow road and up on the shoulder, tilting quite a bit. beyond the rabbit i swung back into the road, but not before the youngster had grabbed my arm to keep from being tossed all over the front seat. her grip was like a hydraulic vise. my arm went numb and my fingers went limp on the wheel. i struggled with my left hand to spin the wheel to keep on the narrow, winding road and my foot hit the brake to bring the car down, but fast. taking a deep breath as we stopped, i shook my right hand by holding it in my left at the wrist. i was a mass of tingling pins and needles because she had grabbed me just above the elbow. it felt as though it would have taken only a trifle more to pinch my arm off and leave me with a bloody stump. "sorry, mister," she said breathlessly, her eyes wide open. her face was white around the corners of the mouth and at the edges of her nose. the whiteness of the flesh under the deep tan gave her a completely frightened look, far more than the shake-up could have produced. i reached over and took her hand. "that's a mighty powerful grip you--" the flesh of her hand was hard and solid. not the meaty solidity of good tone, fine training and excellent health. it was the solidity of a--all i could think of at the time was a green cucumber. i squeezed a bit and the flesh gave way only a trifle. i rubbed my thumb over her palm and found it solid-hard instead of soft and yielding. i wondered. i had never seen a case of mekstrom's disease--before. i looked down at the hand and said, "young lady, do you realize that you have an advanced case of mekstrom's disease?" she eyed me coldly. "now," she said in a hard voice. "i know you'll come in." something in my make-up objects violently to being ordered around by a slip of a girl. i balance off at about one-sixty. i guessed her at about two-thirds of that, say one-ten or thereabouts-- "one-eight," she said levelly. #a telepath!# "yes," she replied calmly. "and i don't mind letting you know it, so you'll not try anything stupid." #i'm getting the heck out of here!# "no, you're not. you are coming in with me." "like heck!" i exploded. "don't be silly. you'll come in. or shall i lay one along your jaw and carry you?" i had to try something, anything, to get free. yet-- "now you're being un-bright," she told me insolently. "you should know that you can't plan any surprise move with a telepath. and if you try a frontal attack i'll belt you so cold they'll have to put you in the oven for a week." i just let her ramble for a few seconds because when she was rattling this way she couldn't put her entire mental attention on my thoughts. so while she was yaking it off, i had an idea that felt as though it might work. she shut up like a clam when she realized that her mouthing had given me a chance to think, and i went into high gear with my perception: #not bad--for a kid. growing up fast. been playing hookey from momma, leaving off your panties like the big girls do. i can tell by the elastic cord marks you had 'em on not long ago.# seventeeners have a lot more modesty than they like to admit. she was stunned by my cold-blooded catalog of her body just long enough for me to make a quick lunge across her lap to the door handle on her side. i flipped it over and gave her a shove at the same time. she went bottom over appetite in a sprawl that would have jarred the teeth loose in a normal body and might have cracked a few bones. but she landed on the back of her neck, rolled and came to her feet like a cat. i didn't wait to close the door. i just tromped on the go-pedal and the car leaped forward with a jerk that slammed the door for me. i roared forward and left her just as she was making another grab. how i hoped to get out of there i did not know. all i wanted was momentary freedom to think. i turned this way and that to follow the road until i came to the house. i left the road, circled the house with the turbine screaming like a banshee and the car taking the corners on the outside wheels. i skidded into a turn like a racing driver and ironed my wheels out flat on the takeaway, rounded another corner and turned back into the road again going the other way. she was standing there waiting for me as i pelted past at a good sixty, and she reached out one girder-strong arm, latched onto the frame of the open window on my side, and swung onto the half-inch trim along the bottom of the car-body like a switchman hooking a freight car. she reached for the steering wheel with her free hand. i knew what was to happen next. she'd casually haul and i'd go off the road into a tree or pile up in a ditch, and while the smoke was clearing out of my mind, she'd be untangling me from the wreck and carting me over her shoulder, without a scratch to show for her adventure. i yanked the wheel--whip! whap!--cutting an arc. i slammed past a tree, missing it by half an inch. i wiped her off the side of the car like a mailbag is clipped from the fast express by the catch-hook. i heard a cry of "whoof!" as her body hit the trunk of the tree. but as i regained the road and went racing on to safety, i saw in the rear view mirror that she had bounced off the tree, sprawled a bit, caught her balance, and was standing in the middle of the road, shaking her small but very dangerous fist at my tail license plate. i didn't stop driving at one-ten until i was above dayton again. then i paused along the road to take stock. stock? what the hell did i know, really? i'd uncovered and confirmed the fact that there was some secret organization that had a program that included their own highway system, concealed within the confines of the united states. i was almost certain by this time that they had been the prime movers in the disappearance of catherine and dr. thorndyke. they-- i suddenly re-lived the big crack-up. willingly now, no longer rejecting the memory, i followed my recollection as catherine and i went along that highway at a happy pace. with care i recalled every detail of catherine, watching the road through my mind and eyes, how she'd mentioned the case of the missing spoke, and how i'd projected back to perceive that which i had not been conscious of. reminding myself that it was past, i went through it again, deliberately. the fallen limb that blocked the road, my own horror as the wheels hit it. the struggle to regain control of the careening car. as a man watching a motion picture, i watched the sky and the earth turn over and over, and i heard my voice mouthing wordless shouts of fear. catherine's cry of pain and fright came, and i listened as my mind reconstructed it this time without wincing. then the final crash, the horrid wave of pain and the sear of the flash-fire. i went through my own horror and self condemnation, and my concern over catherine. i didn't shut if off. i waded through it. now i remembered something else. something that any normal, sensible mind would reject as an hallucination. beyond any shadow of a doubt there had been no time for a man to rig a block and tackle on a tree above a burning automobile in time to get the trapped victims out alive. and even more certain it was that no normal man of fifty would have had enough strength to lift a car by its front bumper while his son made a rush into the flames. that tackle had been rigged and burned afterward. but who would reject a block and tackle in favor of an impossibly strong man? no, with the tackle in sight, the recollection of a man lifting that overturned automobile like a weight lifter pressing up a bar bell would be buried in any mind as a rank hallucination. then one more item came driving home hard. so hard that i almost jumped when the idea crossed my mind. both catherine and dr. thorndyke had been telepaths. a telepath close to any member of his underground outfit would divine their purpose, come to know their organization, and begin to grasp the fundamentals of their program. such a person would be dangerous. on the other hand, an esper such as myself could be turned aside with bland remarks and a convincing attitude. i knew that i had no way of telling lie from truth and that made my problem a lot more difficult. from the facts that i did have, something smelled of overripe seafood. government and charities were pouring scads of dough into a joint called the medical research center. to hear the scholars of medicine tell it, mekstrom's disease was about the last human frailty that hadn't been licked to a standstill. they boasted that if a victim of practically anything had enough life left in him to crawl to a telephone and use it, his life could be saved. they grafted well. i'd heard tales of things like fingers, and i know they were experimenting on hands, arms and legs with some success. but when it came to mekstrom's they were stopped cold. therefore the medical research center received a walloping batch of money for that alone; all the money that used to go to the various heart, lung, spine and cancer funds. it added up well. but the medical research center seemed unaware that some group had solved their basic problem. from the books i've read i am well aware of one of the fundamental principles of running an underground: _keep it underground!_ the commie menace in these united states might have won out in the middle of the century if they'd been able to stay a secret organization. so the highways in hiding could stay underground and be an efficient organization only until someone smoked them out. that one was going to be me. but i needed an aide-de-camp. especially and specifically i needed a trained telepath, one who would listen to my tale and not instantly howl for the nut-hatch attendants. the f.b.i. were all trained investigators and they used esper-telepath teams all the time. one dug the joint while the other dug the inhabitant, which covered the situation to a faretheewell. it would take time to come up with a possible helper. so i spent the next hour driving toward chicago, and by the time i'd crossed the ohio-indiana line and hit richmond, i had a plan laid out. i placed a call to new york and within a few minutes i was talking to nurse farrow. i'll not go into detail because there was a lot of mish-mash that is not particularly interesting and a lot more that covered my tracks since i'd parted company with her on the steps of the hospital. i did not, of course, mention my real purpose over the telephone and miss farrow could not read my mind from new york. the upshot of the deal was that i felt that i needed a nurse for a while, not that i was ill, but that i felt a bit woozy now and then because i hadn't learned to slow down. i worked too fast and too long and my condition was not up to it yet. this miss farrow allowed as being quite possible. i repeated my offer to pay her at the going prices for registered nurses with a one-month guarantee, paid in advance. that softened her quite a bit. then i added that i'd videograph her a check large enough to cover the works plus a round trip ticket. she should come out and have a look, and if she weren't satisfied, she could return without digging into her own pocket. all she'd lose was one day, and it might be a bit of a vacation if she enjoyed flying in a jetliner at sixty thousand feet. the accumulation of offers finally sold her and she agreed to arrange a leave of absence. she'd meet me in the morning of the day-after-tomorrow, at central airport in chicago. i videographed the check and then took off again, confident that i'd be able to sell her on the idea of being the telepath half of my amateur investigation team. then because i needed some direct information, i turned west and crossed the line into indiana, heading toward marion. so far i had a lot of well-placed suspicions, but until i was certain, i could do no more than postulate ideas. i had to know definitely how to identify mekstrom's disease, or at least the infected flesh. i have a fairly good recall; all i needed now was to have someone point to a case and say flatly that this was a case of mekstrom's disease. then i'd know whether what i'd seen in ohio was actually one hundred percent mekstrom. vi i walked into the front office with a lot of self-assurance. the medical center was a big, rambling place with a lot of spread-out one- and two-story buildings that looked so much like "hospital" that no one in the world would have mistaken them for anything else. the main building was by the road, the rest spread out behind as far as i could see; beyond my esper range even though the whole business was set in one of the clearest psi areas that i'd even been in. i was only mildly worried about telepaths. in the first place, the only thing i had to hide was my conviction about a secret organization and how part of it functioned. in the second place, the chances were good that few, if any, telepaths were working there, if the case of dr. thorndyke carried any weight. that there were some telepaths, i did not doubt, but these would not be among the high-powered help. so i sailed in and faced the receptionist, who was a good-looking chemical-type blonde with a pale skin, lovely complexion and figure to match. she greeted me with a glacial calm and asked my business. brazenly i lied. "i'm a freelance writer and i'm looking for material." "have you an assignment?" she asked without a trace of interest in the answer. "not this time. i'm strictly freelance. i like it better this way because i can write whatever i like." her glacial air melted a bit at the inference that my writing had not been in vain. "where have you been published?" she asked. i made a fast stab in the dark, aiming in a direction that looked safe. "last article was one on the latest archeological findings in assyria. got my source material direct from the oriental institute in chicago." "too bad i missed it," she said, looking regretful. i had to grin, i'd carefully avoided giving the name of the publication and the supposed date. she went on, "i suppose you would not be happy with the usual press release?" "handouts contain material, all right, but they're so confounded trite and impersonal. people prefer to read anecdotes about the people rather than a listing of facts and figures." she nodded at that. "just a moment," she said. then she addressed her telephone in a voice that i couldn't hear. when she finished, she smiled in a warmish-type manner as if to indicate that she'd gone all out in my behalf and that i'd be a heel to forget it. i nodded back and tried to match the tooth-paste-ad smile. then the door opened and a man came in briskly. he was a tall man, as straight as a ramrod, with a firm jaw and a close-clipped moustache. he had an air like a thin-man's captain bligh. when he spoke, his voice was as clipped and precise as his moustache; in fact it was so precise that it seemed almost mechanical. "i am dr. lyon sprague," he clipped. "what may i do for you?" "i'm steve cornell," i said. "i'm here after source material for a magazine article about mekstrom's disease. i'd prefer not to take my material from a handout." "do you hope to get more?" he demanded. "i usually do. i've seen your handouts; i could get as much by taking last year's medical encyclopedia. far too dry, too uninteresting, too impersonal." "just exactly what do you have in mind?" i eyed him with speculation. here was not a man who would take kindly to imaginative conjecture. so dr. lyon sprague was not the man i'd like to talk to. with an inward smile, i said, "i have a rather new idea about mekstrom's that i'd like to discuss with the right party." he looked down at me, although our eyes were on the same level. "i doubt that any layman could possibly come up with an idea that has not been most thoroughly discussed here among the research staff." "in cold words you feel that no untrained lunk has a right to have an idea." he froze. "i did not say that." "you implied, at least, that suggestions from outsiders were not welcome. i begin to understand why the medical center has failed to get anywhere with mekstrom's in the past twenty years." "what do you mean?" he snapped. "merely that it is the duty of all scientists to listen to every suggestion and to discard it only after it has been shown wrong." "such as--?" he said coldly, with a curl of his eyebrows. "well, just for instance, suppose some way were found to keep a victim alive during the vital period, so that he would end up a complete mekstrom human." "the idea is utterly fantastic. we have no time for such idle speculation. there is too much foggy thinking in the world already. why, only last week we had a velikovsky adherent tell us that mekstrom's had been predicted in the bible. there are still people reporting flying saucers, you know. we have no time for foolish notions or utter nonsense." "may i quote you?" "of course not," he snapped stiffly. "i'm merely pointing out that non-medical persons cannot have the grasp--" the door opened again and a second man entered. the new arrival had pleasant blue eyes, a van dyke beard, and a good-natured air of self-confidence and competence. "may i cut in?" he said to dr. sprague. "certainly. mr. cornell, this is scholar phelps, director of the center. scholar phelps, this is mr. steve cornell, a gentleman of the press," he added in a tone of voice that made the identification a sort of nasty name. "mr. cornell has an odd theory about mekstrom's disease that he intends to publish unless we can convince him that it is not possible." "odd theory?" asked scholar phelps with some interest. "well, if mr. cornell can come up with something new, i'll be most happy to hear him out." dr. lyon sprague decamped with alacrity. scholar phelps smiled after him, then turned to me and said, "dr. sprague is a diligent worker, businesslike and well-informed, but he lacks the imagination and the sense of humor that makes a man brilliant in research. unfortunately, dr. sprague cannot abide anything that is not laid out as neat as an interlocking tile floor. now, mr. cornell, how about this theory of yours?" "first," i replied, "i'd like to know how come you turn up in the nick of time." he laughed good-naturedly. "we always send dr. sprague out to interview visitors. if the visitor can be turned away easily, all is well and quiet. dr. sprague can do the job with ease. but if the visitor, like yourself, mr. cornell, proposes something that distresses the good dr. sprague and will not be loftily dismissed, dr. sprague's blood pressure goes up. we all keep a bit of esper on his nervous system and when the fuse begins to blow, we come out and effect a double rescue." i laughed with him. apparently the medical center staff enjoyed needling dr. sprague. "scholar phelps, before i get into my theory, i'd like to know more about mekstrom's disease. i may not be able to use it in my article, but any background material works well with writers of fact articles." "you're quite right. what would you like to know?" "i've heard, too many times, that no one knows anything at all about mekstrom's. this is unbelievable, considering that you folks have been working on it for some twenty years." he nodded. "we have some, but it's precious little." "it seems to me that you could analyze the flesh--" he smiled. "we have. the state of analytical chemistry is well advanced. we could, i think, take a dry scraping out of the cauldron used by macbeth's witches, and determine whether shakespeare had reported the formula correctly. now, young man, if you think that something is added to the human flesh to make it mekstrom's flesh, you are wrong. standard analysis shows that the flesh is composed of exactly the same chemicals that normal flesh contains, in the same proportion. nothing is added, as, for instance, in the case of calcification." "then what is the difference?" "the difference lies in the structure. by x-ray crystallographic method, we have determined that mekstrom's flesh is a micro-crystalline formation, interlocked tightly." scholar phelps looked at me thoughtfully. "do you know much about crystallography?" as a mechanical engineer i did, but as a writer of magazine articles i felt i should profess some ignorance, so i merely said that i knew a little about the subject. "well, mr. cornell, you may know that in the field of solid geometry there are only five possible regular polyhedrons. like the laws of topology that state that no more than four colors need be used to print a map on a flat surface, or that no more than seven colors are required to print separate patches on a toroid, the laws of solid geometry prove that no more than five regular polyhedrons are possible. now in crystallography there are only thirty-two possible classes of crystal lattice construction. of these only thirty have ever been discovered in nature. yet we know how the other two would appear if they did emerge in natural formation." i knew it all right but i made scribblings in my notebooks as if the idea were of interest. scholar phelps waited patiently until i'd made the notation. "now, mr. cornell, here comes the shock. mekstrom's flesh is one of the other two classes." this was news to me and i blinked. then his face faded into a solemn expression. "unfortunately," he said in a low voice, "knowing how a crystal should form does not help us much in forming one to that class. we have no real control over the arrangement of atoms in a crystal lattice. we can prevent the crystal formation, we can control the size of the crystal as it forms. but we cannot change the crystal into some other class." "i suppose it's sort of like baking a cake. once the ingredients are mixed, the cake can be big or small or shaped to fit the pan, or you can spoil it complete. but if you mix devil's food, it either comes out devil's food or nothing." "an amusing analogy and rather correct. however i prefer the one used years ago by dr. willy ley, who observed that analysis is fine, but you can't learn how a locomotive is built by melting it down and analyzing the mess." then he went on again. "to get back to mekstrom's disease and what we know about it. we know that the crawl goes at about a sixty-fourth of an inch per hour. if, for instance, you turned up here with a trace on your right middle finger, the entire first joint would be mekstrom's flesh in approximately three days. within two weeks your entire middle finger would be solid. without anesthesia we could take a saw and cut off a bit for our research." "no feeling?" "none whatever. the joints knit together, the arteries become as hard as steel tubing and the heart cannot function properly--not that the heart cares about minor conditions such as the arteries in the extremities, but as the mekstrom infection crawls up the arm toward the shoulder the larger arteries become solid and then the heart cannot drive the blood through them in its accustomed fashion. it gets like an advanced case of arteriosclerosis. eventually the infection reaches and immobilizes the shoulder; this takes about ninety days. by this time, the other extremities have also become infected and the crawl is coming up all four limbs." he looked at me very solemnly at that. "the rest is not pretty. death comes shortly after that. i can almost say that he is blessed who catches mekstrom's in the left hand for them the infection reaches the heart before it reaches other parts. those whose initial infection is in the toes are particularly cursed, because the infection reaches the lower parts of the body. i believe you can imagine the result, elimination is prevented because of the stoppage of peristalsis. death comes of autointoxication, which is slow and painful." i shuddered at the idea. the thought of death has always bothered me. the idea of looking at a hand and knowing that i was going to die by the calendar seemed particularly horrible. taking the bit between my teeth, i said, "scholar phelps, i've been wondering whether you and your center have ever considered treating mekstrom's by helping it?" "helping it?" he asked. "sure. consider what a man might be if he were mekstrom's all the way through." he nodded. "you would have a physical superman," he said. "steel-strong muscles driving steel-hard flesh covered by a near impenetrable skin. perhaps such a man would be free of all minor pains and ills. imagine a normal bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. mekstrom flesh tends to be acid-resistant as well as tough physically. it is not beyond the imagination to believe that your mekstrom superman might live three times our frail four-score and ten. but--" here he paused. "not to pull down your house of cards, this idea is not a new one. some years ago we invited a brilliant young doctor here to study for his scholarate. the unfortunate fellow arrived with the first traces of mekstrom's in his right middle toe. we placed about a hundred of our most brilliant researchers under his guidance, and he decided to take this particular angle of study. he failed; for all his efforts, he did not stay his death by a single hour. from that time to the present we have maintained one group on this part of the problem." it occurred to me at that moment that if i turned up with a trace of mekstrom's i'd be seeking out the highways in hiding rather than the medical center. that fast thought brought a second: suppose that dr. thorndyke learned that he had a trace, or rather, the highways found it out. what better way to augment their medical staff than to approach the victim with a proposition: you help us, work with us, and we will save your life. that, of course, led to the next idea: that if the highways in hiding had any honest motive, they'd not be hidden in the first place and they'd have taken their cure to the medical center in the second. well, i had a bit of something listed against them, so i decided to let my bombshell drop. "scholar phelps," i said quietly, "one of the reasons i am here is that i have fairly good evidence that the cure for mekstrom's disease does exist, and that it produces people of ultrahard bodies and superhuman strength." he smiled at me with the same tolerant air that father uses on the offspring who comes up with one of the standard juvenile plans for perpetual motion. "what do you consider good evidence?" "suppose i claimed to have seen it myself." "then i would say that you had misinterpreted your evidence," he replied calmly. "the flying saucer enthusiasts still insist that the things they see are piloted by little green men from venus, even though we have been there and found venus to be absolutely uninhabited by anything higher than slugs, grubs, and little globby animals like tellurian leeches." "but--" "this, too, is an old story," he told me with a whimsical smile. "it goes with the standard routine about a secret organization that is intending to take over the earth. the outline has been popular ever since charles fort. now--er--just tell me what you saw." i concocted a tale that was about thirty-three percent true and the rest partly distorted. it covered my hitting a girl in ohio with my car, hard enough to clobber her. but when i stopped to help her, she got up and ran away unhurt. she hadn't left a trace of blood although the front fender of the car was badly smashed. he nodded solemnly. "such things happen," he said. "the human body is really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. i've read the story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it to the factory in person, according to the old joke. but now, mr. cornell, have you ever considered the utter impossibility of running any sort of secret organization in this world of today. even before rhine it was difficult. you'll be adding to your tale next--some sort of secret sign, maybe a form of fraternity grip, or perhaps even a world-wide system of local clubs and hangouts, all aimed at some dire purpose." i squirmed nervously for a bit. scholar phelps was too close to the truth to make me like it, because he was scoffing. he went right on making me nervous. "now before we get too deep, i only want to ask about the probable motives of such an organization. you grant them superhuman strength, perhaps extreme longevity. if they wanted to take over the earth, couldn't they do it by a show of force? or are they mild-mannered supermen, only quietly interested in overrunning the human race and waiting out the inevitable decline of normal homo sapiens? you're not endowing them with extraterrestrial origin, are you?" i shook my head unhappily. "good. that shows some logic, mr. cornell. after all, we know now that while we could live on mars or venus with a lot of home-sent aid, we'd be most uncomfortable there. we could not live a minute on any planet of our solar system without artificial help." "i might point out that our hypothetical superman might be able to stand a lot of rough treatment," i blurted. "oh, this i'll grant if your tale held any water at all. but let's forget this fruitless conjecture and take a look at the utter impossibility of running such an organization. even planting all of their secret hangouts in dead areas and never going into urban centers, they'd still find some telepath or esper on their trail. perhaps a team. let's go back a step and consider, even without psi training, how long such an outfit could function. it would run until the first specimen had an automobile accident on, say times square; or until one of them walked--or ran--out of the fire following a jetliner crash." he then spared me with a cold eye. "write it as fiction, mr. cornell. but leave my name out of it. i thought you were after facts." "i am. but the better fact articles always use a bit of speculation to liven it up." "well," he grunted, "one such fanciful suggestion is the possibility of such an underground outfit being able to develop a 'cure' while we cannot. we, who have had the best of brains and money for twenty years." i nodded, and while i did not agree with phelps, i knew that to insist was to insult him to his face, and get myself tossed out. "you do seem to have quite a set-up here," i said, off-hand. at this point phelps offered to show me around the place, and i accepted. medical center was far larger than i had believed at first; it spread beyond my esper range into the hills beyond the main plant. the buildings were arranged in a haphazard-looking pattern out in the back section; i say "looking" because only a psi-trained person can dig a pattern. the wide-open psi area did not extend for miles. behind the main buildings it closed down into the usual mottled pattern and the medical buildings had been placed in the open areas. dwellings and dormitories were in the dark places. a nice set-up. i did not meet any of the patients, but phelps let me stand in the corridor outside a couple of rooms and use my esper on the flesh. it was both distressing and instructive. he explained, "the usual thing after someone visits this way, is that the visitor goes out itching. in medical circles this is a form of what we call 'sophomore's syndrome.' ever heard of it?" i nodded. "that's during the first years at pre-med. knowing all too little of medicine, every disease they study produces the same symptoms that the student finds in himself. until tomorrow, when they study the next. then the symptoms in the student change." "right. so in order to prevent 'sophomore's syndrome' among visitors we usually let them study the real thing. also," he added seriously, "we'd like to have as many people as possible recognize the real thing as early as possible. even though we can't do anything for them at the present time, someday we will." he stopped before a closed door. "in here is a girl of eighteen, doomed to die in a month." his voice trailed off as he tapped on the door of the room. i froze. a few beads of cold sweat ran down my spine, and i fought myself into a state of nervous calmness. i put the observation away, buried it as deep as i could, tried to think around it, and so far as i knew, succeeded. the tap of scholar phelps' finger against the door panel was the rap-rap-rap sound characteristic of hard-tanned leather tapping wood. scholar phelps was a mekstrom! * * * * * i paid only surface attention to the rest of my visit. i thanked my personal gods that esper training had also given me the ability to dissemble. it was impossible to not think of something but it is possible to keep the mind so busy with surface thoughts that the underlying idea does not come through the interference. eventually i managed to leave the medical center without exciting anyone, and when i left i took off like a skyrocket for chicago. vii nurse gloria farrow waved at me from the ramp of the jetliner, and i ran forward to collect her baggage. she eyed me curiously but said no more than the usual greetings and indication of which bag was hers. i knew that she was reading my mind like a psychologist all the time, and i let her know that i wanted her to. i let my mind merely ramble on with the usual pile of irrelevancies that the mind uses to fill in blank spaces. it came up with a couple of notions here and there but nothing definite. miss farrow followed me to my car without saying a word, and let me install her luggage in the trunk. then, for the first time, she spoke: "steve cornell, you're as healthy as i am." "i admit it." "then what is this all about? you don't need a nurse!" "i need a competent witness, miss farrow." "for what?" she looked puzzled. "suppose you stay right here and start explaining." "you'll listen to the bitter end?" "i've two hours before the next plane goes back. you'll have that time to convince me--or else. okay?" "that's a deal." i fumbled around for a beginning, and then i decided to start right at the beginning, whether it sounded cockeyed or not. giving information to a telepath is the easiest thing in the world. while i started at the beginning, i fumbled and finally ended up by going back and forth in a haphazard manner, but miss farrow managed to insert the trivia in the right chronological order so that when i finished, she nodded with interest. i posed the question: #am i nuts?# "no, steve," she replied solemnly. "i don't think so. you've managed to accept data which is obviously mingled truth and falsehood, and you've managed to question the validity of all of it." i grunted. "how about the crazy man who questions his own sanity, using this personal question as proof of his sanity since real nuts _know_ they're sane?" "no nut can think that deep into complication. what i mean is that they cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated argument. but forget that, what i wanted to know is where you intend to go from here." i shook my head unhappily. "when i called you i had it all laid out like a roadmap. i was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial observer to convince someone else. then we'd go to the medical center and hand it to them on a platter. since then i've had a shock that i can't get over, or plan beyond. scholar phelps is a mekstrom. that means that the guy knows what gives with mekstrom's disease and yet he is running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this disease. for all we know phelps may be the head of the highways in hiding, an organization strictly for profit of some sort at the expense of the public welfare." "you're certain that phelps is a mekstrom?" "not absolutely positive. i had to close my mind because there might be a telepath on tap. but i can tell you that nobody with normal flesh-type fingers ever made that solid rap." "a fingernail?" i shook my head at her. "that's a click. with an ear at all you'd note the difference." "i'll accept it for the moment. but lacking your original plan, what are you going to do now?" "i'm not sure beyond showing you the facts. maybe i should call up that f.b.i. team that called on me after thorndyke's disappearance and put it in their laps." "good idea. but why would scholar phelps be lying? and beyond your basic suspicions, what can you prove?" "very little. i admit that my evidence is extremely thin. i saw phillip harrison turning head bolts on a tractor engine with a small end wrench. it should require a crossbar socket and a lot of muscle. next is the girl in ohio who should be a bloody mess from the way she was treated. instead she got up and tried to chase me. then answer me a puzzler: did the harrisons move because marian caught mekstrom's, or did they move because they felt that i was too close to discovering their secret? the highway was relocated after that, you'll recall." "it sounds frightfully complicated, steve." "you bet it does," i grunted. "so next i meet a guy who is supposed to know all the answers; a man dedicated to the public welfare, medicine, and the ideal of service. a man sworn to the hippocratic oath. or," i went on bitterly, "is it the hypocritic oath?" "steve, please--" "please, hell!" i stormed. "why is he quietly sitting there in mekstrom hide while he is overtly grieving over the painful death of his fellow man?" "i wouldn't know." "well, i'm tired of being pushed around," i growled. "pushed around?" she asked quietly. with a trace of scorn, i said, "miss farrow, i can see two possible answers. either i am being pushed around for some deliberate reason, or i'm too smart, too cagey and too dangerous for them to handle directly. it takes only about eight weeks for me to reluctantly abandon the second in favor of the first." "but what makes you think you are being pushed?" she wanted to know. "you can't tell me that i am so important that they couldn't erase me as easily as they did catherine and dr. thorndyke. and now that his name comes up, let's ask why any doctor who once met a casual patient would go to the bother of sending a postcard with a message on it that is certain to cause me unhappiness. he's also the guy who nudged me by calling my attention to my so-called 'shock hallucination' about father harrison lifting my car while phillip harrison raced into the fire to make the rescue. add it up," i told her sharply. "next he is invited to medical center to study mekstrom's. only instead of landing there, he sends me a postcard with one of the highways in the picture, after which he disappears." miss farrow nodded thoughtfully. "it is all tied up with your highways and your mekstrom people." "that isn't all," i said. "how come the harrisons moved so abruptly?" "you're posing questions that i can't answer," complained miss farrow. "and i'm not one hundred percent convinced that you are right." "you are here, and if you take a look at what i'll show you, you'll be convinced. we'll put it this way, to start: something cockeyed is going on. now, one more thing i can add, and this is the part that confuses me: everything that has been done seems to point to me. so far as i can see they are operating just as though they want me to start a big hassle that will end up by getting the highways out of their hiding." "why on earth would they be doing that?" she wanted to know. "i don't have the foggiest notion. but i do have that feeling and there is evidence pointing that way. they've let me in on things that normally they'd be able to conceal from a highly trained telepath. so i intend to go along with them, because somewhere at the bottom of it all we'll find the answer." she nodded agreement. now i started up the car, saying, "i'm going to find us one of the highways in hiding, and we'll follow it to one of the way stations. then you'll see for yourself that there is something definitely fishy going on." "this i'd like to see," she replied quietly. almost too quietly. i took a dig at her as i turned the car out through a tight corner of the lot onto the road. she was sitting there with a noncommittal expression on her face and i wondered why. she replied to my thought: "steve, you must face one thing. anything you firmly believe will necessarily pass across your mind as fact. so forgive me if i hold a few small doubts until i have a chance to survey some of the evidence at first hand." "sure," i told her. "the first bit won't be hard." i drove eagerly across illinois into iowa watching for road signs. i knew that once i convinced someone else, it would be easier to convince a third, and a fourth, and a fiftieth until the entire world was out on the warpath. we drove all day, stopping for chow now and then, behaving like a couple out on a vacation tour. we stopped in a small town along about midnight and found a hotel without having come upon any of the hidden highways. we met at breakfast, talked our ideas over mildly, and took off again. we crossed into nebraska about noon and continued to meander until late in the afternoon when we came upon our first giveaway road sign. "there," i told her triumphantly. she nodded. "i see the sign, steve. that much i knew. now all you have to do is to show me the trial-blazes up in that emblem." "unless they've changed their method," i told her, "this one leads west, slightly south of." i stopped the car not many yards from the sign and went over it with my sense of perception. #you'll note the ease with which the emblem could be turned upside down,# i interjected. #note the similar width of the top and bottom trefoil, so that only a trained and interested observer can tell the difference.# i drove along until we saw one on the other side of the road and we stopped again, giving the sign a thorough going over. #note that the signs leading away from the direction are upside down,# i went on. i didn't say a word, i was using every ounce of energy in running my perception over the sign and commenting on its various odds and ends. #now,# i finished, #we'll drive along this highway in hiding until we come to some intersection or hideout. then you'll be convinced.# she was silent. we took off along that road rather fast and we followed it for miles, passing sign after sign with its emblem turned up along the right side of the road and turned upside-down when the sign was on the left. eventually we came to a crossing highway, and at that i pointed triumphantly. "note the missing spoke!" i said with considerable enthusiasm. "now, miss farrow, we shall first turn against it for a few miles and then we shall u-turn and come back along the cross highway with it." "i'm beginning to be convinced, steve." we turned north against the sign and went forty or fifty miles, just to be sure. the signs were all against us. eventually i turned into a gas station and filled the carte up to the scuppers. as we turned back south, i asked her, "any more comment?" she shook her head. "not yet." i nodded. "if you want, we'll take a jaunt along our original course." "by all means." "in other words you are more than willing to be convinced?" "yes," she said simply. she went silent then and i wondered what she was thinking about, but she didn't bother to tell me. eventually we came back to the crossroad, and with a feeling of having been successful, i continued south with a confidence that i had not felt before. we stopped for dinner in a small town, ate hastily but well, and then had a very mild debate. "shall we have a drink and relax for a moment?" "i'd like it," she replied honestly. "but somehow i doubt that i could relax." "i know. but it does seem like a good idea to take it easy for a half hour. it might even be better if we stopped over and took off again in the morning." "steve," she told me, "the only way i could relax or go to sleep would be to take on a roaring load so that i'd pass out cold. i'd rather not because i'd get up tomorrow with a most colossal hangover. frankly, i'm excited and i'd prefer to follow this thing to a finish." "it's a deal," i said. "we'll go until we have to stop." it was about eight o'clock when we hit the road again. * * * * * by nine-forty-five we'd covered something better than two hundred miles, followed another intersection turn according to the missing spoke, and were heading well toward the upper right-hand corner of colorado on the road map. at ten o'clock plus a few minutes we came upon the roadsign that pointed the way to a ranch-type house set prettily on the top of a small knoll several hundred yards back from the main road. i stopped briefly a few hundred feet from the lead-in road and asked miss farrow: "what's your telepath range? you've never told me." she replied instantly, "intense concentration directed at me is about a half mile. superficial thinking that might include me or my personality as a by-thought about five hundred yards. to pick up a thought that has nothing to do with me or my interests, not much more than a couple of hundred feet. things that are definitely none of my business close down to forty or fifty feet." that was about the average for a person with a bit of psi training either in telepathy or in esper; it matched mine fairly well, excepting that part about things that were none of my business. she meant _thoughts_ and not _things_. i had always had a hard time differentiating between things that were none of my damned business, although i do find it more difficult to dig the contents of a letter between two unknown parties at a given distance than it is to dig a letter written or addressed to a person i know. _things_ are, by and large, a lot less personal than thoughts, if i'm saying anything new. "well," i told her, "this is it. we're going to go in close enough for you to take a 'pathic look-around. keep your mind sensitive. if you dig any danger, yell out. i'm going to extend my esper as far as i can and if i suddenly take off like a startled spacecraft, it's because i have uncovered something disagreeable. but keep your mind on them and not me, because i'm relying on you to keep posted on their mental angle." miss farrow nodded. "it's hard to remember that other people haven't the ability to make contact mentally. it's like a normal man talking to a blind man and referring constantly to visible things because he doesn't understand. i'll try to remember." "i'm going to back in," i said. "then if trouble turns up, i'll have an advantage. as soon as they feel our minds coming in at them, they'll know that we're not in there for their health. so here we go!" "i'm a good actor," she said. "no matter what i say, i'm with you all the way!" i yanked the car forward, and angled back. i hit the road easily and started backing along the driveway at a rather fast speed with my eyes half-closed to give my esper sense the full benefit of my concentration along the road. when i was not concentrating on how i was going to turn the wheel at the next curve i thought, #i hope these folks know the best way to get to colorado springs from here. dammit, we're lost!# miss farrow squeezed my arm gently, letting me know that she was thinking the same general thoughts. suddenly she said, "it's a dead area, steve." it was a dead area, all right. my perception came to a barrier that made it fade from full perception to not being able to perceive anything in a matter of yards. it always gives me an eerie feeling when i approach a dead area and find that i can see a building clearly and not be able to cast my perception beyond a few feet. i kept on backing up into the fringe of that dead area until i was deep within the edge and it took all my concentration to perceive the road a few feet ahead of my rear wheels so that i could steer. i was inching now, coming back like a blind man feeling his way. we were within about forty feet of the ranch house when miss farrow yelped: "they're surrounding us, steve!" my hands whipped into action and my heavy right foot came down on the gas-pedal. the car shuddered, howled like a wounded banshee, and then leaped forward with a roar. a man sprang out of the bushes and stood in front of the car like a statue with his hand held up. miss farrow screamed something unintelligible and clutched at my arm frantically. i threw her hand off with a snarl, kept my foot rammed down hard and hit the man dead center. the car bucked and i heard metal crumple angrily. we lurched, bounced viciously twice as my wheels passed over his floundering body, and then we were racing like complete idiots along a road that should not have been covered at more than twenty. the main road came into sight and i sliced the car around with a screech of the rear tires, controlled the deliberate skid with some fancy wheel-work and some fast digging of the surrounding dangers. then we were tearing along the broad and beautifully clear concrete with the speedometer needle running into the one-fifteen region. "steve," said miss farrow breathlessly, "that man you hit--" in a hard voice i said, "he was getting to his feet when i drove out of range." "i know," she said in a whimper. "i was in his mind. he was not hurt! god! steve--what are we up against?" her voice rose to a wail. "i don't know, exactly," i said. "but i know what we're going to do." "but steve--what can we do?" "alone or together, very little. but we can bring one person more out along these highways and then convince a fourth and a fifth and a fiftieth and a thousandth. by then we'll be shoved back off the stage while the big wheels grind painfully slow but exceedingly meticulous." "that'll take time." "certainly. but we've got a start. look how long it took getting a start in the first place." "but what is their purpose?" she asked. "that i can't say. i can't say a lot of things, like how, and why and wherefore. but i know that now we have a front tooth in this affair we're not going to let go." i thought for a moment. "i could use thorndyke; he'd be the next guy to convince if we could find him. or maybe catherine, if we could find her. the next best thing is to get hold of that f.b.i. team that called on me. there's a pair of cold-blooded characters that seem willing to sift through a million tons of ash to find one valuable cinder. they'll listen. i--" miss farrow looked at her watch; i dug it as she made the gesture. #eleven o'clock.# "going to call?" she asked. "no," i said. "it's too late. it's one in new york now and the f.b.i. team wouldn't be ready for a fast job at this hour." "so?" "i have no intention of placing a 'when you are ready' call to a number identified with the federal bureau of investigation. not when a full eight hours must elapse between the call and a reply. too much can happen to us in the meantime. but if i call in the morning, we can probably take care of ourselves well enough until they arrive if we stay in some place that is positively teeming with citizens. sensible?" "sounds reasonable, steve." i let the matter drop at that; i put the go-pedal down to the floor and fractured a lot of speed laws until we came to denver. we made denver just before midnight and drove around until we located a hotel that filled our needs. it was large, which would prevent overt operations on the part of the 'enemy' and it was a dead area, which would prevent one of them from reading our minds while we slept, and so enable them to lay counterplans against us. the bellhop gave us a knowing leer as we registered separately, but i was content to let him think what he wanted. better that he get the wrong idea about us than the right one. he fiddled around in miss farrow's room on the ninth, bucking for a big tip--not for good service, but for leaving us alone, which he did by demonstrating how big a nuisance he could be if not properly rewarded. but finally he got tired of his drawer-opening and lamp-testing and towel-stacking, and escorted me up to the twelfth. i led him out with a five spot clutched in his fist and the leer even stronger. if he expected me to race downstairs as soon as he was out of ear-shot, he was mistaken, for i hit the sack like the proverbial ton of crushed mortar. it had been literally weeks since i'd had a pleasant, restful sleep that was not broken by fitful dreams and worry-insomnia. now that we had something solid to work on, i could look forward to some concrete action instead of merely feeling pushed around. viii i'd put in for an eight o'clock call, but my sleep had been so sound and perfect that i was all slept out by seven-thirty. i was anxious to get going so i dressed and shaved in a hurry and cancelled the eight o'clock call. then i asked the operator to connect me with . a gruff, angry male voice snarled out of the earpiece at me. i began to apologize profusely but the other guy slammed the phone down on the hook hard enough to make my ear ring. i jiggled my hook angrily and when the operator answered i told her that she'd miscued. she listened to my complaint and then replied in a pettish tone, "but i did ring , sir. i'll try again." i wanted to tell her to just try, that there was no 'again' about it, but i didn't. i tried to dig through the murk to her switchboard but i couldn't dig a foot through this area. i waited impatiently until she re-made the connections at her switchboard and i heard the burring of the phone as the other end rang. then the same mad-bull-rage voice delivered a number of pointed comments about people who ring up honest citizens in the middle of the night; and he hung up again in the middle of my apology. i got irked again and demanded that the operator connect me with the registration clerk. to him i told my troubles. "one moment, sir," he said. a half minute later he returned with, "sorry, sir. there is no farrow registered. could i have mis-heard you?" "no, goddammit," i snarled. "it's farrow. f as in frank; a as in arthur; double r as in robert robert; o as in oliver; and w as in washington. i saw her register, i went with her and the bellhop to her room, number , and saw her installed. then the same 'hop took me up to my room in on the twelfth." there was another moment of silence. then he said, "you're mr. cornell. registered in room last night approximately four minutes after midnight." "i know all about me. i was there and did it myself. and if i registered at four after midnight, miss farrow must have registered about two after midnight because the ink was still wet on her card when i wrote my name. we came in together, we were travelling together. now, what gives?" "i wouldn't know, sir. we have no guest named farrow." "see here," i snapped, "did you ever have a guest named farrow?" "not in the records i have available at this desk. perhaps in the past there may have been--" "forget the past. what about the character in ?" the registration clerk returned and informed me coldly, "room has been occupied by a mr. horace westfield for over three months, mr. cornell. there is no mistake." his voice sounded professionally sympathetic, and i knew that he would forget my troubles as soon as his telephone was put back on its hook. "forget it," i snapped and hung up angrily. then i went towards the elevators, walking in a sort of dream-like daze. there was a cold lump of something concrete hard beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. wetness ran down my spine and a drop of sweat dropped from my armpit and hit my body a few inches above my belt like a pellet of icy hail. my face felt cold but when i wiped it with the palm of a shaking hand i found it beaded with an oily sweat. everything seemed unreally horrifying. "nine," i told the elevator operator in a voice that sounded far away and hoarse. i wondered whether this might not be a very vivid dream, and maybe if i went all the way back to my room, took a short nap, and got up to start all over again, i would awaken to honest reality. the elevator stopped at nine and i walked the corridor that was familiar from last night. i rapped on the door of room . the door opened and a big stubble-faced gorilla gazed out and snarled at me: "are you the persistent character?" "look," i said patiently, "last night a woman friend of mine registered at this hotel and i accompanied her to this door. number . now--" a long apelike arm came out and caught me by the coat lapels. he hauled and i went in fast. his breath was sour and his eyes were bloodshot and he was angry all the way through. his other hand caught me by the seat of the pants and he danced me into the room like a jumping jack. "friend," he ground out, "take a look. there ain't no woman in this room, see?" he whirled, carrying me off my feet. he took a lunging step forward and hurled me onto the bed, where i carried the springs deep down, to bounce up and off and forward to come up flat against the far wall. i landed sort of spread-eagle flat and seemed to hang there before i slid down the wall to the floor with a meaty-sounding whump! then before i could collect my wits or myself, he came over the bed in one long leap and had me hauled upright by the coat lapels again. the other hand was cocked back level with his shoulder it looked the size of a twenty-five pound sack of flour and was probably as hard as set cement. _steve_, i told myself, _this time you're in for it!_ "all right," i said as apologetically as i knew how, "so i've made a bad mistake. i apologize. i'll also admit that you could wipe up the hotel with me. but do you have to prove it?" mr. horace westfield's mental processes were not slow, cumbersome, and crude. he was as fast and hard on his mental feet as he was on his physical feet. he made some remarks about my intelligence, my upbringing, my parentage and its legal status, and my unwillingness to face a superior enemy. during this catalog of my virtueless existence, he gandy-walked me to the door and opened it. he concluded his lecture by suggesting that in the future i accept anything that any registration clerk said as god-stated truth, and if i then held any doubts i should take them to the police. then he hurled me out of the room by just sort of shoving me away. i sailed across the hall on my toes, backward, and slapped my frame flat again, and once more i hung against the wall until the kinetic energy had spent itself. then i landed on wobbly ankles as the door to room came closed with a violent slam. i cursed the habit of building hotels in dead areas, although i admitted that i'd steer clear of any hotel in a clear area myself. but i didn't need a clear area nor a sense of perception to inform me that room was absolutely and totally devoid of any remote sign of female habitation. in fact, i gathered the impression that for all of his brute strength and virile masculinity, mr. horace westfield hadn't entertained a woman in that room since he'd been there. there was one other certainty: it was impossible for any agency short of sheer fairyland magic to have produced overnight a room that displayed its long-term occupancy by a not-too-immaculate character. that distinctive sour smell takes a long time to permeate the furnishings of any decent hotel; i wondered why a joint as well kept as this one would put up with a bird as careless of his person as mr. horace westfield. so i came to the reluctant conclusion that room was not occupied by nurse farrow, but i was not yet convinced that she was totally missing from the premises. instead of taking the elevator, i took to the stairs and tried the eighth. my perception was not too good for much in this murk, but i was mentally sensitive to nurse farrow and if i could get close enough to her, i might be able to perceive some trace of her even through the deadness. i put my forehead against the door of room and drew a blank. i could dig no farther than the inside of the door. if farrow were in , i couldn't dig a trace of her. so i went to and tried there. i was determined to try every - th room on every floor, but as i was standing with my forehead against the door to room , someone came up behind me quietly and asked in a rough voice: "just what do you think you're doing, mister?" his dress indicated housedick, but of course i couldn't dig the license in his wallet any more than he could read my mental, #none of your business, flatfoot!# i said, "i'm looking for a friend." "you'd better come with me," he said flatly. "there's been complaints." "yeah?" i growled. "maybe i made one of them myself." "want to start something?" he snapped. i shrugged and he smiled. it was a stony smile, humorless as a crevasse in a rock-face. he kept that professional-type smile on his face until we reached the manager's office. the manager was out, but one of the assistant managers was in his desk. the little sign on the desk said "henry walton. assistant manager." mr. walton said, coldly, "what seems to be the trouble, mr. cornell?" i decided to play it just as though i were back at the beginning again. "last night," i explained very carefully, "i checked into this hotel. i was accompanied by a woman companion. a registered nurse. miss gloria farrow. she registered first, and we were taken by one of your bellboys to rooms and respectively. i went with miss farrow to and saw her enter. then the bellhop escorted me to and left me for the night. this morning i can find no trace of miss farrow anywhere in this fleabag." he bristled at the derogatory title but he covered it quickly. "please be assured that no one connected with this hotel has any intention of confusing you, mr. cornell." "i'm tired of playing games," i snapped. "i'll accept your statement so far as the management goes, but someone is guilty of fouling up your registration lists." "that's rather harsh," he replied coldly. "falsifying or tampering with hotel registration lists is illegal. what you've just said amounts to libel or slander, you know." "not if it's true." i half expected henry walton to backwater fast, but instead, he merely eyed me with the same expression of distaste that he might have used upon finding half of a fuzzy caterpillar in his green salad. as cold as a cake of carbon dioxide snow, he said, "can you prove this, mr. cornell?" "your night crew--" "you've given us a bit of trouble this morning," he informed me. "so i've taken the liberty of calling in the night crew for you." he pressed a button and a bunch came in and lined up as if for formal inspection. "boys," said walton quietly, "suppose you tell us what you know about mr. cornell's arrival here last night." they nodded their heads in unison. "wait a minute," i snapped. "i want a reliable witness to listen to this. in fact, if i could, i'd like to have their stories made under oath." "you'd like to register a formal charge? perhaps of kidnapping, or maybe illegal restraint?" "just get me an impartial witness," i told him sourly. "very well." he picked up his telephone and spoke into it. we waited a few minutes, and finally a very prim young woman came in. she was followed by a uniformed policeman. she was carrying one of those sub-miniature silent typewriters which she set up on its little stand with a few efficient motions. "miss mason is our certified public stenographer," he said. "officer, i'll want your signature on her copy when we're finished. this is a simple routine matter, but it must be legal to the satisfaction of mr. cornell. now, boys, go ahead and explain. give your name and position first for miss mason's record." it was then that i noticed that the night crew had arranged themselves in chronological order. the elderly gent spoke first. he'd been the night doorman but now he was stripped of his admiral's gold braid and he looked just like any other sleepy man of middle age. "george comstock," he announced. "doorman. as soon as i saw the car angling out of traffic, i pressed the call-button for a bell boy. peter wright came out and was standing in readiness by the time mr. cornell's car came to a stop by the curb. johnny olson was out next, and after peter had taken mr. cornell's bag, johnny got into mr. cornell's car and took off for the hotel garage--" walton interrupted. "let each man tell what he did himself. no prompting, please." "well, then, you've heard my part in it. johnny olson took off in mr. cornell's car and peter wright took off with mr. cornell's bag, and mr. cornell followed peter." the next man in line, at a nod from the assistant manager, stepped forward about a half a pace and said, "i'm johnny olson. i followed peter wright out of the door and after peter had collected mr. cornell's bag, i got in mr. cornell's car and took it to the hotel garage." the third was peter wright, the bellhop. "i carried his bag to the desk and waited until he registered. then we went up to room . i opened the door, lit the lights, opened the window, and stuff. mr. cornell tipped me five bucks and i left him there. alone." "i'm thomas boothe, the elevator operator. i took mr. cornell and peter wright to the twelfth. peter said i should wait because he wouldn't be long, and so i waited on the twelfth until peter got back. that's all." "i'm doris caspary, the night telephone operator. mr. cornell called me about fifteen minutes after twelve and asked me to put him down for a call at eight o'clock this morning. then he called at about seven thirty and said that he was already awake and not to bother." henry walton said, "that's about it, mr. cornell." "but--" the policeman looked puzzled. "what is the meaning of all this? if i'm to witness any statements like these, i'll have to know what for." walton looked at me. i couldn't afford not to answer. wearily i said, "last night i came in here with a woman companion and we registered in separate rooms. she went into and i waited until she was installed and then went to my own room on the twelfth. this morning there is no trace of her." i went on to tell him a few more details, but the more i told him the more he lifted his eyebrows. "done any drinking?" he asked me curtly. "no." "certain?" "absolutely." walton looked at his crew. they burst into a chorus of, "well, he _was_ steady on his feet," and "he didn't _seem_ under the influence," and a lot of other statements, all generally indicating that for all they knew i could have been gassed to the ears, but one of those rare guys who don't show it. the policeman smiled thinly. "just why was this registered nurse travelling with you?" i gave them the excuse-type statement; the one about the accident and that i felt that i was still a bit on the rocky side and so forth. about all i did for that was to convince the policeman that i was not a stable character. his attitude seemed to indicate that any man travelling with a nurse must either be physically sick or maybe mentally out of tune. then with a sudden thought, i whirled on johnny olson. "will you get my car?" i asked him. he nodded after a nod from walton. i said, "there's plenty of evidence in my car. in the meantime, let's face one thing, officer. i've been accused of spinning a yarn. i'd hardly be demanding witnesses if i weren't telling the truth. i was standing beside miss farrow when she signed the register, complete with the r.n. title. it's too bad that hotels have taken to using card files instead of the old registration book. cards are so easy to misplace--" walton cut in angrily. "if that's an accusation, i'm inclined to see that you make it in a court of law." the policeman looked calm. "i'd take it easy, mr. cornell. your story is not corroborated. but the employees of the hotel bear one another out. and from the record, it would appear that you were under the eyes of at least two of them from the moment your car slowed down in front of the main entrance up to the time that you were escorted to your room." "i object to being accused of complicity in a kidnapping," put in the assistant manager. "i object to being accused of mental incompetence," i snapped. "why do we stand around accusing people back and forth when there's evidence if you'll only uncover it." we stood there glaring at one another. the air grew tense. the only ones in the place who did not have chips on their shoulders were the policeman and the certified stenographer, who was clicking her silent keys in lightning manner, taking down every comment as it was uttered. eventually olson returned, to put an end to the thick silence. "y'car's outside," he told me angrily. "fine," i said. "now we'll go outside and take a look. you'll find plenty of traces of miss farrow's having been there. officer--are you telepath or perceptive?" "perceptive," he said. "but not in here." "how far out does this damned dead area extend?" i asked walton. "about half way across the sidewalk." "okay. so let's all go." we traipsed out to the curb. miss mason brought her little silent along, slipping the stand high up so that she could type from an erect position. we lined up along the curb and i looked into my car with a triumphant feeling. and then that cold chill congealed my spine again. my car was clean and shining. it had been washed and buffed and polished until it looked as new as the day i picked it out on the salesroom floor. walton looked blank, and i whipped a thought at him: #damned telepath!# he nodded perceptibly and said smoothly, "i'm rather sorry we couldn't find any fingerprints. because now, you see," and here he turned to the policeman and went on, "mr. cornell will now accuse us of having washed his car to destroy the evidence. however, you'll find that as a general policy of the hotel, the car-washing is performed as a standard service. in fact, if any guest parks his car in our garage and his car is not rendered spick and span, someone is going to get fired for negligence." so that was that. i took a fast look around, because i knew that i had to get out of there fast. if i remained to carry on any more argument, i'd be tapped for being a nuisance and jugged. i had no doubt at all that the whole hotel staff were all involved in nurse farrow's disappearance. but they'd done their job in such a way that if the question were pushed hard, i would end up answering formal charges, the topmost of which might be murder and concealment of the body. i could do nothing by sitting in jail. this was the time to get out first and worry about farrow later. so i opened the car door and slipped in. i fiddled with the so-called glove compartment and opened it; the maps were all neatly stacked and all the flub had been cleaned out. i fumbled inside and dropped a couple of road maps to the floor, and while i was down picking them up i turned the ignition key which olson had left plugged in the lock. i took off with a jerk and howl of tires. there was the sudden shrill of a police whistle but it was stopped after one brief blast. as i turned the corner, i caught a fast backwards dig at them. they were filing back into the hotel. i did not believe that the policeman was part of the conspiracy, but i was willing to bet that walton was going to slip the policeman a box of fine cigars as a reward for having helped them to get rid of a very embarrassing screwball. ix i put a lot of miles between me and my recent adventure before i stopped to take stock. the answer to the mess was still obscure, but the elimination of nurse farrow fell into the pattern very neatly. alone, i was no problem. so long as my actions were restricted to meandering up and down the highways and byways, peering into nooks and crannies and crying, "catherine," in a plaintive voice, no one cared. but when i teamed up with a telepath, they moved in with the efficiency of a well-run machine and extracted the disturbing element. in fact, their machinations had been so smooth that i was beginning to believe that my 'discoveries' were really an assortment of unimportant facts shown to me deliberately for some reason of their own. the only snag in the latter theory was the fact of our accident. assuming that i had to get involved in the mess, there were easier ways to introduce me than by planning a bad crack-up that could have been fatal, even granting the close proximity of the harrison tribe to come to the rescue. the accident had to be an accident in the dictionary definition of the word itself. under the circumstances, a planned accident could only be accepted under an entirely different set of conditions. for instance, let's assume that catherine was a mekstrom and i was about to disclose the fact. then she or they could plan such an accident, knowing that she could walk out of the wreck with her hair barely mussed, leaving me dead for sure. but catherine was not a mekstrom. i'd been close enough to that satin skin to know that the body beneath it was soft and yielding. yet the facts as they stood did not throw out my theory. it merely had to be revised. catherine was no mekstrom, but if the harrisons had detected the faintest traces of an incipient mekstrom infection, they could very well have taken her in. i fumed at the idea. i could almost visualize them pointing out her infection and then informing her bluntly that she could either swear in with them and be cured or she could die alone and miserably. this could easily explain her disappearance. naturally, being what they were, they cared nothing for me or any other non-mekstrom. i was no menace. not until i teamed up with a telepath, and they knew what to do about that. completely angry, i decided that it was time that i made a noise like an erupting volcano. with plans forming, i took off again towards yellowstone, pausing only long enough at fort collins to buy some armament. colorado is still a part of the united states where a man can go into a store and buy a gun over the counter just like any other tool. i picked out a bonanza . because it is small enough to fit the hip pocket, light because of the new alloys so it wouldn't unballast me, and mostly because it packs enough wallop to stop a charging hippo. i did not know whether it would drill all the way through a mekstrom hide, but the impact would at least set any target back on the seat of his pants. then i drove into wyoming and made my way to yellowstone, and one day i was driving along the same road that had been pictured in dr. thorndyke's postcard. i drove along it boldly, loaded for bear, and watching the highway signs that led me nicely toward my goal. eventually i came to the inevitable missing spoke. it pointed to a ranch-type establishment that lay sprawled out in a billow of dead area. i eyed it warily and kept on driving because my plans did not include marching up to the front door like a rug peddler. instead, i went on to the next town, some twenty miles away, which i reached about dark. i stopped for a leisurely dinner, saw a moving picture at the drive-in, killed a few at the bar, and started back to the way station about midnight. the name, dug from the mailbox, was macklin. again i did not turn in. i parked the car down the highway by about three miles, figuring that only a psi of doctor's degree would be able to dig anything at that distance. i counted on there being no such mental giant in this out of the way place. i made my way back toward the ranch house across the fields and among the rolling rock. i extended my perception as far as i could; i made myself sensitive to danger and covered the ground foot by foot, digging for traps, alarm lines, photocell trips, and parties who might be lying in wait for me. i encountered no sign of any trip or trap all the way to the fringe of the dead zone. the possibility that they knew of my presence and were comfortably awaiting me deep within the zone occurred to me, and so i was very cautious as i cased the layout and decided to make my entry at the point where the irregular boundary of the dead area was closest to the house itself. i entered and became completely psi-blind. starlight cast just enough light so that i could see to walk without falling into a chuck hole or stumbling over something, but beyond a few yards everything lost shape and became a murky blob. the night was dead silent except for an occasional hiss of wind through the brush. esperwise i was not covering much more than my eyes could see. i stepped deeper into the zone and lost another yard of perception. i kept probing at the murk, sort of like poking a finger at a hanging blanket. it moved if i dug hard enough in any direction, but as soon as i released the pressure, the murk moved right back where it was before. i crouched and took a few more steps into the zone, got to a place where i could begin to see the outlines of the house itself. dark, silent, it looked uninhabited. i wished that there had been a college course in housebreaking, prowling and second-story operations. i went at it very slowly. i took my sweet time crossing the boards of the back verandah, even though the short hair on the back of my neck was beginning to prickle from nervousness. i was also scared. at any given moment, they had the legal right to open a window, poke out a field-piece, and blow me into bloody ribbons where i stood. the zone was really a dead one. my esper range was no more than about six inches from my forehead; a motion picture of steve cornell sounding out the border of a window with his forehead would have looked funny, it was not funny at the time. but i found that the sash was not locked and that the flyscreen could be unshipped from the outside. i entered a dining room. inside, it was blacker than pitch. i crossed the dining room by sheer feel and instinct and managed to get to the hallway without making any racket. at this point i stopped and asked myself what the heck i thought i was trying to do. i had to admit that i had no plan in definite form. i was just prowling the joint to see what information i might be able to pick up. down the hall i found a library. i'd been told that you tell what kind of people folks are by inspecting their library, and so i conned the book titles by running my head along a row of books. the books in the library indicated to me that this was a family of some size with rather broad tastes. there was everything from science fiction to shakespeare, everything from philosophy to adventure. a short row of kid's books. a bible. encyclopedia brittanica (published in chicago), in fifty-four volumes, but there were no places that were worn that might give me an idea as to any special interest. the living room was also blank of any evidence of anything out or the ordinary. i turned away and stood in the hallway, blocked by indecision. i was a fool, i kept telling myself, because i did not have any experience in casing a joint, and what i knew had been studied out of old-time detective tales. even if the inhabitants of the place were to let me go at it in broad daylight, i'm not too sure that i'd do a good job of finding something of interest except for sheer luck. but on the other hand, i'd gotten nowhere by dodging and ducking. i was in no mood to run quivering in fear. i was more inclined to emit a bellow just to see what would happen next. so instead of sneaking quietly away, i found the stairs and started to go up very slowly. it occurred to me at about the third step that i must be right. anybody with any sense wouldn't keep anything dangerous in their downstairs library. it would be too much like a safe-cracker storing his nitro in the liquor cabinet or the murderer who hangs his weapon over the mantelpiece. yet everybody kept some sort of records, or had things in their homes that were not shown to visiting firemen. and if it weren't on the second floor, then it might be in the cellar. if i weren't caught first, i'd prowl the whole damned place, inch by inch--avoiding if possible those rooms in which people slept. the fifth step squeaked ever so faintly, but it sounded like someone pulling a spike out of a packing case made of green wood. i froze, half aching for some perceptive range so that i could dig any sign of danger, and half remembering that if it weren't for the dead area, i'd not be this far. i'd have been frightened to try it in a clear zone. eventually i went on up, and as my head came above the level of the floor, everything became psi-clear once more. here was as neat a bit of home planning as i have ever seen. just below the level of the second floor, their dead area faded out, so that the top floor was clean, bright, and clear as day. i paused, startled at it, and spent a few moments digging outside. the dead area billowed above the rooftop out of my range; from what little i could survey of the dark psi area, it must have been shaped sort of like an angel-food cake, except that the central hole did not go all the way down. only to the first-floor level. it was a wonderful set-up for a home; privacy was granted on the first floor and from the road and all the surrounding territory, but on the second floor there was plenty of pleasant esperclear space for the close-knit family and friends. their dead area was shaped in the ideal form for any ideal home. then i stopped complimenting the architect and went on about my business, because there, directly in front of my nose, i could dig the familiar impression of a medical office. i went the rest of the way up the stairs and into the medical office. there was no mistake. the usual cabinets full of instruments, a laboratory examination table, shelves of little bottles, and along one wall was a library of medical books. all it needed was a sign on the door: 's. p. macklin, msch' to make it standard. at the end of the library was a set of looseleaf notebooks, and i pulled the more recent of them out and held it up to my face. i did not dare snap on a light, so i had to go it esper. even in the clear area, this told me very little. esper is not like eyesight, any more than you can hear printed words or perhaps carry on a conversation by watching the wiggly green line on an oscilloscope. i wished it was. instead, esper gives you a grasp of materials and shapes and things in position with regard to other things. it is sort of like seeing something simultaneously from all sides, if you can imagine such a sensation. so instead of being able to esper-read the journal, i had to take it letter by letter by digging the shape of the ink on the page with respect to the paper and the other letters, and since the guy's handwriting was atrocious, i could get no more than if the thing were written in latin. if it had been typewritten, or with a stylized hand, it would have been far less difficult; or if it had been any of my damned business i could have dug it easily. but as it was---- "looking for something, mr. cornell?" asked a cool voice that dripped with acid sarcasm. at the same instant, the lights went on. i whirled, clutched at my hip pocket, and dropped to my knees at the same time. the sights of my . centered in the middle of a silk-covered midriff. she stood there indolently, disdainful of the cannon that was aimed at her. she was not armed; i'd have caught the esper warning of danger if she'd come at me with a weapon of some sort, even though i was preoccupied with the bookful of evidence. i stood up and faced her and let my esper run lightly over her body. she was another mekstrom, which did not surprise me a bit. "i seem to have found what i was looking for," i said. her laugh was scornful but not loud. "you're welcome, mr. cornell." #telepath?# "yes, and a good one." #who else is awake?# "just me, so far," she replied quietly. "but i'll be glad to call out--" #keep it quiet, sister macklin.# "stop thinking like an idiot, mr. cornell. quiet or not, you'll not leave this house until i permit you to go." i let my esper roam quickly through the house. an elderly couple slept in the front bedroom. a man slept alone in the room beside them; a pair of young boys slept in an over-and-under bunk in the room across the hall. the next room must have been hers, the bed was tumbled but empty. the room next to the medical office contained a man trussed in traction splints, white bandages, and literally festooned with those little hanging bottles that contain everything from blood plasma to food and water, right on down to lubrication for the joints. i tried to dig his face under the swath of bandage but i couldn't make out much more than the fact that it was a face and that the face was half mekstrom flesh. "he is a mekstrom patient," said miss macklin quietly. "at this stage, he is unconscious." i sort of sneered at her. "good friend of yours, no doubt." "not particularly," she said. "let's say that he is a poor victim that would die if we hadn't found his infection early." the tone and expression of her voice made me seethe; she sounded as though she felt herself to be a real benefactor to the human race, and that she and her outfit would do the same for any other poor guy that caught mekstrom's--providing they learned about this unfortunate occurrence in time. "we would, mr. cornell." "bah-loney," i grunted. "why dispute my word?" she asked in the same tone of innocent honesty. i eyed her angrily and i felt my hand tighten on the revolver. "i've a reason to become suspicious," i told her in a voice that i hoped was as mild-mannered as her own. "because three people have disappeared in the past half-year without a trace, but under circumstances that put me in the middle. all of them, somehow, seem to be involved with your hidden road sign system and mekstrom's disease." "that's unfortunate," she said quietly. i had to grab myself to keep from yelling, "unfortunate?" and managed to muffle it down to a mere voice-volume sound. "people dying of mekstrom's because you're keeping this cure a secret and i'm batted from pillar to post because--" i gave up on that because i really did not know why. "it's unfortunate that you had to become involved," she said firmly. "because you--" "it's unfortunate for everybody," i snapped, "because i'm going to bust you all wide open!" "i'm afraid not. you see, in order to do that you'll have to get out of here and that i will not permit." i grunted. "miss macklin, you mekstroms have hard bodies, but do you think your hide will stop a slug from this?" "you'll never know. you see, mr. cornell, you do not have the cold, brittle, determined guts that you'd need to pull that trigger." "no?" "pull it," she said. "or do you agree, now that you're of age, that you can't bluff a telepath." i eyed her sourly because she was right. she held that strength that lies in weakness; i could not pull that trigger and fire a . inch slug into that slender, silk-covered midriff. and opposite that, miss macklin also had a strength that was strength itself. she could hold me aloft with one hand kicking and squirming while she was twisting my arms and legs off with her other hand. she held all the big cards of her sex, too. i couldn't slug her with my fist, even though i knew that i'd only break my hand without even bruising her. i was in an awkward situation and i knew it. if she'd been a normal woman i could have shrugged my way past her and left, but she was determined not to let me leave without a lot of physical violence. violence committed on a woman gets the man in dutch no matter how justified he is. yet in my own weakness there was a strength; there was another way out and i took it. abruptly and without forethought. x shifting my aim slightly, i pulled the trigger. the . bonanza went off with a sound like an atom bomb in a telephone booth, and the slug whiffed between her arm and her body and drilled a crater in the plaster behind her. the roar stunned her stiff. the color drained from her face and she swayed uncertainly. i found time enough to observe that while her body was as hard as chromium, her nervous system was still human and sensitive enough to make her faint from a sudden shock. she caught herself, and stood there stiff and white with one delicate (but steel-hard) hand up against her throat. then i dug the household. they were piling out of the hay like a bunch of trained firemen answering a still alarm. they arrived in all stages of nightdress in the following order: the man, about twenty-two or three, who skidded into the room on dead gallop and put on brakes with a screech as he caught sight of the . with its thin wisp of blue vapor still trailing out of the muzzle. the twins, aged about fourteen, who might have turned to run if they'd not been frightened stiff at the sight of the cannon in my fist. father and then mother macklin, who came in briskly but without panic. mr. macklin said, crisply, "may i have an explanation, mr. cornell?" "i'm a cornered rat," i said thickly. "and so i'm scared. i want out of here in one piece. i'm so scared that if i'm intercepted, i may get panicky, and if i do someone is likely to get hurt. understand?" "perfectly," said mr. macklin calmly. "are you going to let him get away with this?" snapped the eldest son. "fred, a nervous man with a revolver is very dangerous. especially one who lacks the rudimentary training in the simpler forms of burglary." i couldn't help but admire the older gentleman's bland self-confidence. "young man," he said to me, "you've made a bad mistake." "no i haven't," i snapped. "i've been on the trail of something concrete for a long time, and now that i've found it i'm not going to let it go easily." i waved the . and they all cringed but mr. macklin. he said, "please put that weapon down, mr. cornell. let's not add attempted murder to your other crimes." "don't force me to it, then. get out of my way and let me go." he smiled. "i don't have to be telepath to tell you that you won't pull that trigger until you're sorely driven," he replied calmly. he was so right that it made me mad. he added, "also, you've got four shells left since you carry the firearm on an empty chamber. not used to guns, are you, mr. cornell?" well, i wasn't used to wearing a gun. now that he mentioned it, i remembered that it was impossible to fire the shell under the hammer by any means except by pulling the trigger. what he was telling me meant that even if i made a careful but bloody sweep of it with my four shells, there would be two of them left, and even the twins were more than capable of taking me apart inch by inch once my revolver was empty. "seems to be an impasse, mr. cornell," he said with an amused smile. "you bland-mannered bunch of--" "ah now, please," he said abruptly. "my wife is not accustomed to such language, nor is my daughter, although my son and the twins probably know enough definitions to make them angry. this is an impasse, mr. cornell, and it behooves all of us to be extremely polite to one another. for one wrong move and you'll fire; this will mean complete chaos for all of us. one wrong word from you and someone of us will take offense, which will be equally fatal. now, let's all stand quietly and talk this over." "what's to talk over?" i demanded. "a truce. or call it an armistice." "do go on." he looked at his family, and i followed his gaze. miss macklin was leaning against the wall with a look of concentrated interest. her elder brother fred was standing alert and ready but not quite poised for a leap. mrs. macklin had a motherly-looking smile on her face which for some unknown reason she was aiming at me in a disarming manner. the twins were standing close together, both of them puzzled-looking. i wondered whether they were esper or telepath (twins are always the same when they're identical, and opposite when fraternal). the thing that really bothered me was their attitude they all seemed to look at me as though i were a poor misguided individual who had unwittingly tromped on their toes after having fallen in among bad company. they reminded me of the harrisons, who looked and sounded so sympathetic when i'd gone out there seeking catherine. a fine bunch to trust! first they swipe my girl and erase all traces of her; then when i go looking they offer me help and sympathy for my distress. the right hand giveth and the left hand taketh away, yeah! i hated them all, yet i am not a hero-type. i wanted the whole highways in hiding rolled up like an old discarded corridor carpet, with every mekstrom on earth rolled up in it. but even if i'd been filled to the scuppers with self-abnegation in favor of my fellow man, i could not have pulled the trigger and started the shambles. for instead of blowing the whole thing wide open because of a batch of bodies, the survivors would have enough savvy to clean up the mess before our bodies got cold, and the old highways crowd would be doing business at the same old stand. without, i might add, without the minor nuisance that people call steve cornell. what i really wanted was to find catherine. and then it came to me that what i really wanted second of all was to possess a body of mekstrom flesh, to be a physical superman. "suppose," said miss macklin unexpectedly, "that it is impossible?" "impossible?" i roared. "what have you got that i haven't got?" "mekstrom's disease," replied miss macklin quietly. "fine," i sneered. "so how do i go out and get it?" "you'll get it naturally--or not at all," she said. "now see here--" i started off, but mr. macklin stopped me with an upraised hand. "mr. cornell," he said, "we are in the very awkward position of trying to convince a man that his preconceived notion is incorrect. we can produce no direct evidence to support our statement. all we can do is to tell you that so far as we know, and as much as we know about mekstrom's disease, no one has ever contracted the infection artificially." "and how can i believe you?" "that's our awkward position. we cannot show you anything that will support our statement. we can profess the attitudes of honesty, truth, honor, good-will, altruism, and every other word that means the same thing. we can talk until doomsday and nothing will be said." "so where is all this getting us?" i asked. "i hope it is beginning to cause your mind to doubt the preconceived notion," he said. "ask yourself why any outfit such as ours would deliberately show you evidence." "i have it and it does not make sense." he smiled. "precisely. it does not." fred macklin interrupted, "look, dad, why are we bothering with all this guff?" "because i have hopes that mr. cornell can be made to see our point, to join, as it were, our side." "fat chance," i snapped. "please, i'm your elder and not at all inclined to waste my time. you came here seeking information and you shall have it. you will not believe it, but it will, i hope, fill in some blank spots after you have had a chance to compare, sort, and use your own logic on the problem. as a mechanical engineer, you are familiar with the line of reasoning that we non-engineering people call occam's razor?" "the law of least reaction," i said automatically. "the what?" asked mrs. macklin. miss macklin said, "i'll read it from mr. cornell's mind, mother. the law of least reaction can be demonstrated by the following: if a bucket of mixed wood-shavings and gasoline are heated, there is a calculable probability that the gasoline will catch fire first because the gasoline is easier--least reaction--to set on fire." "right," i said. "but how does this apply to me?" mr. macklin took up the podium again: "for one thing, your assumption regarding catherine is correct. at the time of the accident she was found to have mekstrom's disease in its earliest form. the harrisons did take her in to save her life. now, dropping that side of the long story, we must follow your troubles. the accident, to a certain group of persons, was a fortunate one. it placed under their medical care a man--you--in whose mind could be planted a certain mild curiosity about a peculiar road sign and other evidences. the upshot of this was that you took off on a tour of investigation." that sounded logical, but there were a lot of questions that had open, ragged ends flying loose. mr. macklin went on: "let's diverge for the moment. mr. cornell, what is your reaction to mekstrom's disease at this point?" that was easy. it was a curse to the human race, excepting that some outfit knew how to cure it. once cured, it made a physical superman of the so-called victim. what stuck in my craw was the number of unfortunate people who caught it and died painfully--or by their own hand in horror--without the sign of aid or assistance. he nodded when i'd gone about half-way through my conclusions and before i got mentally violent about them. "mr. cornell, you've expressed your own doom at certain hands. you feel that the human race could benefit by exploitation of mekstrom's disease." "it could, if everybody helped out and worked together." "everybody?" he asked with a sly look. i yearned again for the ability of a telepath, and i knew that the reason why i was running around loose was because i was only an esper and therefore incapable of learning the truth directly. i stood there like a totem pole and tried to think. eventually it occurred to me. just as there are people who cannot stand dictatorships, there are others who cannot abide democracy; in any aggregation like the human race there will be the warped souls who feel superior to the rest of humanity. they welcome dictatorships providing they can be among the dictators and if they are not included, they fight until the other dictatorship is deposed so that they can take over. "true," said mr. macklin, "and yet, if they declared their intentions, how long would they last?" "not very long. not until they had enough power to make it stick," i said. "and above all, not until they have the power to grant this blessing to those whose minds agree with theirs. so now, mr. cornell, i'll make a statement that you can accept as a mere collection of words, to be used in your arguments with yourself: we'll assume two groups, one working to set up a hierarchy of mekstroms in which the rest of the human race will become hewers of wood and drawers of water. contrasting that group is another group who feels that no man or even a congress of men are capable of picking and choosing the individual who is to be granted the body of the physical superman. we cannot hope to watch the watchers, mr. cornell, and we will not have on our conscience the weight of having to select a over b as being more desirable. enough of this! you'll have to argue it out by yourself later." "later?" grunted fred macklin. "you're not going to--" "i certainly am," said his father firmly. "mr. cornell may yet be the agency whereby we succeed in winning out." he spoke to me again. "neither group dares to come into the open, mr. cornell. we cannot accuse the other group of anything nefarious, any more than they dare to accuse us. their mode of attack is to coerce you into exposing us for a group of undercover operators who are making supermen." "look," i asked him, "why not admit it? you've got nothing sinister in mind." "think of all the millions of people who have not had schooling beyond the preparatory grades," he said. "people of latent psi ability instead of trained practice, or those poor souls who have no psi ability worth mentioning. do you know the history of the rhine institute, mr. cornell?" "only vaguely." "in the early days of rhine's work at duke university, there were many scoffers. the scoffers and detractors, naturally enough, were those people who had the least amount of psi ability. admitting that at the time all psi ability was latent, they still had less of it. but after rhine's death, his associates managed to prove his theories and eventually worked out a system of training that would develop the psi ability. then, mr. cornell, those who are blessed with a high ability in telepathy or perception--the common term of esper is a misnomer, you know, because there's nothing extra-sensory about perception--found themselves being suspected and hated by those who had not this delicate sense. it took forty of fifty years before common public acceptance got around to looking at telepathy and perception in the same light as they saw a musician with a trained ear or an artist with a trained eye. psi is a talent that everybody has to some degree, and today this is accepted with very little angry jealousy. "but now," he went on thoughtfully, "consider what would happen if we made a public announcement that we could cure mekstrom's disease by making a physical superman out of the poor victim. our main enemy would then stand up righteously and howl that we are concealing the secret; he would be believed. we would be tracked down and persecuted, eventually wiped out, while he sat behind his position and went on picking and choosing victims whose attitude parallel his own." "and who is the character?" i demanded. i knew. but i wanted him to say it aloud. he shook his head. "i'll not say it," he said. "because i will not accuse him aloud, any more than he dares to tell you flatly that we are an underground organization that must be rooted out. he knows about our highways and our way stations and our cure, because he uses the same cure. he can hide behind his position so long as he makes no direct accusation. you know the law, mr. cornell." yes, i knew the law. so long as the accuser came into court with a completely clean mind, he was safe. but scholar phelps could hardly make the accusation, nor could he supply the tiniest smidgin of direct evidence to me. for in my accusation i'd implicate him as an accessory-accuser and then he would be called upon to supply not only evidence but a clear, clean, and open mind. in shorter words, the old stunt of pointing loudly to someone else as a dodge for covering up your own crime was a lost art in this present-day world of telepathic competence. the law, of course, insisted that no man could be convicted for what he was thinking, but only upon direct evidence of action. but a crooked-thinking witness found himself in deep trouble anyway, even though crooked thinking was in itself no crime. "now for one more time," said mr. macklin. "consider a medical person who cannot qualify because he is a telepath and not a perceptive. his very soul was devoted to being a scholar of medicine like his father and his grandfather, but his telepath ability does not allow him to be the full scholar. a doctor he can be. but he can never achieve the final training, again the ultimate degree. such a man overcompensates and becomes the frustrate; a ripe disciple for the superman theory." "dr. thorndyke!" i blurted. his face was as blank, as noncommittal as a bronze bust; i could neither detect affirmation nor negation in it. he was playing it flat; i'd never get any evidence from him, either. "so now, mr. cornell, i have given you food for thought. i've made no direct statements; nothing that you could point to. i've defended myself as any man will do, but only by protestations of innocence. therefore i suggest that you take your artillery and vacate the premises." i remembered the bonanza . that was hanging in my hand. shamefacedly i slipped it back in my hip pocket. "but look, sir--" "please leave, mr. cornell. any more i cannot say without laying us wide open for trouble. i am sorry for you, it is no joy being a pawn. but i hope that your pawn-ship will work for our side, and i hope that you will come through it safely. now, please leave us quietly." i shrugged. i left. and as i was leaving, miss macklin touched my arm and said in a soft voice: "i hope you find your catherine, steve. and i hope that someday you'll be able to join her." i nodded dumbly. it was not until i was all the way back to my car that i remembered that her last statement was something similar to wishing me a case of measles so that i'd be afterward immune from them. xi as the miles separated me from the macklins, my mind kept whirling around in a tight circle. i had a lot of the bits, but none of them seemed to lock together very tight. and unhappily, too many of the bits that fit together were hunks that i did not like. i knew the futility of being non-telepath. had mr. macklin given me the truth or was i being sold another shoddy bill of goods? or had he spun me a yarn just to get me out of his house without a riot? of course, there had been a riot, and he'd been expecting it. if nothing else, it proved that i was a valuable bit of material, for some undisclosed reason. i had to grin. i didn't know the reason, but whatever reason they had, it must gripe the devil out of them to be unable to erase me. then the grin faded. no one had told me about catherine. they'd neatly avoided the subject. well, since i'd taken off on this still hunt to find catherine, i'd continue looking, even though every corner i looked into turned out to be the hiding place for another bunch of mad spooks. my mind took another tack: admitting that neither side could rub me out without losing, why in heck didn't they just collect me and put me in a cage? dammit, if i had an organization as well oiled as either of them, i could collect the president right out of the new white house and put him in a cage along with the king of england, the shah of persia, and the dali lama to make a fourth for bridge. this was one of those questions that cannot be answered by the application of logic, reasoning, or by applying either experience or knowledge. i did not know, nor understand. and the only way i would ever find out was to locate someone who was willing to tell. then it occurred to me that--aside from my one experience in housebreaking--that i'd been playing according to the rules. i'm pretty much a law-abiding citizen. yet it did seem to me that i learned more during those times when the rules, if not broken, at least were bent rather sharply. so i decided to try my hand at busting a couple of rather high-level rules. there was a way to track down catherine. so i gassed up the buggy, turned the nose east, and took off like a man with a purpose in mind. en route, i laid out my course. along that course there turned out to be seven way stations, according to the highway signs. three of them were along u.s. on the way from yellowstone to chicago. one of them was between chicago and hammond, indiana. there was another to the south of sandusky, ohio, one was somewhere south of erie, pa., and the last was in the vicinity of newark. there were a lot of the highways themselves, leading into and out of my main route--as well as along it. but i ignored them all, and nobody gave me a rough time. eventually i walked into my apartment. it was musty, dusty, and lonesome. some of catherine's things were still on the table where i'd dropped them; they looked up at me mutely until i covered them with the walloping pile of mail that had arrived in my long absence. i got a bottle of beer and began to go through the mail, wastebasketing the advertisements, piling the magazines neatly, and filing some offers of jobs (which reminded me that i was still an engineer and that my funds wouldn't last indefinitely) and went on through the mail until i came to a letter--the letter. _dear mr. cornell:_ _we're glad to hear from you. we moved, not because marian caught mekstrom's, but because the dead area shifted and left us sort of living in a fish-bowl, psi-wise._ _everybody is hale and hearty here and we all wish you the best._ _please do not think for a moment that you owe us anything. we'd rather be free of your so-called debt. we regret that catherine was not with you, maybe the accident might not have happened. but we do all think that we stand as an association with a very unhappy period in your life, and that it will be better for you if you try to forget that we exist. this is a hard thing to say, steve, but really, all we can do for you is to remind you of your troubles._ _therefore with love from all of us, we'd like to make this a sincerely sympathetic and final--_ _farewell, philip harrison._ i grunted unhappily. it was a nice-sounding letter, but it did not ring true, somehow. i sat there digging it for hidden meanings, but none came. i didn't care. in fact, i didn't really expect any more than this. if they'd not written me at all, i'd still have done what i did. i sat down and wrote phillip harrison another letter: _dear philip:_ _i received your letter today, as i returned from an extended trip through the west. i'm glad to hear that marian is not suffering from mekstrom's disease. i am told that it is fatal to the--uninitiated._ _however, i hope to see you soon._ _regards, steve cornell._ _that_, i thought, _should do it!_ then to help me and my esper, i located a tiny silk handkerchief of catherine's, one she'd left after one of her visits. i slipped it into the envelope and slapped a stamp and a notation on the envelope that this letter was to be forwarded to phillip harrison. i dropped it in the box about eleven that night, but i didn't bother trying to follow it until the morning. ultimately it was picked up and taken to the local post office, and from there it went to the clearing station at pennsylvania station at th st., where i hung around the mail-baggage section until i attracted the attention of a policeman. "looking for something, mr. cornell?" "not particularly," i told the telepath cop. "why?" "you've been digging every mailbag that comes out of there." "am i?" i asked ingeniously. "can it buster, or we'll let you dig your way out of a jail." "you can't arrest a man for thinking." "i'll be happy to make it loitering," he said sharply. "i've a train ticket." "use it, then." "sure. at train time i'll use it." "which train?" he asked me sourly. "you've missed three already." "i'm waiting for a special train, officer." "then please go and wait in the bar, mr. cornell." "okay. i'm sorry i caused you any trouble, but i've a bit of a personal problem. it isn't illegal." "anything that involves taking a perceptive dig at the u.s. mail is illegal," said the policeman. "personal or not, it's out. so either you stop digging or else." i left. there was no sense in arguing with the cop. i'd just end up short. so i went to the bar and i found out why he'd recommended it. it was in a faintly-dead area, hazy enough to prevent me from taking a squint at the baggage section. i had a couple of fast ones, but i couldn't stand the suspense of not knowing when my letter might take off without me. since i'd also pushed my loitering-luck i gave up. the only thing i could hope for was that the sealed forwarding address had been made out at that little town near the harrisons and hadn't been moved. so i went and took a train that carried no mail. it made my life hard. i had to wander around that tank town for hours, keeping a blanket-watch on the post office for either the income or the outgo of my precious hunk of mail. i caught some hard eyes from the local yokels but eventually i discovered that my luck was with me. a fast train whiffled through the town and they baggage-hooked a mailbag off the car at about a hundred and fifty per. i found out that the next stop of that train was albany. i'd have been out of luck if i'd hoped to ride with the bag. then came another period of haunting that dinky post office (i've mentioned before that it was in a dead area, so i couldn't watch the insides, only the exits) until at long last i perceived my favorite bit of mail emerging in another bag. it was carted to the railroad station and hung up on another pick-up hook. i bought a ticket back to new york and sat on a bench near the hook, probing into the bag as hard as my sense of perception could dig. i cursed the whole world. the bag was merely labelled "forwarding mail" in letters that could be seen at ninety feet. my own letter, of course, i could read very well, to every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' and the stitching in catherine's little kerchief. but i could not make out the address printed on the form that was pasted across the front of the letter itself. as i sat there trying to probe that sealed address, a fast train came along and scooped the bag off the hook. i caught the next train. i swore and i squirmed and i groaned because that train stopped at every wide spot in the road, paused to take on milk, swap cars, and generally tried to see how long it could take to make a run of some forty miles. this was fate. naturally, any train that stopped at my rattle burg would also stop at every other point along the road where some pioneer had stopped to toss a beer bottle off of his covered wagon. at long last i returned to pennsylvania station just in time to perceive my letter being loaded on a conveyor for laguardia. then the same damned policeman collared me. "this is it," he said. "now see here, officer. i--" "will you come quietly, mr. cornell? or shall i put the big arm on you?" "for what?" "you've been violating the 'disclosure' section of the federal communications act, and i know it." "now look, officer, i said this was not illegal." "i'm not an idiot, cornell!" i noted uncomfortably that he had dropped the formal address. "you have been trailing a specific piece of mail with the express purpose of finding out where it is going. since its destination is a sealed forwarding address, your attempt to determine this destination is a violation of the act." he eyed me coldly as if to dare me to deny it. "now," he finished, "shall i read you chapter and verse?" he had me cold. the 'disclosure' act was an old ruling that any transmission must not be used for the benefit of any handler. when rhine came along, 'disclosure' act was extended to everything. "look officer, it's my girl," hoping that would make a difference. "i know that," he told me flatly. "which is why i'm not running you in. i'm just telling you to lay off. your girl went away and left you a sealed forwarding address. maybe she doesn't want to see you again." "she's sick," i said. "maybe her family thinks you made her sick. now stop it and go away. and if i ever find you trying to dig the mail again, you'll dig iron bars. now scat!" he urged me towards the outside of the station like a sheep-dog hazing his flock. i took a cab to laguardia, even though it was not as fast as the subway. i was glad to be out of his presence. i connected with my letter again at laguardia. it was being loaded aboard a dc- headed for chicago, denver, los angeles, hawaii, and manila. i didn't know how far it was going so i bought a ticket for the route with my travel card and i got aboard just ahead of the closing door. my bit of mail was in the compartment below me, and in the hour travel time to chicago, i found out that chicago was the destination for the mailbag, although the superscript on the letter was still hazy. i followed the bag off the plane at chicago and stopped long enough to cancel the rest of my ticket. there was no use wasting the money for the unused fare from chicago to manila. i rode into the city in a combination bus-truck less than six feet from my little point-of-interest. during the ride i managed to dig the superscript. it forwarded the letter to ladysmith, wisconsin, and from there to a rural route that i couldn't understand although i got the number. then i went back to midway airport and found to my disgust that the chicago airport did not have a bar. i dug into this oddity for a moment until i found out that the chicago airport was built on public school property and that according to law, they couldn't sell anything harder than soda pop within three hundred feet of public school property, no matter who rented it. so i dawdled in the bar across cicero avenue until plane time, and took an old propeller-driven convair to eau claire on a daisy-clipping ride that stopped at every wide spot on the course. from eau claire the mail bag took off in the antediluvian convair but i took off by train because the bag was scheduled to be dropped by guided glider into ladysmith. at ladysmith i rented a car, checked the rural routes, and took off about the same time as my significant hunk of mail. nine miles from ladysmith is a flagstop called bruce, and not far from bruce there is a body of water slightly larger than a duck pond called caley lake. a backroad, decorated with ornamental metal signs, led me from bruce, wisconsin, to caley lake, where the road signs showed a missing spoke. i turned in, feeling like ferdinand magellan must have felt when he finally made his passage through the strait to discover the open sea that lay beyond the new world. i had done a fine job of tailing and i wanted someone to pin a leather medal on me. the side road wound in and out for a few hundred yards, and then i saw phillip harrison. he was poking a long tool into the guts of an automatic pump, built to lift water from a deep well into a water tower about forty feet tall. he did not notice my arrival until i stopped my rented car beside him and said: "being a mechanical engineer and an esper, phil, i can tell you that you have a--" "a worn gasket seal," he said. "it doesn't take an esper engineer to figure it out. how the heck did you find us?" "out in your mailbox there is a letter," i told him. "i came with it." he eyed me humorously. "how much postage did you cost? or did you come second class mail?" i was not sure that i cared for the inference, but phillip was kidding me by the half-smile on his face. i asked, "phil, please tell me--what is going on?" his half-smile faded. he shook his head unhappily as he said, "why can't you leave well-enough alone?" my feelings welled up and i blew my scalp. "let well enough alone?" i roared. "i'm pushed from pillar to post by everybody. you steal my girl. i'm in hokus with the cops, and then you tell me that i'm to stay--" "up the proverbial estuary lacking the customary means of locomotion," he finished with a smile. i couldn't see the humor in it. "yeah," i drawled humorlessly. "you realize that you're probably as big a liability with us as you were trying to find us?" i grunted. "i could always blow my brains out." "that's no solution and you know it." "then give me an alternative." phillip shrugged. "now that you're here, you're here. it's obvious that you know too much, steve. you should have left well enough alone." "i didn't know well enough. besides, i couldn't have been pushed better if someone had slipped me--" i stopped, stunned at the idea and then i went on in a falter, "--a post-hypnotic suggestion." "steve, you'd better come in and meet marian. maybe that's what happened." "marian?" i said hollowly. "she's a high-grade telepath. master of psi, no less." my mind went red as i remembered how i'd catalogued her physical charms on our first meeting in an effort to find out whether she were esper or telepath. marian had fine control; her mind must have positively seethed at my invasion of her privacy. i did not want to meet marian face to face right now, but there wasn't a thing i could do about it. phillip left his pump and waved for me to follow. he took off in his jeep and i trailed him to the farmhouse. we went through a dim area that was almost the ideal shape for a home. the ring was not complete, but the open part faced the fields behind the house so that good privacy was ensured for all practical purposes. on the steps of the verandah stood marian. sight of her was enough to make me forget my self-accusation of a few moments ago. she stood tall and lissome, the picture of slender, robust health. "come in, steve," she said, holding out her hand. i took it. her grip was firm and hard, but it was gentle. i knew that she could have pulped my hand if she squeezed hard. "i'm very happy to see that rumor is wrong and that you're not--suffering--from mekstrom's disease," i told her. "so now you know, steve. too bad." "why?" "because it adds a load to all of us. even you." she looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "well, come on in and relax, steve. we'll talk it out." we all went inside. on a divan in the living room, covered by a light blanket, resting in a very light snooze, was a woman. her face was turned away from me, but the hair and the line of the figure and the-- #catherine!# she turned and sat up at once, alive and shocked awake. she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with swift knuckles and then looked over her hands at me. "steve!" she cried, and all the world and the soul of her was in the throb of her voice. xii catherine took one unsteady step towards me and then came forward with a rush. she hurled herself into my arms, pressed herself against me, held me tight. it was like being attacked by a bulldozer. phillip stayed my back against her headlong rush or i would have been thrown back out through the door, across the verandah, and into the middle of the yard. the strength of her crushed my chest and wrenched my spine. her lips crushed mine. i began to black out from the physical hunger of a woman who did not know the extent of her new-found body. all that catherine remembered was that once she held me to the end of her strength and yearned for more. to hold me that way now meant--death. her body was the same slenderness, but the warm softness was gone. it was a flesh-warm waist of flexible steel. i was being held by a statue of bronze, animated by some monster servo-mechanism. this was no woman. phillip and marian pried her away from me before she broke my back. phillip led her away, whispering softly in her ear. marian carried me to the divan and let me down on my face gently. her hands were gentle as she pressed the air back into my lungs and soothed away the awful wrench in my spine. gradually i came alive again, but there was pain left that made me gasp at every breath. then the physical hurt went away, leaving only the mental pain; the horror of knowing that the girl that i loved could never hold me in her arms. i shuddered. all that i wanted out of this life was marriage with catherine, and now that i had found her again, i had to face the fact that the first embrace would kill me. i cursed my fate just as any invalid has cursed the malady that makes him a responsibility and a burden to his partner instead of a joy and helpmeet. like the helpless, i didn't want it; i hadn't asked for it; nor had i earned it. yet all i could do was to rail against the unfairness of the unwarranted punishment. without knowing that i was asking, i cried out, "but why?" in a plaintive voice. in a gentle tone, marian replied: "steve, you cannot blame yourself. catherine was lost to you before you met her at her apartment that evening. what she thought to be a callous on her small toe was really the initial infection of mekstrom's disease. we're all psi-sensitive to mekstrom's disease, steve. so when you cracked up and dad and phil went on the dead run to help, they caught a perception of it. naturally we had to help her." i must have looked bitter. "look, steve," said phillip slowly. "you wouldn't have wanted us not to help? after all, would you want catherine to stay with you? so that you could watch her die at the rate of a sixty-fourth of an inch each hour?" "hell," i snarled, "someone might have let me know." phillip shook his head. "we couldn't steve. you've got to understand our viewpoint." "to heck with your viewpoint!" i roared angrily. "has anybody ever stopped to consider mine?" i did not give a hoot that they could wind me around a doorknob and tuck my feet in the keyhole. sure, i was grateful for their aid to catherine. but why didn't someone stop to think of the poor benighted case who was in the accident ward? the bird that had been traipsing all over hell's footstool trying to get a line on his lost sweetheart. i'd been through the grinder; questioned by the f.b.i., suspected by the police; and i'd been the guy who'd been asked by a grieving, elderly couple, "but can't you remember, son?" them and their stinking point of view! "easy, steve," warned phillip harrison. "easy nothing! what possible justification have you for putting me through my jumps?" "look, steve. we're in a precarious position. we're fighting a battle against an unscrupulous enemy, an undercover battle, steve. if we could get something on phelps, we'd expose him and his medical center like that. conversely, if we slip a millimeter, phelps will clip us so hard that the sky will ring. he--damn him--has the government on his side. we can't afford to look suspicious." "couldn't you have taken me in too?" he shook his head sadly. "no," he said. "there was a bad accident, you know. the authorities have every right to insist that each and every automobile on the highway be occupied by a minimum of one driver. they also believe that for every accident there must be a victim, even though the damage is no more than a bad case of fright." i could hardly argue with that. changing the subject, i asked, "but what about the others who just drop out of sight?" "we see to it that plausible letters of explanation are written." "so who wrote me?" i demanded hotly. he looked at me pointedly. "if we'd known about catherine before, she'd have--disappeared--leaving you a trite letter. but no one could think of a letter to explain her disappearance from an accident, steve." "oh fine." "well, you'd still prefer to find her alive, wouldn't you?" "couldn't someone tell me?" "and have you radiating the fact like a broadcasting station?" "why couldn't i have joined her--you--?" he shook his head in the same way that a man shakes it when he is trying to explain _why_ two plus two are four and not maybe five or three and a half. "steve," he said, "you haven't got mekstroms' disease." "how do i get it?" i demanded hotly. "nobody knows," he said unhappily. "if we did, we'd be providing the rest of the human race with indestructible bodies as fast as we could spread it and take care of them." "but couldn't i have been told _something_?" i pleaded. i must have sounded like a hurt kitten. marian put her hand on my arm. "steve," she said, "you'd have been smoothed over, maybe brought in to work for us in some dead area. but then you turned up acting dangerously for all of us." "who--me?" "by the time you came out for your visit, you were dangerous to us." "what do you mean?" "let me find out. relax, will you steve? i'd like to read you deep. catherine, you come in with me." "what are we looking for?" "traces of post-hypnotic suggestion. it'll be hard to find because there will be only traces of a plan, all put in so that it looks like natural, logical reasoning." catherine looked doubtful. "when would they have the chance?" she asked. "thorndyke. in the hospital." catherine nodded and i relaxed. at the beginning i was very reluctant. i didn't mind catherine digging into the dark and dusty corners of my mind, but marian harrison bothered me. "think of the accident, steve," she said. then i managed to lull my reluctant mind by remembering that she was trying to help me. i relaxed mentally and physically and regressed back to the day of the accident. i found it hard even then to go through the love-play and sweet seriousness that went on between catherine and me, knowing that marian harrison was a sort of mental spectator. but i fought down my reticence and went on with it. i practically re-lived the accident. it was easier now that i'd found catherine again. it was like a cleansing bath. i began to enjoy it. so i went on with my life and adventures right up to the present. having come to the end, i stopped. marian looked at catherine. "did you get it?" silence. more silence. then, "it seems dim. almost incredulous--that it could be--" with a trail-off into thought again. phillip snorted. "make with the chin-music, you two. the rest of us aren't telepaths, you know." "sorry," said marian. "it's sort of complicated and hard to figure, you know. what seems to be the case is sort of like this," she went on in an uncertain tone, "we can't find any direct evidence of anything like hypnotic suggestion. the urge to follow what you call the highways in hiding is rather high for a mere bump of curiosity, but nothing definite. i think you were probably urged very gently. catherine objects, saying that it would take a brilliant psycho-telepath to do a job delicate enough to produce the urge without showing the traces of the operation." "someone of scholar grade in both psychology and telepathy," said catherine. i thought it over for a moment. "it seems to me that whoever did it--if it was done--was well aware that a good part of this urge would be generated by catherine's total and unexplicable disappearance. you'd have saved yourselves a lot of trouble--and saved me a lot of heartache if you'd let me know something. god! haven't you any feelings?" catherine looked at me from hurt eyes. "steve," she said quietly, "a billion girls have sworn that they'd rather die than live without their one and only. i swore it too. but when your life's end is shown to you on a microscope slide, love becomes less important. what should i do? just die? painfully?" that was handing it to me on a platter. it hurt but i am not chuckleheaded enough to insist that she come with me to die instead of leaving me and living. what really hurt was not knowing. "steve," said marian. "you know that we couldn't have told you the truth." "yeah," i agreed disconsolately. "let's suppose that catherine wrote you a letter telling you that she was alive and safe, but that she'd reconsidered the marriage. you were to forget her and all that. what happens next?" unhappily i told him. "i'd not have believed it." phillip nodded. "next would have been a telepath-esper team. maybe a perceptive with a temporal sense who could retrace that letter back to the point of origin, teamed up with a telepath strong enough to drill a hole through the dead area that surrounds new washington. why, even before rhine institute, it was sheer folly for a runaway to write a letter. what would it be now?" i nodded. what he said was true, but it did not ease the hurt. "then on the other hand," he went on in a more cheerful vein, "let's take another look at us and you, steve. tell me, fellow, where are you now?" i looked up at him. phillip was smiling in a knowing-superior sort of manner. i looked at marian. she was half-smiling. catherine looked satisfied. i got it. "yeah. i'm here." "you're here without having any letters, without leaving any broad trail of suspicion upon yourself. you've not disappeared, steve. you've been a-running up and down the country all on your own decision. where you go and what you do is your own business and nobody is going to set up a hue and cry after you. sure, it took a lot longer this way. but it was a lot safer." he grinned wide then as he went on, "and if you'd like to take some comfort out of it, just remember that you've shown yourself to be quite capable, filled with dogged determination, and ultimately successful." he was right. in fact, if i'd tried the letter-following stunt long earlier, i'd have been here a lot sooner. "all right," i said. "so what do we do now?" "we go on and on and on, steve, until we're successful." "successful?" he nodded soberly. "until we can make every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth as much physical superman as we are, our job is not finished." i nodded. "i learned a few of the answers at the macklin place." "then this does not come as a complete shock." "no. not a complete shock. but there are a lot of loose ends still. so the basic theme i'll buy. scholar phelps and his medical center are busy using their public position to create the nucleus of a totalitarian state, or a physical hierarchy. you and the highways in hiding are busy tearing phelps down because you don't want to see any more rule by the divine right of kings, dictators, or family lines." "go on, steve." "well, why in the devil don't you announce yourselves?" "no good, old man. look, you yourself want to be a mekstrom. even with your grasp of the situation, you resent the fact that you cannot." "you're right." phillip nodded slowly. "let's hypothesize for a moment, taking a subject that has nothing to do with mekstrom's disease. let's take one of the old standby science-fiction plots. some cataclysm is threatening the solar system. the future of the earth is threatened, and we have only one spacecraft capable of carrying a hundred people to safety--somewhere else. how would you select them?" i shrugged. "since we're hypothecating, i suppose that i'd select the more healthy, the more intelligent, the more virile, the more--" i struggled for another category and then let it stand right there because i couldn't think of another at that instant. phillip agreed. "health and intelligence and all the rest being pretty much a matter of birth and upbringing, how can you explain to wilbur zilch that oscar hossenpfeiffer has shown himself smarter and healthier and therefore better stock for survival? maybe you can, but the end-result is that wilbur zilch slaughters oscar hossenpfeiffer. this either provides an opening for zilch, or if he is caught at it, it provides zilch with the satisfaction of knowing that he's stopped the other guy from getting what he could not come by honestly." "so what has this to do with mekstrom's disease and supermen?" "the day that we--and i mean either of us--announces that we can 'cure' mekstrom's disease and make physical supermen of the former victims, there will be a large scream from everybody to give them the same treatment. no, we'll tell them, we can't cure anybody who hasn't caught it. then some pedagogue will stand up and declare that we are suppressing information. this will be believed by enough people to do us more harm than good. darn it, we're not absolutely indestructible, steve. we can be killed. we could be wiped out by a mob of angry citizens who saw in us a threat to their security. neither we of the highways nor phelps of the medical center have enough manpower to be safe." "so that i'll accept. the next awkward question comes up: what are we going to do with me?" "you've agreed that we cannot move until we know how to inoculate healthy flesh. we need normal humans, to be our guinea pigs. will you help bring to the earth's people the blessing that is now denied them?" "if you are successful, steve," said marian, "you'll go down in history along with otto mekstrom. you could be the turning point of the human race, you know." "and if i fail?" phillip harrison's face took on a hard and determined look. "steve, there can be no failure. we shall go on and on until we have success." that was a fine prospect. old guinea-pig cornell, celebrating his seventieth birthday as the medical experimentation went on and on. catherine was leaning forward, her eyes bright. "steve," she cried, "you've just _got_ to!" "just call me the unwilling hero," i said in a drab voice. "and put it down that the condemned specimen drank a hearty dinner. i trust that there is a drink in the house." there was enough whiskey in the place to provide the new specimen with a near-total anesthesia. the evening was spent in forced badinage, shallow laughter, and a pointed avoidance of the main subject. the whiskey was good; i took it undiluted and succeeded in getting boiled to the eyebrows before they carted me off to bed. i did not sleep well despite my anesthesia. there was too much on my mind and very little of it was the fault of the harrisons. one of the things that i had to face was the cold fact that part of catherine's lack of communication with me was caused by logic and good sense. both history and fiction are filled with cases where love was set aside because consummation was impossible for any number of good reasons. so i slept fitfully, and my dreams were as unhappy as the thoughts i had during my waking moments. somehow i realized that i'd have been far better off if i'd been able to forget catherine after the accident, if i'd been able to resist the urge to follow the highways in hiding, if i'd never known that those ornamental road signs were something more than the desire of some road commissioner to beautify the countryside. but no, i had to go and poke my big bump of curiosity into the problem. so here i was, resentful as all hell because i was denied the pleasure of living in the strong body of a mekstrom. it was not fair. although life itself is seldom fair, it seemed to me that life was less fair to me than to others. and then to compound my feelings of persecution, i woke up once about three in the morning with a strong urge to take a perceptive dig down below. i should have resisted it, but of course, no one has ever been able to resist the urge of his sense of perception. down in the living room, catherine was crying on phillip harrison's shoulder. he held her gently with one arm around her slender waist and he was stroking her hair softly with his other hand. i couldn't begin to dig what was being said, but the tableau was unmistakable. she leaned back and looked at him as he said something. her head moved in a 'no' motion as she took a deep breath for another bawl. she buried her face in his neck and sobbed. phillip held her close for a moment and then loosed one hand to find a handkerchief for her. he wiped her eyes gently and talked to her until she shook her head in a visible effort to shake away both the tears and the unhappy thoughts. eventually he lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. side by side they walked to the divan and sat down close together. catherine leaned against him gently and he put his arm over her shoulders and hugged her to him. she relaxed, looking unhappy, but obviously taking comfort in the strength and physical presence of him. it was a hell of a thing to dig in my mental condition. i drifted off to a sleep filled with unhappy dreams while they were still downstairs. frankly, i forced myself into fitful sleep because i did not want to stay awake to follow them. as bad as the nightmare quality of my dreams were, they were better for me than the probable reality. * * * * * oh, i'd been infernally brilliant when i uncovered the first secret of the highways in hiding. i found out that i did not know one-tenth of the truth. they had a network of highways that would make the department of roads and highways look like a backwood, second-rate, political organization. i'd believed, for instance, that the highways were spotted only along main arteries to and from their way stations. the truth was that they had a complete system from one end of the country to the other. lanes led from maine and from florida into a central main highway that laid across the breadth of the united states. then from washington and from southern california another branching network met this main highway. lesser lines served canada and mexico. the big main trunk ran from new york to san francisco with only one large major division: a heavy line that led down to a place in texas called _homestead_. homestead, texas, was a big center that made scholar phelps' medical center look like a teeny weeny village by comparison. we drove in marian's car. my rented car, of course, was returned to the agency and my own bus would be ferried out as soon as it could be arranged so that i'd not be without personal transportation in texas. catherine remained in wisconsin because she was too new at being a mekstrom to know how to conduct herself so that the fact of her super-powerful body did not cause a lot of slack jaws and high suspicion. we drove along the highways to homestead, carrying a bag of the mekstrom mail. the trip was uneventful. xiii since this account of my life and adventures is not being written without some plan, it is no mere coincidence that this particular section comes under chapter thirteen. old unlucky thirteen covers ninety days which i consider the most dismal ninety days of my life. things, which had been going along smoothly had, suddenly got worse. we started with enthusiasm. they cut and they dug and they poked needles into me and trimmed out bits of my hide for slides. i helped them by digging my own flesh and letting their better telepaths read my results for their records. they were nice to me. i got the best of everything. but being nice to me was not enough; it sort of made me feel like gulliver in brobdingnag. they were so over-strong that they did not know their own strength. this was especially true of the youngsters of mekstrom parents. i tried to re-diaper a baby one night and got my ring finger gummed for my efforts. it was like wrestling bad cyril in a one-fall match, winner take all. as the days added up into weeks, their hope and enthusiasm began to fade. the long list of proposed experiments dwindled and it became obvious that they were starting to work on brand new ideas. but brand new ideas are neither fast in arriving nor high in quantity, and time began to hang dismally heavy. they began to avoid my eyes. they stopped discussing their attempts on me; i no longer found out what they were doing and how they hoped to accomplish the act. they showed the helplessness that comes of failure, and this feeling of utter futility was transmitted to me. at first i was mentally frantic at the idea of failure, but as the futile days wore on and the fact was practically shoved down my throat, i was forced to admit that there was no future for steve cornell. i began at that time to look forward to my visit to reorientation. reorientation is a form of mental suicide. once reoriented, the problems that make life intolerable are forgotten, your personality is changed, your grasp of everything is revised, your appreciation of all things comes from an entirely new angle. you are a new person. then one morning i faced my image in the mirror and came to the conclusion that if i couldn't be me, i didn't want to be somebody else. it is no good to be alive if i am not me, i told my image, who obediently agreed with me. i didn't even wait to argue with me. i just went out and got into my car and sloped. it was not hard; everybody in homestead trusted me. xiv i left homestead with a half-formed idea that i was going to visit bruce, wisconsin, long enough to say goodbye to catherine and to release her from any matrimonial involvement she may have felt binding. i did not relish this idea, but i felt that getting it out, done, and agreed was only a duty. but as i hit the road and had time to think, i knew that my half-formed intention was a sort of martyrdom; i was going to renounce myself in a fine welter of tears and then go staggering off into the setting sun to die of my mental wounds. i took careful stock of myself and faced the fact that my half-baked idea was a sort of suicide-wish; walking into any mekstrom way station now was just asking for capture and a fast trip to their reorientation rooms. the facts of my failure and my taking-of-leave would be indication enough for catherine that i was bowing out. it would be better for catherine, too, to avoid a fine, high-strung, emotional scene. i remembered the little bawling session in the harrison living room that night; catherine would not die for want of a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. in fact, as she'd said pragmatically, well balanced people never die of broken hearts. having finally convinced myself of the validity of this piece of obvious logic, i suddenly felt a lot better. my morose feeling faded away; my conviction of utter uselessness died; and my half-formed desire to investigate a highly hypothetical hereafter took an abrupt about-face. and in place of this collection of undesirable self-pities came a much nicer emotion. it was a fine feeling, that royal anger that boiled up inside of me. i couldn't lick 'em and i couldn't join 'em, so i was going out to pull something down, even if it all came down around my own ears. i stopped long enough to check the bonanza . both visually and perceptively and then loaded it full. i consulted a road map to chart a course. then i took off with the coal wide open and the damper rods all the way out and made the wheels roll towards the east. i especially gave all the highways a very wide berth. i went down several, but always in the wrong direction. and in the meantime, i kept my sense of perception on the alert for any pursuit. i drove with my eyes alone. i could have made it across the mississippi by nightfall if i'd not taken the time to duck highway signs. but when i got good, and sick, and tired of driving, i was not very far from the river. i found a motel in a rather untravelled spot and sacked in for the night. i awoke at the crack of dawn with a feeling of impending _something_. it was not doom, because any close-danger would have nudged me on the bump of perception. nor was it good, because i'd have awakened looking forward to it. something odd was up and doing. i dressed hastily, and as i pulled my clothing on i took a slow dig at the other cabins in the motel. number one contained a salesman type, i decided, after digging through his baggage. number two was occupied by an elderly couple who were loaded with tourist-type junk and four or five cameras. number three harbored a stopover truck driver and number four was almost overflowing with a gang of schoolgirls packed sardine-wise in the single bed. number five was mine. number six was vacant. number seven was also vacant but the bed was tumbled and the water in the washbowl was still running out, and the door was still slamming, and the little front steps were still clicking to the fast clip of high heels, and---- i hauled myself out of my cabin on a dead gallop and made a fast line for my car. i hit the car, clawed myself inside, wound up the turbine and let the old heap in gear in one unbroken series of motions. the wheels spun and sent back a hail of gravel, then they took a bite out of the parking lot and the take-off snapped my head back. both esper and eyesight were very busy cross-stitching a crooked course through the parking lot between the parked cars and the trees that were intended to lend the outfit a rustic atmosphere. so i was too busy to take more than a vague notice of a hand that clamped onto the doorframe until the door opened and closed again. by then i was out on the highway and i could relax a bit. "steve," she said, "why do you do these things?" yeah, it was marian harrison. "i didn't ask to get shoved into this mess," i growled. "you didn't ask to be born, either," she said. i didn't think the argument was very logical, and i said so. "life wasn't too hard to bear until i met you people," i told her sourly. "life would be very pleasant if you'd go away. on the other hand, life is all i've got and it's far better than the alternative. so if i'm making your life miserable, that goes double for me." "why not give it up?" she asked me. i stopped the car. i eyed her dead center, eye to eye until she couldn't take it any more. "what would you like me to just give up, marian? shall i please everybody by taking a bite of my hip-pocket artillery sights whilst testing the trigger pull with one forefinger? will it make anybody happy if i walk into the nearest reorientation museum blowing smoke out of my nose and claiming that i am a teakettle that's gotta be taken off the stove before i blow my lid?" marian's eyes dropped. "do you yourself really expect me to seek blessed oblivion?" she shook her head slowly. "then for the love of god, what do you expect of me?" i roared. "as i am, i'm neither flesh nor fish; just foul. i'm not likely to give up, marian. if i'm a menace to you and to your kind, it's just too tough. but if you want me out of your hair, you'll have to wrap me up in something suitable for framing and haul me kicking and screaming to your mind-refurbishing department. because i'm not having any on my own. understand?" "i understand, steve," she said softly. "i know you; we all know you and your type. you can't give up. you're unable to." "not when i've been hypnoed into it," i said. marian's head tossed disdainfully. "thorndyke's hypnotic suggestion was very weak," she explained. "he had to plant the idea in such a way as to remain unidentified afterwards. no, steve, your urge has always been your own personal drive. all that thorndyke did was to point you slightly in our direction and give you a nudge. you did the rest." "well, you're a telepath. maybe you're also capable of planting a post-hypnotic suggestion that i forget the whole idea." "i'm not," she said with a sudden flare. i looked at her. not being a telepath i couldn't read a single thought, but it was certain that she was telling the truth, and telling it in such a manner as to be convincing. finally i said, "marian, if you know that i'm not to be changed by logic or argument, why do you bother?" for a full minute she was silent, then her eyes came up and gave it back to me with their electric blue. "for the same reason that scholar phelps hoped to use you against us," she said. "your fate and your future is tied up with ours whether you turn out to be friend or enemy." i grunted. "sounds like a soap opera, marian," i told her bitterly. "will catherine find solace in phillip's arms? will steve catch mekstrom's disease? will the dastardly scholar phelps--" "stop it!" she cried. "all right. i'll stop as soon as you tell me what you intend to do with me now that you've caught up with me again." she smiled. "steve, i'm going along with you. partly to play the telepath-half of your team. if you'll trust me to deliver the truth. and partly to see that you don't get into trouble that you can't get out of again." my mind curled its lip. pappy had tanned my landing gear until i was out of the habit of using mother for protection against the slings and arrows of outrageous schoolchums. i'd not taken sanctuary behind a woman's skirts since i was eight. so the idea of running under the protection of a woman went against the grain, even though i knew that she was my physical superior by no sensible proportion. being cared for physically by a dame of a hundred-ten-- "eighteen." --didn't sit well on me. "do you believe me, steve?" "i've got to. you're here to stay. i'm a sucker for a good-looking woman anyway, it seems. they tell me anything and i'm not hardhearted enough to even indicate that i don't believe them." she took my arm impulsively; then she let me go before she pinched it off at the elbow. "steve," she said earnestly, "believe me and let me be your--" #better half?# i finished sourly. "please don't," she said plaintively. "steve, you've simply _got_ to trust _somebody_!" i looked into her face coldly. "the hardest job in the world for a non-telepath is to locate someone he can trust. the next hardest is to explain that to a telepath; because telepaths can't see any difficulty in weeding out the non-trustworthy. now--" "you still haven't faced the facts." "neither have you, marian. you intend to go along with me, ostensibly to help me in whatever i intend to do. that's fine. i'll accept it. but you know good and well that i intend to carry on and on until something cracks. now, tell me honestly, are you going along to help me crack something wide open, or just to steer me into channels that will not result in a crack-up for your side?" marian harrison looked down for a moment; i didn't need telepathy to know that i'd touched the sore spot. then she looked up and said, "steve, more than anything, i intend to keep you out of trouble. you should know by now that there is very little you can really do to harm either side of our own private little war." #and if i can't harm either side, i can hardly do either side any good.# she nodded. #yet i must be of some importance.# she nodded again. at that point i almost gave up. i'd been around this circle so many times in the past half-year that i knew how the back of my head looked. always, the same old question. #_cherchez le angle_,# i thought in bum french. something i had was important enough to both sides to make them keep me on the loose instead of erasing me and my nuisance value. so far as i could see, i was as useless to either side as a coat of protective paint laid on stainless steel. i was immune to mekstrom's disease; the immunity of one who has had everything tried on him that scholars of the disease could devise. about the only thing that ever took place was the sudden disappearance of everybody that i came in contact with. marian touched my arm gently. "you mustn't think like that, steve," she said gently. "you've done enough useless self-condemnation. can't you stop accusing yourself of some evil factor? something that really is not so?" "not until i know the truth," i replied. "i certainly can't dig it; i'm no telepath. perhaps if i were, i'd not be in this awkward position." again her silence proved to me that i'd hit a touchy spot. "what am i?" i demanded sourly. "am i a great big curse? what have i done, other than to be present just before several people turn up missing? makes me sort of a male typhoid mary, doesn't it?" "now, steve--" "well, maybe that's the way i feel. everything i put my great big clutching hands on turns dark green and starts to rot. regardless of which side they're on, it goes one, two, three, four; catherine, thorndyke, you, nurse farrow." "steve, what on earth are you talking about?" i smiled down at her in a crooked sort of quirk. "you, of course, have not the faintest idea of what i'm thinking." "oh, steve--" "and then again maybe you're doing your best to lead my puzzled little mind away from what you consider a dangerous subject?" "i'd hardly do that--" "sure you would. i'd do it if our positions were reversed. i don't think it un-admirable to defend one's own personal stand, marian. but you'll not divert me this time. i have a hunch that i am a sort of male typhoid mary. let's call me old mekstrom steve. the carrier of mekstrom's disease, who can innocently or maliciously go around handing it out to anybody that i contact. is that it, marian?" "it's probably excellent logic, steve. but it isn't true." i eyed her coldly. "how can i possibly believe you?" "that's the trouble," she said with a plaintive cry. "you can't. you've got to believe me on faith, steve." i smiled crookedly. "marian," i said, "that's just the right angle to take. since i cannot read your mind, i must accept the old appeal to the emotions. i must tell myself that marian harrison just simply could not lie to me for many reasons, among which is that people do not lie to blind men nor cause the cripple any hurt. well, phooey. whatever kind of gambit is being played here, it is bigger than any of its parts or pieces. i'm something between a queen and a pawn, marian; a piece that can be sacrificed at any time to further the progress of the game. slipping me a lie or two to cause me to move in some desired direction should come as a natural." "but why would we lie to you?" she asked, and then she bit her lip; i think that she slipped, that she hadn't intended to urge me into deeper consideration of the problem lest i succeed in making a sharp analysis. after all, the way to keep people from figuring things out is to stop them from thinking about the subject. that's the first rule. next comes the process of feeding them false information if the first law cannot be invoked. "why would you lie to me?" i replied in a sort of sneer. i didn't really want to sneer but it came naturally. "in an earlier age it might not be necessary." "what?" she asked in surprise. "might not be necessary," i said. "let's assume that we are living in the mid-fifties, before rhine. steve cornell turns up being a carrier of a disease that is really a blessing instead of a curse. in such a time, marian, either side could sign me up openly as a sort of missionary; i could go around the country inoculating the right people, those citizens who have the right kind of mind, attitude, or whatever-factor. following me could be a clean-up corps to collect the wights who'd been inoculated by my contact. sounds reasonable, doesn't it?" without waiting for either protest or that downcast look of agreement, i went on: "but now we have perception and telepathy all over the place. so steve cornell, the carrier, must be pushed around from pillar to post, meeting people and inoculating them without ever knowing what he is doing. because once he knows what he is doing, his usefulness is ended in this world of rhine institute." "steve--" she started, but i interrupted again. "about all i have to do now is to walk down any main street radiating my suspicions," i said bitterly. "and it's off to medical center for steve--unless the highways catch me first." very quietly, marian said, "we really dislike to use reorientation on people. it changes them so--" "but that's what i'm headed for, isn't it?" i demanded flatly. "i'm sorry, steve." angrily i went on, not caring that i'd finally caught on and by doing so had sealed my own package. "so after i have my mind ironed out smoothly, i'll still go on and on from pillar to post providing newly inoculated mekstroms for your follow-up squad." she looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes. "we were all hoping--" she started. "were you?" i asked roughly. "were you all working to innoculate me at homestead, or were you really studying me to find out what made me a carrier instead of a victim?" "both, steve," she said, and there was a ring of honesty in her tone. i had to believe her, it made sense. "dismal prospect, isn't it?" i asked. "for a guy that's done nothing wrong." "we're all sorry." "look," i said with a sudden thought, "why can't i still go on? i could start a way station of some sort, on some pretext, and go on innoculating the public as they come past. then i could go on working for you and still keep my right mind." she shook her head. "scholar phelps knows," she said. "above all things we must keep you out of his hands. he'd use you for his own purpose." i grunted sourly. "he has already and he will again," i told her. "not only that, but phelps has had plenty of chance to collect me on or off the hook. so what you fear does not make sense." "it does now," she told me seriously. "so long as you did not suspect your own part in the picture, you could do more good for phelps by running free. now you know and phelps' careful herding of your motions won't work." "don't get it." "watch," she said with a shrug. "they'll try. i don't dare experiment, steve, or i'd leave you right now. you'd find out very shortly that you're with me because i got here first." "and knowing the score makes me also dangerous to your highways? likely to bring 'em out of hiding?" "yes." "so now that i've dumped over the old apple cart, i can assume that you're here to take me in." "what else can i do, steve?" she said unhappily. i couldn't answer that. i just sat there looking at her and trying to remember that her shapely one hundred and eighteen pounds were steel hard and monster strong and that she could probably carry me under one arm all the way to homestead without breathing hard. i couldn't cut and run; she could outrun me. i couldn't slug her on the jaw and get away; i'd break my hand. the bonanza . would probably stun her, but i have not the cold blooded viciousness to pull a gun on a woman and drill her. i grunted sourly, that weapon had been about as useful to me as a stuffed bear or an authentic egyptian obelisk. "well, i'm not going," i said stubbornly. she looked at me in surprise. "what are you going to do?" she asked me. i felt a glow of self-confidence. if i could not run loose with guilty knowledge of my being a mekstrom carrier, it was equally impossible for anybody to kidnap me and carry me across the country. i'd radiate like mad; i'd complain about the situation at every crossroad, at every filling station, before every farmer. i'd complain mentally and bitterly, and sooner or later someone would get suspicious. "don't think like an idiot," she told me sharply. "you drove across the country before, remember? how many people did you convince?" "i wasn't trying, then--" "how about the people in the hotel in denver?" she asked me pointedly. "what good did you do there?" #very little, but--# "one of the advantages of a telepath is that we can't be taken by surprise," she informed me. "because no one can possibly work without plans of some kind." "one of the troubles of a telepath," i told her right back, "is that they get so confounded used to knowing what is going to happen next that it takes all the pleasant element of surprise out of their lives. that makes 'em dull and--" the element of surprise came in through the back window, passed between us and went _splat!_ against the wind-shield. there was the sound like someone chipping ice with a spike followed by the distant bark of a rifle. a second slug came through the back window about the time that the first one landed on the floor of the car. the second slug, not slowed by the shatter-proof glass in the rear, went through the shatter-proof glass in the front. a third slug passed through the same tunnel. these were warning shots. he'd missed us intentionally. he'd proved it by firing three times through the same hole, from beyond my esper range. i wound up the machinery and we took off. marian cried something about not being foolish, but her words were swept out through the hole in the rear window, just above the marks on the pavement caused by my tires as we spun the wheels. xv "steve, stop it!" cried marian as soon as she could get her breath. "nuts," i growled. i took a long curve on the outside wheels and ironed out again. "he isn't after our corpse, honey. he's after our hide. i don't care for any." the fourth shot went singing off the pavement to one side. it whined into the distance making that noise that sets the teeth on edge and makes one want to duck. i lowered the boom on the go pedal and tried to make the meter read off the far end of the scale; i had a notion that the guy behind might shoot the tires out if we were going slow enough so that a blowout wouldn't cause a bad wreck; but he probably wouldn't do it once i got the speed up. he was not after marian. marian could walk out of any crack-up without a bruise, but i couldn't. we went roaring around a curve. i fought the wheel into a nasty double 's' curve to swing out and around a truck, then back on my own side of the road again to avoid an oncoming car. i could almost count the front teeth of the guy driving the car as we straightened out with a coat of varnish to spare. i scared everybody in all three vehicles, including me. then i passed a couple of guys standing beside the road; one of them waved me on, the other stood there peering past me down the road. as we roared by, another group on the other side of the highway came running out hauling a big old hay wagon. they set the wagon across the road and then sloped into the ditch on either side of it. i managed to dig the bare glimmer of firearms before i had to yank my perception away from them and slam it back on the road in front. i was none too soon, because dead ahead by a thousand feet or so, they were hauling a second road block out. marian, not possessed of esper, cried out as soon as she read this new menace in my mind. i rode the brakes easily and came to a stop long before we hit it. in back sounded a crackle of rifle fire; in front, three men came out waving their rifles at us. i whipped the car back, spun it in a seesaw, and took off back towards the first road block. half way back i whirled my car into a rough sideroad just as the left hand rear tire went out with a roar. the car sagged and dragged me to a stop with my nose in a little ditch. the heap hadn't stopped rocking yet before i was out and on the run. "steve!" cried marian. "come back!" #to heck with it.# i kept right on running. before me by a couple of hundred yards was a thicket of trees; i headed that way fast. i managed to sling a dig back; marian was joining the others; pointing in my direction. one of them raised the rifle but she knocked it down. i went on running. it looked as though i'd be all right so long as i didn't get in the way of an accidental shot. my life was once more charmed with the fact that no one wanted me dead. the thicket of woods was not as thick as i'd have liked. from a distance they'd seemed almost impenetrable, but when i was running through them towards the center, they looked pitifully thin. i could see light from any direction and the floor of the woods was trimmed, the underbrush cleaned out, and a lot of it was tramped down. ahead of me i perceived a few of them coming towards the woods warily, behind me there was another gang closing in. i began to feel like the caterpillar on the blade of grass in front of the lawn mower. i tried to hide under a deadfall, knowing that it was poor protection against rifle fire. i hauled out the bonanza and checked the cylinder. i didn't know which side i was going to shoot at, but that didn't bother me. i was going to shoot at the first side that got close. a couple of shots whipped by over my head, making noises like someone snapping a bullwhip. i couldn't tell which direction they came from; i was too busy trying to stuff my feet into a gopher hole under my deadfall. i cast around the thicket with my sense of perception and caught the layout. both sides were spread out, stalking forward like infantry advancing through disputed ground. now and then one of them would raise his rifle and fire at some unexpected motion. this, i gathered, was more nervousness than fighting skill because no group of telepaths and/or perceptives would be so jittery on the trigger if they weren't basically nervous. they should, as i did, have the absolute position of both the enemy and their own side. with a growing nervous sweat i dug their advances. they were avoiding my position, trying to encircle me by making long semicircular marches, hoping to get between me and the other side. this was a rough maneuver, sort of like two telepaths playing chess. both sides knew to a minute exactly what the other had in mind, where he was, and what he was going to do about his position. but they kept shifting, feinting and counter-advancing, trying to gain the advantage of number or position so that the other would be forced to retreat. it became a war of nerves; a game of seeing who had the most guts; who could walk closer to the muzzle of an enemy rifle without getting hit. their rifles were mixed; there were a couple of deer guns, a nice - express that fired a slug slightly smaller than a panetella cigar, a few shotguns, a carbine sports rifle that looked like it might have been a garand with the barrel shortened by a couple of inches, some revolvers, one nasty-looking colt . automatic, and so on. i shivered down in my little hideout; as soon as the shooting started in earnest, they were going to clean out this woods but good. it was going to be a fine barrage, with guns going off in all directions, because it is hard to keep your head in a melee. esper and telepathy go by the board when shooting starts. i still didn't know which side was which. the gang behind me were friends of marian harrison; but that did not endear them to me any more than knowing that the gang in front were from scholar phelps medical center or some group affiliated with him. in the midst of it, i managed to bet myself a new hat that old scholar phelps didn't really know what was going on. he would be cagey enough to stay ignorant of any overt strife or any other skullduggery that could be laid at his door. then on one edge of the woodsy section, two guys of equal damfool-factor advanced, came up standing, and faced one another across fifty feet of open woods. their rifles came up and yelled at one another like a string of firecrackers; they wasted a lot of powder and lead by not taking careful aim. one of them emptied his rifle and started to fade back to reload, the other let him have it in the shoulder. it spun the guy around and dumped him on his spine. his outflung hand slammed his rifle against a tree, which broke it. he gave a painful moan and started to crawl back, his arm hanging limp-like but not broken. from behind me came a roar and a peltering of shotgun pellets through the trees; it was answered by the heavy bark of the - express. i'm sure that in the entire artillery present, the only rifle heavy enough to really damage those mekstroms was that express, which would stop a charging rhino. when you get down to facts, my bonanza . packed a terrific wallop but it did not have the shocking power of the heavy big-game rifle. motion caught my perception to one side; two of them had let go shotgun blasts from single-shot guns. they were standing face to face swinging their guns like a pair of axemen; swing, chop! swing, chop! and with each swing their guns were losing shape, splinters from the butts, and bits of machinery. their clothing was in ribbons from the shotgun blasts. but neither of them seemed willing to give up. there was not a sign of blood; only a few places on each belly that looked shiny-like. on the other side of me, one guy let go with a rifle that slugged the other bird in the middle. he folded over the shot and his middle went back and down, which whipped his head over, back, and down where it hit the ground with an audible thump. the first guy leaped forward just as the victim of his attack sat up, rubbed his belly ruefully, and drew a hunting knife with his other hand. the first guy took a running dive at the supine one, who swung the hunting knife in a vicious arc. the point hit the chest of the man coming through the air but it stopped as though the man had been wearing plate armor. you could dig the return shock that stunned the knife-wielder's arm when the point turned. all it did was rip the clothing. then the pair of them were at it in a free-for-all that made the woods ring. this deadly combat did not last long. one of them took aim with a fist and let the other have it. the rifle shot hadn't stopped him but the hard fist of another mekstrom laid him out colder than a mackerel iced for shipment. the deadly - express roared again, and there started a concentration of troops heading towards the point of origin. i had a hunch that the other side did not like anybody to be playing quite as rough as a big-game gun. someone might really get hurt. by now they were all in close and swinging; now and then someone would stand off and gain a few moments of breathing space by letting go with a shotgun or knocking someone off of his feet with a carbine. there was some bloodshed, too; not all these shots bounced. but from what i could perceive, none of them were fatal. just painful. the guy who'd been stopped first with the rifle slug and then the other mekstrom's fist was still out cold and bleeding lightly from the place in his stomach. a bit horrified, i perceived that the pellet was embedded about a half-inch in. the two birds who'd been hacking at one another with the remains of their shotguns had settled it barehanded, too. the loser was groaning and trying to pull himself together. the shiny spots on his chest were shotgun pellets stuck in the skin. it was one heck of a fight. mekstroms could play with guns and knives and go around taking swings at one another with hunks of tree or clubbed rifles, or they could stand off and hurl boulders. such a battlefield was no place for a guy named steve cornell. by now all good sense and fine management was gone. if i'd been spotted, they'd have taken a swing at me, forgetting that i am no mekstrom. so i decided that it was time for steve to leave. i cast about me with my perception; the gang that marian had joined had advanced until they were almost even with my central position; there were a couple of swinging matches to either side and one in front of me. i wondered about marian; somehow i still don't like seeing a woman tangled up in a free-for-all. marian was out of esper range, which was all right with me. i crawled out of my hideout cautiously, stood up in a low crouch and began to run. a couple of them caught sight of me and put up a howl, but they were too busy with their personal foe to take off after me. one of them was free; i doubled him up and dropped him on his back with a slug from my bonanza . . somehow it did not seem rough or vicious to shoot since there was nothing lethal in it. it was more like a game of cowboy and indian than deadly earnest warfare. then i was out and free of them all, out of the woods and running like a deer. i cursed the car with its blown out tire; the old crate had been a fine bus, nicely broken in and conveniently fast. but it was as useful to me now as a pair of skids. a couple of them behind me caught on and gave chase. i heard cries for me to stop, which i ignored like any sensible man. someone cut loose with a roar; the big slug from the express whipped past and went _sprang!_ off a rock somewhere ahead. it only added a few more feet per second to my flight. if they were going to play that rough, i didn't care to stay. i fired an unaimed shot over my shoulder, which did no good at all except for lifting my morale. i hoped that it would slow them a bit, but if it did i couldn't tell. then i leaped over a ditch and came upon a cluster of cars. i dug at them as i approached and selected one of the faster models that still had its key dangling from the lock. i was in and off and away as fast as a scared man can move. they were still yelling and fighting in the woods when i raced out of my range. * * * * * the heap i'd jumped was a clinton special with rock-like springs and a low slung frame that hugged the ground like a clam. i was intent upon putting as many miles as i could between me and the late engagement in as short a time as possible, and the clinton seemed especially apt until i remembered that the figure on the dial meant kilometers instead of miles per hour. then i let her out a bit more and tried for the end of the dial. the clinton tried with me, and i had to keep my esper carefully aimed at the road ahead because i was definitely overdriving my eyesight and reaction-time. i was so intent upon making feet that i did not notice the jetcopter that came swooping down over my head until the howl of its vane-jets raised hell with my eardrums. then i slowed the car and lifted my perception at the same time for a quick dig. the jetcopter was painted policeman blue and it sported a large gold-leaf on its side, and inside the cabin were two hard-faced gentlemen wearing uniforms with brass buttons and that old bailey look in their eye. the one on the left was jingling a pair of handcuffs. they passed over my head at about fifteen feet, swooped on past by a thousand, and dropped a road-block bomb. it flared briefly and let out with a billow of thick red smoke. i leaned on the brakes hard enough to stand the clinton up on its nose, because if i shoved my front bumper through that cloud of red smoke it was a signal for them to let me have it. i came to a stop about a foot this side of the bomb, and the jetcopter came down hovering. its vanes blew the smoke away and the 'copter landed in front of my swiped clinton special. the policeman was both curt and angry. "driver's ticket, registration, and maybe your pilot's license," he snapped. well, that was _it_. i had a driver's ticket all right, _but_ it did not permit me to drive a car that i'd selected out of a group willy nilly. the car registration was in the glove compartment where it was supposed to be, but what it said did not match what the driver's license claimed. no matter what i said, there would be the devil to pay. "i'll go quietly, officer," i told him. "darn' white of you, pilot," he said cynically. he was scribbling on a book of tickets and it was piling up deep. speeding, reckless driving, violation of ordinance something-or-other by number. driving a car without proper registration in the absence of the rightful owner (check for stolen car records) and so on and on and on until it looked like a life term in the local jug. "move over, cornell," he said curtly. "i'm taking you in." i moved politely. the only time it pays to be arrogant with the police is long after you've proved them wrong, and then only when you're facing your mirror at home telling yourself what you should have said. i was driven to court; escorted in by the pair of them and seated with one on each side. the sign on the judge's table said: magistrate hollister. magistrate hollister was an elderly gentleman with a cast iron jaw and a glance as cold as a bucket of snow. he dealt justice with a sharp-edged shovel and his attitude seemed to be that everybody was either guilty as charged or was contemplating some form of evil to be committed as soon as he was out of the sight of justice. i sat there squirming while he piled the top on a couple whose only crime was parking overtime; i itched from top to bottom while he slapped one miscreant in gaol for turning left in violation of city ordinance. his next attempt gave a ten dollar fine for failing to come to a full and grinding halt at the sign of the big red light, despite the fact that the criminal was esper to a fine degree and dug the fact that there was no cross-traffic for a half mile. then his honor licked his chops and called my name. he speared me with an icicle-eye and asked sarcastically: "well, mr. cornell, with what form of sophistry are you going to explain your recent violations?" i blinked. he aimed a cold glance at the bailiff, who arose and read off the charges against me in a deep, hollow intonation. "speak up!" he snapped. "are you guilty or not guilty?" "guilty," i admitted. he beamed a sort of self-righteous evil. it was easy to see that never in his tenure of office had he ever encountered a criminal as hardened and as vicious as i. nor one who admitted to his turpitude so blandly. i felt it coming, and it made me itch, and i knew that if i tried to scratch his honor would take the act as a personal affront. i fought down the crazy desire to scratch everything i could reach and it was hard; about the time his honor added a charge of endangering human life on the highway to the rest of my assorted crimes, the itch had localized into the ring finger of my left hand. that i could scratch by rubbing it against the seam of my trousers. then his honor went on, delivering lecture number seven on crime, delinquency, and grand larceny. i was going to be an example, he vowed. i was assumed to be esper since no normal--that's the word he used, which indicated that the old bird was a blank and hated everybody who wasn't--human being would be able to drive as though he had eyes mounted a half mile in front of him. not that my useless life was in danger, or that i was actually not-in-control of my car, but that my actions made for panic among normal--again he used it!--people who were not blessed with either telepathy or perception by a mere accident of birth. the last one proved it; it was not an accident of birth so much as it was proper training, to my way of thinking. magistrate hollister hated psi-trained people and was out to make examples of them. he polished off his lecture by pronouncing sentence: "--and the law provides punishment by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or a sentence of ninety days in jail--_or both_." he rolled the latter off as though he relished the sound of the words. i waited impatiently. the itch on my finger increased; i flung a fast dig at it but there was nothing there but sophomore's syndrome. good old nervous association. it was the finger that little snoodles, the three-month baby supergirl had munched to a faretheewell. darned good thing the kid didn't have teeth! but i was old steve, the immune, the carrier, the-- "well, mr. cornell?" i blinked. "yes, your honor?" "which will it be? i am granting you the leniency of selecting which penalty you prefer." i could probably rake up a thousand by selling some stock, personal possessions, and draining my already-weakened bank account. the most valuable of my possessions was parked in a ditch with a blowout and probably a bent frame and even so, i only owned about six monthly payments worth of it. "your honor, i will prefer to pay the fine--if you'll grant me time in which to go and collect--" he rapped his desk with his gavel. "mr. cornell," he boomed angrily. "a thief cannot be trusted. within a matter of minutes you could remove yourself from the jurisdiction of this court unless a binding penalty is placed against your person. you may go on your search for money, but only after posting bond--to the same amount as your fine!" _lenient--?_ "however, unless you are able to pay, i have no recourse but to exact the prison sentence of ninety days. bailiff--!" i gave up. it even felt sort of good to give up, especially when the turn is called by someone too big to be argued with. no matter what, i was going to take ninety days off, during which i could sit and think and plan and wonder and chew my fingernails. the itch in my finger burned again, deep this time, and not at all easy to satisfy by rubbing it against my trousers. i picked at it with the thumbnail and the nail caught something hard. i looked down at the itching finger and sent my perception into it with as much concentration as i could. my thumbnail had lifted a tiny circle no larger than the head of a pin. blood was oozing from beneath the lifted rim, and i nervously picked off the tiny patch of hard, hard flesh and watched the surface blood well out into a tiny droplet. my perception told me the truth: it was mekstrom's disease and not a doubt. the immune had caught it! the bailiff tapped me on the shoulder and said, "come along, cornell!" and i was going to have ninety days to watch that patch grow at the inexorable rate of one sixty-fourth of an inch per hour! xvi the bailiff repeated, "come along, cornell." then he added sourly, "or i'll have to slip the cuffs on you." i turned with a helpless shrug. i'd tried to lick 'em and i'd tried to join 'em and i'd failed both. then, as of this instant when i might have been able to go join 'em, i was headed for the wrong side as soon as i opened my big yap. and if i didn't yelp, i was a dead one anyway. sooner or later someone in the local jug would latch on to my condition and pack me off to scholar phelps' medical center. once more i was in a situation where all i could do was to play it by ear, wait for a break, and see if i could make something out of it. but before i could take more than a step or two toward the big door, someone in the back of the courtroom called out: "your honor, i have some vital information in this case." his honor looked up across the court with a great amount of irritation showing in his face. his voice rasped, "indeed?" i whirled, shocked. suavely, dr. thorndyke strode down the aisle. he faced the judge and explained who he was and why, then he backed it up with a wallet full of credentials, cards, identification, and so forth. the judge looked the shebang over sourly but finally nodded agreement. thorndyke smiled self-confidently and then went on, facing me: "it would be against my duty to permit you to incarcerate this miscreant," he said smoothly. "because mr. cornell has mekstrom's disease!" everybody faded back and away from me as though he'd announced me to be the carrier of plague. they looked at me with horror and disgust on their faces, a couple of them began to wipe their hands with handkerchiefs; one guy who'd been standing where i'd dropped my little patch of mekstrom flesh backed out of that uncharmed circle. some of the spectators left hurriedly. his honor paled. "you're certain?" he demanded of dr. thorndyke. "i'm certain. you'll note the blood on his finger; cornell recently picked off a patch of mekstrom flesh no larger than the head of a pin. it was his first sign." the doctor went on explaining, "normally this early seizure would be difficult to detect, except from a clinical examination. but since i am telepath and cornell has perception, his own mind told me he was aware of his sorry condition. one only need read his mind, or to dig at the tiny bit of mekstrom flesh that he dropped to your floor." the judge eyed me nastily. "maybe i should add a charge of contaminating a courtroom," he muttered. he was running his eyes across the floor from me to wherever i'd been, trying to locate the little patch. i helped him by not looking at it. the rest of the court faded back from me still farther. i could hardly have been less admired if i'd been made of pure cyanide gas. the judge rapped his gavel sharply. "i parole this prisoner in the custody of dr. thorndyke, who as a representative of the medical center will remove the prisoner to that place where the proper treatment awaits him." "now see here--" i started. but his honor cut me off. "you'll go as i say," he snapped. "unfortunately, the law does not permit me to enjoy any cruel or unusual punishments, or i'd insist upon your ninety-day sentence and watch you die painfully. i--bailiff! remove this menace before i forget my position here and find myself in contempt of the law i have sworn to uphold. i cannot be impartial before a man who contaminates my court with the world's most dangerous disease!" i turned to thorndyke. "all right," i grunted. "you win." he smiled again; i wanted to wipe that smile away with a set of knuckles but i knew that all i'd get would be a broken hand against thorndyke's stone-hard flesh. "now, mr. cornell," he said with that clinical smoothness, "let's not get the old standard attitude." "nearly everybody who contracts mekstrom's disease," he said to the judge, "takes on a persecution complex as soon as he finds out that he has it. some of them have even accused me of fomenting some big fantastic plot against them. please, mr. cornell," he went on facing me, "we'll give you the best of treatment that medical science knows." "yeah," i grunted. his honor rapped on the gavel once more. "officer gruenwald," he snapped, "you will accompany the prisoner and dr. thorndyke to the medical center and having done that you will return to report to me that you have accomplished your mission." then the judge glared around, rapped once more, and cried, "case finished. next case!" i felt almost as sorry for the next guy coming in as i felt for myself. his honor was going to be one tough baby for some days to come. as they escorted me out, a janitor came in and began to swab the floor where i'd been standing. he was using something nicely corrosive that made the icy, judicial eyes water, all of which discomfort was likely to be added to the next law-breaker's sorry lot. * * * * * i was in fine company. thorndyke was a telepath and officer gruenwald was perceptive. they went as a team and gave me about as much chance to escape as if i'd been a horned toad sealed in a cornerstone. gruenwald, of course, treated me as though my breath was deadly, my touch foul, and my presence evil. in gruenwald's eyes, the only difference between me and medusa the gorgon was that looking at me did not turn him to stone. he kept at least one eye on me almost constantly. i could almost perceive thorndyke's amusement. with the best of social amenities, he could hardly have spent a full waking day in the company of either a telepath or a perceptive without giving away the fact that he was mekstrom. but with me to watch over, officer gruenwald's mental attention was not to be turned aside to take an impolite dig at his companion. even if he had, thorndyke would have been there quickly to turn his attention aside. i've read the early books that contain predictions of how we are supposed to operate. the old boys seemed to have the quaint notion that a telepath should be able at once to know everything that goes on everywhere, and a perceptive should be aware of everything material about him. there should be no privacy. there was to be no defense against the mental peeping tom. it ain't necessarily so. if gruenwald had taken a dig at thorndyke's hide, the doctor would have speared the policeman with a cold, indignant eye and called him for it. of course, there was no good reason for gruenwald to take a dig at thorndyke and so he didn't. so i went along with the status quo and tried to think of some way to break it up. an hour later i was still thinking, and the bleeding on my finger had stopped. mekstrom flesh had covered the raw spot with a thin, stone-hard plate that could not be separated visually from the rest of my skin. "as a perceptive," observed dr. thorndyke in a professional tone, "you'll notice the patch of infection growing on mr. cornell's finger. the rate of growth seems normal; i'll have to check it accurately once i get him to the clinic. in fifty or sixty hours, mr. cornell's finger will be solid to the first joint. in ninety days his arm will have become as solid as the arm of a marble statue." i interjected, "and what do we do about it?" he moved his head a bit and eyed me in the rear view mirror. "i hope we can help you, cornell," he said in a tone of sympathy that was definitely intended to impress officer gruenwald with his medical appreciation of the doctor's debt to humanity. "i sincerely hope so. for in doing so, we will serve the human race. and," he admitted with an entirely human-sounding selfishness, "i may be able to deliver a thesis on the cure that will qualify me for my scholarate." i took a fast stab: "doctor, how does my flesh differ from yours?" thorndyke parried this attention-getting question: "mine is of no consequence. dig your own above and below the line of infection, cornell. if your sense of perception has been trained fine enough, dig the actual line of infection and watch the molecular structure rearrange. can you dig that fine, officer? cornell, i hate to dwell at length upon your misfortune, but perhaps i can help you face it by bringing the facts to light." #like the devil you hate to dwell, doctor mekstrom!# in the rear view mirror, his lips parted in a bland smile and one eyelid dropped in a knowing wink. i opened my mouth to make another stab in the open but thorndyke got there first. "officer gruenwald," he suggested, "you can help by putting out your perception along the road ahead and seeing how it goes. i'd like to make tracks with this crate." gruenwald nodded. thorndyke put the goose-pedal down and the car took off with a howl of passing wind. he said with a grin, "it isn't very often that i get a chance to drive like this, but as long as i've an officer with me--" he was above one forty by the time he let his voice trail off. i watched the back of their heads for a moment. at this speed, thorndyke would have both his mind and his hands full and the cop would be digging at the road as far ahead as his perception could dig a clear appreciation of the road and its hazards. thorndyke's telepathy would be occupied in taking this perception and using it. that left me free to think. i cast a dig behind me, as far behind me as my perception would reach. nothing. i thought furiously. it resulted in nothing. i needed either a parachute or a full set of mekstrom hide to get out of this car now. with either i might have taken a chance and jumped. but as it was, the only guy who could scramble out of this car was dr. james thorndyke. i caught his dropping eyelid in the rear view mirror again and swore at him under my breath. time, and miles, went past. one after the other, very fast. we hissed through towns where the streets had been opened for us and along broad stretches of highway and between cars and trucks running at normal speeds. one thing i must say for thorndyke: he was almost as good a driver as i. * * * * * my second arrival at the medical center was rather quiet. i went in the service entrance, so to speak, and didn't get a look at the enamelled blonde at the front portal. they whiffed me in at a broad gate that was opened by a flunky and we drove for another mile through the grounds far from the main road. we ended up in front of a small brick building and as we went through the front office into a private place, thorndyke told a secretary that she should prepare a legal receipt for my person. i did not like being bandied about like a hunk of merchandise, but nobody seemed to care what i thought. it was all very fast and efficient. i'd barely seated myself and lit a cigarette when the nurse came in with the document which thorndyke signed, she witnessed, and was subsequently handed to officer gruenwald. "is there any danger of me--er--contracting--" he faltered uncertainly to dr. thorndyke. "you'll notice that--" i started to call attention to thorndyke's calmness at being in my presence and was going to invite gruenwald to take a dig at the doctor's hide, but once more the doctor blocked me. "none of us have ever found any factor of contagion," he said. "and we live among mekstrom cases. you'll notice miss clifton's lack of concern." miss clifton, the nurse, turned a calm face to the policeman and gave him her hand. miss clifton had a face and a figure that was enough to make a man forget anything. she knew her part very well; together, the nurse and the policeman left the office together and i wondered just why a non-mekstrom would have anything to do with an outfit like this. thorndyke smiled and said, "i won't tell you, steve. what you don't know won't hurt anybody." "mind telling me what i'm slated for? the high jump? going to watch me writhing in pain as my infection climbs toward my vitals? going to amputate? or are you going to cut it off inch by inch and watch me suffer?" "steve, some things you know already. one, that you are a carrier. there have been no other carriers. we'd like to know what makes you a carrier." #the laboratory again?# i thought. he nodded. "also whether your final contraction of mekstrom's disease removes the carrier-factor." i said hopefully, "i suppose as a mekstrom i'll eventually be qualified to join you?" thorndyke looked blank. "perhaps," he said flatly. to my mind, that flat _perhaps_ was the same sort of reply that mother used to hand me when i wanted something that she did not want to give. i'd been eleven before i got walloped across the bazoo by pointing out to her that _we'll see_ really meant _no_, because nothing that she said it to ever came to pass. "look, thorndyke, let's take off our shoes and stop dancing," i told him. "i have a pretty good idea of what's been going on. i'd like an honest answer to what's likely to go on from here." "i can't give you that." "who can?" he said nothing, but he began to look at me as though i weren't quite bright. that made two of us, i was looking at him in the same manner. my finger itched a bit, saving the situation. i'd been about to forget that thorndyke was a mekstrom and take a swing at him. he laughed at me cynically. "you're in a very poor position to dictate terms," he said sharply. "all right," i agreed reluctantly. "so i'm a prisoner. i'm also under a sentence of death. don't think me unreasonable if i object to it." "the trouble with your thinking is that you expect all things to be black or white and so defined. you ask me, 'am i going to live or die?' and expect me to answer without qualification. i can only tell you that i don't know which. that it all depends." "depends upon exactly what?" he eyed me with a cold stare. "whether you're worthy of living." "who's to decide?" "we will." i grunted, wishing that i knew more latin. i wanted to quote that latin platitude about who watches the watchers. he watched me narrowly, and i expected him to quote me the phrase after having read my mind. but apparently the implication of the phrase did not appeal to him, and so he remained silent. i broke the silence by saying, "what right has any man or collection of men to decide whether i, or anyone else, has the right to live or die?" "it's done all the time," he replied succinctly. "yeah?" "criminals are--" "i'm not a criminal; i've violated no man-made law. i've not even violated very many of the ten commandments. at least, not the one that is punishable by death." he was silent for a moment again, then he said, "steve, you're the victim of loose propaganda." "who isn't?" i granted. "the entire human race is lambasted by one form of propaganda or another from the time the infant learns to sit up until the elderly lays down and dies. we're all guilty of loose thinking. my own father, for instance, had to quit school before he could take any advanced schooling, had to fight his way up, had to collect his advanced education by study, application, and hard practice. he always swore that this long period of hardship strengthened his will and his character and gave him the guts to go out and do things that he'd never have thought of if he'd had an easy life. then the old duck turns right around and swears that he'll never see any son of his take the bumps as he took them." "that's beside the point, steve. i know what sort of propaganda you've been listening to. it's the old do-good line; the everything for anybody line; the no man must die alone line." "is it bad?" dr. thorndyke shrugged. "you've talked about loose propaganda," he said. "well, in this welter of loose propaganda, every man had at least the opportunity of choosing which line of guff he intends to adhere to. i'm even willing to admit that there is both right and wrong on both sides. are you?" i stifled a sour grin. "i shouldn't, because it is a mistake in any political argument to even let on that the other guy is slightly more than an idiot. but as an engineer, i'll admit it." "now that's a help," he said more cheerfully. "you're objecting, of course, to the fact that we are taking the right to pick, choose, and select those people that we think are more likely to be of good advantage to the human race. you've listened to that old line about the hypothetical cataclysm that threatens the human race, and how would you choose the hundred people who are supposed to carry on. well, have you ever eyed the human race in slightly another manner?" "i wouldn't know," i told him. "maybe." "have you ever watched the proceedings of one of those big trials where some conkpot has blown the brains out of a half-dozen citizens by pointing a gun and emptying it at a crowd? if you have, you've been appalled by the sob sisters and do-gooders who show that the vicious character was momentarily off his toggle. we mustn't execute a nut, no matter how vicious he is. we've got to protect him, feed him, and house him for the next fifty years. now, not only is he doing society absolutely no damned good while he's locked up for fifty years, he's also eating up his share of the standard of living. then to top this off, so long as this nut is alive, there is the danger that some soft-hearted fathead will succeed in getting him turned loose once more." "agreed," i said. "but you're again talking about criminals, which i don't think applies in my case." "no, of course not," he said quickly. "i used it to prove to you that this is one way of looking at a less concrete case. carry this soft headed thinking a couple of steps higher. medical science has made it possible for the human race to dilute its strength. epileptics are saved to breed epileptics; haemophiliacs are preserved, neurotics are ironed out, weaknesses of all kinds are kept alive to breed their strain of weakness." "just what has this to do with me and my future?" i asked. "quite a lot. i'm trying to make you agree that there are quite a lot of undeserving characters here on earth." "did i ever deny it?" i asked him pointedly, but he took it as not including present company. but i could see where thorndyke was heading. first eliminate the lice on the body politic. okay, so i am blind and cannot see the sense of incarcerating a murderer that has to be fed, clothed, and housed at my expense for the rest of his natural life. then for the second step we get rid of weaklings, both physical and mental. i'll call step two passably okay, but--? number three includes grifters, beggars, bums, and guys out for the soft touch and here i begin to wonder. i've known some entertaining grifters, beggars, and bums; a few of them chose their way of life for their own, just as i became a mechanical engineer. the trouble with this sort of philosophy is that it starts off with an appeal to justice and logic (i'm quoting myself), but it quickly gets dangerous. start knocking off the bilge-scum. then when the lowest strata of society is gone, start on the next. carry this line of reasoning out to straight aristotelian logic and you come up with parties like you and me, who may have been quite acceptable when compared to the whole cross-section of humanity, but who now have no one but his betters to compete with. i had never reasoned this out before, but as i did right there and then, i decided that society cannot draw lines nor assume a static pose. society must move constantly, either in one direction or the other. and while i object to paying taxes to support some rattlehead for the rest of his natural life, i'd rather have it that way than to have someone start a trend of bopping off everybody who has not the ability to absorb the educational level of the scholar. because, if the trend turned upward instead of downward, that's where the dividing line would end. anarchy at one end, is as bad as tyranny at the other-- "i'm sorry you cannot come to a reasonable conclusion," said dr. thorndyke. "if you cannot see the logic of--" i cut him off short. "look, doc," i snapped, "if you can't see where your line of thinking ends, you're in bad shape." he looked superior. "you're sour because you know you haven't got what it takes." i almost nipped. "you're so damned dumb that you can't see that in any society of supermen, you'd not be qualified to clean out ash trays," i tossed back at him. he smiled self-confidently. "by the time they start looking at my level--if they ever do--you'll have been gone long ago. sorry, cornell. you don't add up." well, that was nothing i didn't know already. in his society, i was a nonentity. yet, somehow, if that's what the human race was coming to under the thorndyke's and the phelps', i didn't care to stay around. "all right," i snapped. "which way do i go from here? the laboratory, or will you dispense with the preliminaries and let me take the high slide right now before this--" i held up my infected finger, "gets to the painful stages." with the air and tone of a man inspecting an interesting specimen impaled on a mounting pin, thorndyke replied: "oh--we have use for the likes of you." xvii it would please me no end to report here that the gang at the medical center were crude, rough, vicious, and that they didn't give a damn about human suffering. unfortunately for my sense of moral balance, i can't. they didn't cut huge slices out of my hide without benefit of anaesthesia. they didn't shove pipe-sized needles into me, or strap me on a board and open me up with dull knives. instead, they treated me as if i'd been going to pay for my treatment and ultimately emerge from the center to go forth and extol its virtues. i ate good food, slept in a clean and comfortable bed, smoked free cigarettes, read the best magazines--and also some of the worst, if i must report the whole truth--and was permitted to mingle with the rest of the patients, guests, victims, personnel, and so forth that were attached to my ward. i was not at any time treated as though i were anything but a willing and happy member of their team. it was known that i was not, but if any emotion was shown, it was sympathy at my plight in not being one of them. this was viewed in the same way as any other accident of birth or upbringing. in my room was another man about my age. he'd arrived a day before me, with an early infection at the tip of his middle toe. he was, if i've got to produce a time-table, about three-eights of an inch ahead of me. he had no worries. he was one of their kind of thinkers. "how'd you connect?" i asked him. "i didn't," he said, scratching his infected toe vigorously. "they connected with me." "oh?" "yeah. i was sleeping tight and not even dreaming. someone rapped on my apartment door and i growled myself out of bed and sort of felt my way. it was three in the morning. guy stood there looking apologetic. 'got a message for you,' he tells me. 'can't it wait until morning?' i snarl back. 'no,' he says. 'it's important!' so i invite him in. he doesn't waste any time at all; his first act is to point at an iron floor lamp in the corner and ask me how much i'd paid for it. i tell him. then this bird drops twice the amount on the coffee table, strides over to the corner, picks up the lamp, and ties the iron pipe into a fancy-looking bowknot. he didn't even grunt. 'mr. mullaney,' he asks me, 'how would you like to be that strong?' i didn't have to think it over. i told him right then and there. then we spent from three ayem to five thirty going through a fast question and answer routine, sort of like a complicated word-association test. at six o'clock i've packed and i'm on my way here with my case of mekstrom's disease." "just like that?" i asked mr. mullaney. "just like that," he repeated. "so now what happens?" "oh, about tomorrow i'll go in for treatment," he said. "seems as how they've got to start treatment before the infection creeps to the first joint or i'll lose the joint." he contemplated me a bit; he was a perceptive and i knew it. "you've got another day or more. that's because your ring finger is longer than my toe." "what's the treatment like?" i asked him. "that i don't know. i've tried to dig the treatment, but it's too far away from here. this is just a sort of preliminary ward; i gather that they know when to start and so on." he veiled his eyes for a moment. he was undoubtedly thinking of my fate. "chess?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly. "why not?" i grinned. my mind wasn't in it. he beat me three out of four. i bedded down about eleven, and to my surprise i slept well. they must have been shoving something into me to make me sleep; i know me very well and i'm sure that i couldn't have closed an eye if they hadn't been slipping me the old closeout powder. for three nights, now, i'd corked off solid until seven ack emma and i'd come alive in the morning fine, fit, and fresh. but on the following morning, mr. mullaney was missing. i never saw him again. at noon, or thereabouts, the end of the ring finger on my left hand was as solid as a rock. i could squeeze it in a door or burn it with a cigarette; i got into a little habit of scratching kitchen matches on it as i tried to dig into the solid flesh with my perception. i growled a bit at my fate, but not much. it was about this time, too, that the slight itch began to change. you know how a deep-felt itch is. it can sometimes be pleasant. like the itch that comes after a fast swim in the salty sea and a dry-out in the bright sun, when the drying salt water makes your skin itch with the vibrant pleasure of just being alive. this is not like the bite of any bug, but the kind that makes you want to take another dive into the ocean instead of trying to scratch it with your claws. well, the itch in my finger had been one of the pleasant kinds. i could sort of scratch it away by taking the steel-hard part of my finger in my other hand and wiggle, briskly. but now the itch turned into a deep burning pain. my perception, never good enough to dig the finer structure clearly, was good enough to tell me that my crawling horror had come to the boundary line of the first joint. it was this pause that was causing the burning pain. according to what i'd been told, if someone didn't do something about me right now, i'd lose the end joint of my finger. nobody came to ease my pain, nor to ease my mind. they left me strictly alone. i spent the time from noon until three o'clock examining my fingertip as i'd not examined it before. it was rock hard, but strangely flexible if i could exert enough pressure on the flesh. it still moved with the flexing of my hands. the fingernail itself was like a chip of chilled steel. i could flex the nail neither with my other hand nor by biting it; between my teeth it had the uncomfortable solidity of a sheet of metal that conveyed to my brain that the old teeth should not try to bite too hard. i tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail; inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formed to make a table leg. i might have been able to pry the crack wider, but the rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary to drive the tiny lever that was my fingertip. i wondered what kind of tool-grinder they used for a manicure. at three-thirty, the door to my room opened and in came scholar phelps, complete with his benign smile and his hearty air. "well," he boomed over-cheerfully, "we meet again, mr. cornell." "under trying circumstances," i said. "unfortunately so," he nodded. "however, we can't all be fortunate." "i dislike being a vital statistic." "so does everybody. yet, from a philosophical point of view, you have no more right to live at the expense of someone else than someone else has a right to live at your expense. it all comes out even in the final accounting. and, of course, if every man were granted a guaranteed immortality, we'd have one cluttered-up world." i had to admit that he was right, but i still could not accept his statistical attitude. not while i'm the statistic. he followed my thought even though he was esper; it wasn't hard to follow anyway. "all right, i admit that this is no time to sit around discussing philosophy or metaphysics or anything of that nature. what you are interested in is you." "how absolutely correct." "you know, of course, that you are a carrier." "so i've come to believe. at least, everybody i seem to have any contact with either turns up missing or comes down with mekstrom's--or both." scholar phelps nodded. "you might have gone on for quite some time if it hadn't been so obvious." i eyed him. "just what went on?" i asked casually. "did you have a clean-up squad following me all the time, picking up the debris? or did you just pick up the ones you wanted? or did the highways make you indulge in a running competition?" "too many questions at once. most of which answers would be best that you did not know. best for us, that is. maybe even for you." i shrugged. "we seem to be bordering on philosophy again when the important point is what you intend to do to me." he looked unhappy. "mr. cornell, it is hard to remain unphilosophical in a case like this. so many avenues of thought have been opened, so many ideas and angles come to mind. we'll readily admit what you've probably concluded; that you as a carrier have become the one basic factor that we have been seeking for some twenty years and more. you are the dirigible force, the last brick in the building, the final answer. or, and i hate to say it, were." "were?" "for all of our knowledge of mekstrom's we know so very little," he said. "in certain maladies the carrier is himself immune. in some we observe that the carrier results from a low-level, incomplete infection with the disease which immunizes him but does not kill the bugs. in others, we've seen the carrier become normal after he has finally contracted the disease. what we must know now is: is steve cornell, the mekstrom carrier, now a non-carrier because he has contracted the disease?" "how are you going to find out?" i asked him. "that's a problem," he said thoughtfully. "one school feels that we should not treat you, since the treatment itself may destroy whatever unknown factor makes you a carrier. the other claims that if we don't treat you, you'll hardly live long enough to permit comprehensive research anyway. a third school believes that there is time to find out whether you are still a carrier, make some tests, and then treat you, after which these tests are to be repeated." rather bitterly, i said, "i suppose i have absolutely no vote." "hardly," his face was pragmatic. "and to which school do you belong?" i asked sourly. "do you want me to get the cure? or am i to die miserably while you take tabs on my blood pressure, or do i merely lose an arm while you're sitting with folded hands waiting for the laboratory report?" "in any case, we'll learn a lot about mekstrom's from you," he said. "even if you die." as caustically as i could, i said, "it's nice to know that i am not going to die in vain." he eyed me with contempt. "you're not afraid to die, are you, mr. cornell?" that's a dirty question to ask any man. sure, i'm afraid to die. i just don't like the idea of being not-alive. as bad as life is, it's better than nothing. but the way he put the question he was implying that i should be happy to die for the benefit of humanity in general, and that's a question that is unfairly loaded. after all, everybody is slated to kick off. there is no other way of resigning from the universe. so if i have to die, it might as well be for the benefit of something, and if it happens to be humanity, so much the better. but when the case is proffered on a silver tray, i feel, "somebody else, not me!" the next argument phelps would be tossing out would be the one that goes, "two thousand years ago, a man died for humanity--" which always makes me sick. no matter how you look at us, there is no resemblance between him and me. i cut him short before he could say it: "whether or not i'm afraid to die, and for good or evil, now or later, is beside the point. i have, obviously, nothing to say about the time, place, and the reasons." we sat there and glared at one another; he didn't know whether to laugh or snarl and i didn't care which he did. it seemed to me that he was leading up to something that looked like the end. then i'd get the standard funeral and statements would be given out that i'd died because medical research had not been able to save me and blah blah blah complete with lack of funds and the medical center charity drive. the result would mean more moola for phelps and higher efficiency for his operations, and to the devil with the rest of the world. "let's get along with it," i snapped. "i've no opinion, no vote, no right of appeal. why bother to ask me how i feel?" calmly he replied, "because i am not a rough-shod, unhuman monster, mr. cornell. i would prefer that you see my point of view--or at least enough of it to admit that there is a bit of right on my side." "seems to me i went through that with thorndyke." "this is another angle. i'm speaking of my right of discovery." "you're speaking of what?" "my right of discovery. you as an engineer should be familiar with the idea. if i were a poet i could write an ode to my love and no one would forbid me my right to give it to her and to nobody else. if i were a cook with a special recipe no one could demand that i hand it over unless i had a special friend. he who discovers something new should be granted the right to control it. if this mekstrom business were some sort of physical patent or some new process, i could apply for a patent and have it for my exclusive use for a period of seventeen years. am i not right?" "yes, but--" "except that my patent would be infringed upon and i'd have no control--" i stood up suddenly and faced him angrily. he did not cower; after all he was a mekstrom. but he did shut up for a moment. "seems to me," i snarled, "that any process that can be used to save human life should not be held secret, patentable, or under the control of any one man or group." "this is an argument that always comes up. you may, of course, be correct. but happily for me, mr. cornell, i have the process and you have not, and it is my own conviction that i have the right to use it on those people who seem, in my opinion, to hold the most for the future advancement of the human race. however, i do not care to go over this argument again, it is tiresome and it never ends. as one of the ancient greek philosophers observed, you cannot change a man's mind by arguing with him. the other fact remains, however, that you do have something to offer us, despite your contrary mental processes." "do go on? what do i have to do to gain this benefit? who do i have to kill?" i eyed him cynically and then added, "or is it 'whom shall i kill?' i like these things to be proper, you know." "don't be sarcastic. i'm serious," he told me. "then stop pussyfooting and come to the point," i snapped. "you know what the story is. i don't. so if you think i'll be interested, why not tell me instead of letting me find out the hard way." "you, of course, were a carrier. maybe you still are. we can find out. in fact, we'll have to find out, before we--" "for god's sake stop it!" i yelled. "you're meandering." "sorry," he said in a tone of apology that surprised me all the way down to my feet. he shook himself visibly and went on from there: "you, if still a carrier, can be of use to the medical center. now do you understand?" sure i understand, but good. as a normal human type, they held nothing over me and just shoved me here and there and picked up the victims after me. but now that i was a victim myself, they could offer me their "cure" only if i would swear to go around the country deliberately infecting the people they wanted among them. it was that--or lie there and die miserably. this had not come to scholar phelps as a sudden flash of genius. he'd been planning this all along; had been waiting to pop this delicate question after i'd been pushed around, had a chance to torture myself mentally, and was undoubtedly soft for anything that looked like salvation. "there is one awkward point," said scholar phelps suavely. "once we have cured you, we would have no hold on you other than your loyalty and your personal honor to fulfill a promise given. neither of us are naive, mr. cornell. we both know that any honorable promise is only as valid as the basic honor involved. since your personal opinion is that this medical treatment should be used indiscriminately, and that our program to better the human race by competitive selection is foreign to your feelings, you would feel honor-bound to betray us. am i not correct?" what could i say to that? first i'm out, then i'm in, now i'm out again. what was phelps getting at? "if our positions were reversed, mr. cornell, i'm sure that you'd seek some additional binding force against me. i shall continue to seek some such lever against you for the same reason. in the meantime, mr. cornell, we shall make a test to see whether we have any real basis for any agreement at all. you may have ceased to be a carrier, you know." "yeah," i admitted darkly. "in the meantime," he said cheerfully, "the least we can do is to treat your finger. i'd hate to have you hedge a deal because we did not deliver your cured body in the whole." he put his head out of the door and summoned a nurse who came with a black bag. from the bag, scholar phelps took a skin-blast hypo and a small metal box, the top of which held a small slender, jointed platform and some tiny straps. he strapped my finger to this platform and then plugged in a length of line cord to the nearest wall socket. the little platforms moved; the one nearest my wrist vibrated rapidly across a very small excursion that tickled like the devil. the end platform moved in an arc, flexing the finger tip from straight to about seventy degrees. this moved fairly slow but regularly up and down. "i'll not fool you," he said drily. "this is going to hurt." he set the skin-blast hypo on top of the joint and let it go. for a moment the finger felt cold, numb, pleasant. then the shock wore away and the tip of my finger, my whole finger and part of my hand shocked me with the most excruciating agony that the hide of man ever felt. flashes and waves of pain darted up my arm to the elbow and the muscles in my forearm jumped. the sensitive nerve in my elbow sang and sent darting waves of zigzag needles up to my shoulder. my hand was a source of searing heat and freezing cold and the pain of being crushed and twisted and wrenched out of joint all at the same time. phelps wiped my wet face with a towel, loaded another hypo and let me have it in the shoulder. gradually the stuff took hold and the awful pain began to subside. not all the way, it just diminished from absolutely unbearable to merely terrible. i knew at that moment why a trapped animal will bite off its own foreleg to get free of the trap. from the depths of his bag he found a bottle and poured a half-tumbler for me; it went down like a whiskey-flavored soft drink. it had about as much kick as when you pour a drink of water into a highball glass that still holds a dreg of melted ice and diluted liquor. but it burned like fury once it hit my stomach and my mind began to wobble. he'd given me a slug of the pure quill, one hundred proof. as some sort of counter-irritant, it worked. very gradually the awful pain in my hand began to subside. "you can take that manipulator off in an hour or so," he told me. "and in the meantime we'll get along with our testing." i gathered that they could stop this treatment anywhere along the process if i did not measure up. xviii midnight. the manipulator had been off my hand for several hours, and it was obvious that my mekstrom's was past the first joint and creeping up towards the next. i eyed it with some distaste; as much as i wanted to have a fine hard body, i was not too pleased at having agony for a companion every time the infection crossed a joint. i began to wonder about the wrist; this is a nice complicated joint and should, if possible, exceed the pain of the first joint in the ring finger. i'd heard tell, of course, that once you've reached the top, additional torture does not hurt any greater. i'd accepted this statement as it was printed. but now i was not too sure that what i'd just been through was not one of those exceptions that take place every now and then to the best of rules. i was still in a dark and disconsolate mood. but i'd managed to eat, and i'd shaved and showered, and i'd hit the hay because it was as good a place to be as anywhere else. i could lie there and dig the premises with my esper. there were very few patients in this building, and none were done up like the character in the macklin place. they moved the patients to some other part of the grounds when the cure started. there weren't very many nurses, doctors, scholars, or other personnel around, either. outside along one side of a road was a small lighted house that was obviously a sort of guard, but it was casual instead of being formal and military in appearance. the ground, instead of being patrolled by human guards (which might have caused some comment) was carefully laid off into checkerboard squares by a complicated system of photobeams and induction bridges. you've probably read about how the job of casing a joint should be done. i did it the same way. i dug back and forth, collecting the layout from the back door of my building towards the nearest puff of dead area. this coign of safety billowed outward from the pattern towards the building like an arm of cumulus cloud and the top of it rose like a column to a height above my range. it sort of leaned forward but it did not lean far enough to be directly above the building. the far side of the column was just like the rear side; even though i'm well trained, it always startles me when i perceive the far side of a smallish dead area. i'm inclined like everybody else to consider perception on a line-of-sight basis instead of on a sort of all-around grasp. i let my thinker run free. if i could direct a breakout from this joint with a lot of outside help, i'd have a hot jetcopter pilot come down the dead-area column with a dead engine. the medical center did not have any radar, probably on the proposition that too high a degree of security indicated a high degree of top-secret material to hide. so i'd come down dead engine, land, and wait it out. timing would have to be perfect, because i, the prisoner, would have to make a fast gallop across a couple of hundred yards of wide open psi area, scale a tall fence topped with barbed wire, cross another fifty yards into the murk, and then find my rescuer. the take off would be fast once i'd located the 'copter in the murk, and everything would depend upon a hot pilot who felt confident enough in his engine and his rotorjets to let 'em go with a roar and a lift without warmup. during which time, unfortunately for all plans, the people at the medical center would have been reading my mind and would probably have that dead patch well patrolled with big, rough gentlemen armed with stuff heavy enough to stop a tank. lacking any sort of device or doodad that would conceal my mind from prying telepaths, about the only thing i could do was to lay here in my soft bed and daydream of making my escape. eventually i went to sleep and dreamed that i was hunting mallards with a fly-rod baited with a stale doughnut. the only thing that bothered me was a couple of odd-looking guys who thought that the way to hunt mallards was with shotguns, and their dress was just as out of taste as their equipment. who ever hunted ducks from a canoe, dressed in windbreakers and hightopped boots? eventually they bought some ducks from me and went home, leaving me to my slumbers. * * * * * about eight in the morning, there was a tentative tap on my door. while i was growling about why they should bother tapping, the door opened and a woman came in with my breakfast tray. she was not my nurse; she was the enamelled blonde receptionist. she had lost some of her enamelled sophistication. it was not evident in her make-up, her dress, or her hair-do. these were perfection. in fact, she bore that store-window look that made me think of an automaton, triggered to make the right noises and to present the proper expression at the correct time. as though she had never had a thought of her own or an emotion that was above the level of very mild interest. as if the perfection of her dress and the characterless beauty of her face were more important than anything else in her life. but the loss of absolute plate-glass impersonality was gone, and it took me some several moments to dig it out of her appearance. then i saw it. her eyes. they no longer looked glassily out of that clear oval face at a point about three inches above my left shoulder, but they were centered on me from no matter what point in the room she'd be as she went about the business of running open the blinds, checking the this and that and the other like any nurses' helper. finally she placed my tray on the bed-table and stood looking down at me. from my first meeting with her i knew she was no telepath, so i bluntly said, "where's the regular girl? where's my nurse?" "i'm taking over for the time," she told me. her voice was strained; she'd been trying to use that too-deeply cultured tone she used as the professional receptionist but the voice had cracked through the training enough to let some of her natural tone come through. "why?" then she relaxed completely, or maybe it was a matter of coming unglued. her face allowed itself to take on some character and her body ceased being that rigid window-dummy type. "what's your trouble--?" i asked her softly. she had something on her mind that was a bit too big for her, but her training was not broad enough to allow her to get it out. i hoped to help, if i could. i also wanted to know what she was doing here. if scholar phelps was thinking about putting a lever on me of the female type, he'd guessed wrong. she was looking at me and i could see a fragment of fright in her face. "is it terrible?" she asked me in a whisper. "is what terrible?" "me--me--mekstrom's d--disease--" the last word came out with a couple of big tears oozing from closed lids. "why?" i asked. "do i look all shot to bits?" she opened the eyes and looked at me. "does it hurt?" i remembered the agony of my finger and tried to lie. "a little," i told her. "but i'm told that it was because i'd waited too long for my first treatment." i hoped that i was correct; maybe it was wishful thinking, but i claim that right. i didn't want to go through the same agony every time we crossed a joint. i reached over to the bedside table and found my cigarettes. i slipped two up and offered one of them to her. she put a tentative hand forward, slowly, a scared-to-touch reluctance in her motion. this changed as her hand came forward. it was the same sort of reluctance that you feel when you start out to visit the dentist for a roaring tooth. the closer you get to the dentist's office the less inclined you are to finish the job. then at some indeterminate point you cross the place of no return and from that moment you go forward with increased determination. she finally made the cigarette package but she was very careful not to touch my hand as she took out the weed. then, as if she'd reached that point of no return, her hand slipped around the package and caught me by the wrist. we were statue-still for three heartbeats. then i lifted my other hand, took out the cigarette she'd missed, and held it forward for her. she took it. i dropped the pack and let my hand slip back until we were holding hands, practically. she shuddered. i flipped my lighter and let her inhale a big puff before i put the next question: "why are you here and what goes on?" in a flat, dry voice she said, "i'm--supposed--to--" and let it trail away without finishing it. "guinea pig?" i blurted bluntly. she collapsed like a deflated balloon. next, she had her face buried in my shoulder, bawling like a hurt baby. i stroked her shoulder gently, but she shuddered away from my hand as though it were poison. i shoved her upright and shook her a bit. "don't blubber like an idiot. sit there and talk like a human being!" it took her a minute of visible effort before she said, "you're supposed to be a--carrier. i'm supposed to find out--whether you are--a carrier." well, i'd suspected something of that sort. shakily she asked me, "how do i get it, mr. cornell?" i eyed her sympathetically. then i held up my left hand and looked at the infection. this was the finger that had been gummed to bits by the mekstrom infant back in homestead. with a shrug of uncertainty, i lifted her hand to my mouth. i felt with my tongue and dug with my perception until i had a tiny fold of her skin between my front teeth. then sharply, i bit down, drawing blood. she jerked, stiffened, closed her eyes and took a deep breath but she did not cry out. "that, if anything, should do it," i said flatly. "now go out and get some iodine for the cut. human-bite is likely to become infected with something bad. and i don't think antiseptic will hurt the mekstrom infection if it's taken place." they'd given me the antiseptic works in homestead, i recalled. "now, miss nameless, you sit over there and tell me how come this distressing tableau?" "oh--i can't," she cried. then she left in a hurry sucking on her bleeding finger. i didn't need any explanation; i'd just wanted my suspicions confirmed. someone had a lever on her. maybe someone she loved was a mekstrom and her loyalty was extracted because of it. the chances were also high that she'd been given to understand that they'd accept her as a member if she ever caught mekstrom's; and they'd taken my arrival as a fine chance to check me and get her at the same time. i wondered about her; she was no big-brain. i couldn't quite see the stratified society outlined by scholar phelps as holding a position open for her in the top echelon. except she was a woman, attractive if you like your women beautiful and dull-minded, and she probably would be happy to live in a little vacuum-type world bounded on all sides with women's magazines, lace curtains, tv soap opera, and a corral full of little mekstrom kids. i grinned. funny how the proponents of the stratified society always have their comeuppance by the need of women whose minds are bent on mundane things like homes and families. well, i hoped she caught it, if that's what she wanted. i was willing to bet my life that she cared a lot more for being with her man than she did for the cockeyed society he was supporting. i finished my breakfast and went out to watch a couple of telepaths playing chess until lunch time and then gave up. telepathic chess was too much like playing perceptive poker. then after lunch came the afternoon full of laboratory tests, inspections, experiments, and so forth; they didn't do much that hadn't been tried at homestead, and i surprised them again by being able to help in their never-ending blood counts and stuff of that sort. they did not provide me with a new room mate, so i wandered around after dinner hoping that i could avoid both thorndyke and phelps. i didn't want to get into another fool social-structure argument with them and the affair of the little scared receptionist was more than likely to make me say a few words that might well get me cast into the outer darkness for their mere semantic content. once more i hit the sack early. and, once more, there came a tap on my door about eight o'clock. it was not a tentative little frightened tap this time, it was more jovial and eager sounding. my reaction was about the same. since it was their show and their property, i couldn't see any reason why they made this odd lip-service to politeness. it was the receptionist again. she came in with a big wistful smile and dropped my tray on the bed table. "look," she cried. she held up her hand. the bleeding had stopped and there was a thin film over the cut. i dug at it and nodded; it was the first show of mekstrom flesh without a doubt. "that's it, kid." "i know," she said happily. "golly, i could kiss you." then before i could think of all the various ways in which the word "golly" sounded out of character for her, she launched herself into my arms and was busily erasing every attempt at logical thought with one of the warmest, no-holds-barred smoocheroo that i'd enjoyed for what seemed like years. since i'd held catherine in my arms in her apartment just before we'd eloped, i'd spent my time in the company of nurse farrow who held no emotional appeal to me, and the rest of my female company had been mekstroms whose handholding might twist off a wrist if they got a thrill out of it. about the time i began to respond with enthusiasm and vigor, she extricated herself from my clutch and slid back to the foot of the bed out of reach. a little breathlessly she said, "harry will thank you for this." _this_ meant the infection in her finger. then she was gone and i was thinking, _harry should drop dead_! then i grinned at myself like the cheshire cat because i realized that i was so valuable a property that they couldn't afford to let me die. no matter what, i'd be kept alive. and after having things go so sour for so long a time, things were about to take a fast turn and go my way. i discounted the baby-bite affair. even if the baby were another carrier, it would take a long time before the kid was old enough to be trusted in his aim. i discounted it even more because i hadn't been roaring around the countryside biting innocent citizens. mere contact was enough; if the bite did anything, it may have hastened the process. so here i was, a nice valuable property, with a will of my own. i could either throw in with phelps and bite only phelps' chosen aristocrats, or i could go back to the highways and bite everybody in sight. i laughed at my image in the mirror. i am a democratic sort of soul, but when it comes to biting, there's some i'd rather bite than others. i bared my teeth at my image, but it was more of a leering smile of the tooth-paste ad than a fierce snarl. my image looked pensive. it was thinking, _steve, old carnivore, ere you go biting anybody, you've first got to bite your way out of the medical center._ xix one hour later they pulled my fangs without benefit of anaesthesia. thorndyke came in to inspect the progress of my infection and allowed as how i'd be about ready for the full treatment in a few days. "we like to delay the full treatment as long as possible," he told me, "because it immobilizes the patient too long as it is." he pressed a call bell, waited, and soon the door opened to admit a nurses' helper pushing a trundle cart loaded with medical junk. i still don't know what was on the cart because i was too flabbergasted to notice it. i was paying all my attention to catherine, cheerful in her gray lady uniform, being utterly helpful, bright, gay, and relaxed. i was tongue tied, geflummoxed, beaten down, and--well, just speechless. catherine was quite professional about her help. she loaded the skin-blast hypo and slapped it into thorndyke's open hand. her eyes looked into mine and they smiled reassuringly. her hand was firm as she took my arm; she locked her strength on my hand and held it immobile while thorndyke shot me in the second joint. there was a personal touch to her only briefly when she breathed, "steve, i'm so glad!" and then went on about her work. the irony of it escaped me; but later i did recall the oddity of congratulating someone who's just contracted a disease. then that wave of agony hit me, and the only thing i can remember through it was catherine folding a towel so that the hem would be on the inside when she wiped the beads of sweat from my face. she cradled my head between her hands and crooned lightly to me until the depths of the pain was past. then she got efficient again and waved thorndyke aside to see to the little straps on the manipulator herself. she adjusted them delicately. then she poured me a glass of ice water and put it where i could reach it with my other hand. she left after one long searching look into my eyes, and i knew that she would be back later to talk to me alone. this seemed all right with dr. thorndyke, the wily telepath who would be able to dig a reconstruction of our private talk with a little urging on his part. after catherine was gone, thorndyke smiled down at me with cynical self-confidence. "there's your lever, steve," he said. the dope helped to kill all but the worst waves of searing pain; between them i managed to grind out, "how did you sell her that bill of goods, thorndyke?" his reply was scornful. "maybe she likes your hide all in one piece," he grunted. he left me with my mind a-whirl with thoughts and pain. the little manipulator was working my second finger joint up and down rhythmically, and with each move came pain. it also exercised the old joint, which had grown so rigid that my muscles hadn't been able to move it for several hours. that added agony, too. the dope helped, but it also dimmed my ability to concentrate. up to a certain point everything was quite logical and easy to understand. catherine was here because they had contacted her through some channel and said, "throw in with us and we'll see that your lover does not die miserably." so much was reasonable, but after that point the whole thing began to take on a mad puzzle-like quality. given normal circumstances, catherine would have come to me as swiftly as i'd have gone to her if i'd known how. not only that, but i'd probably have sworn eternal fealty to them for their service even though i could not stand their way of thinking. but catherine was smart enough to realize that i, as the only known carrier of mekstrom's disease, was more valuable live than dead. why, then, had catherine come here to place herself in their hands? alone, she might have gone off half-cocked in an emotional tizzy. but the highways had good advisers who should have pointed out that steve cornell was one man alive who could walk with impunity among friend or foe. why, they hadn't even tried to collect me until it became evident that i was in line for the old treatment. then they had to take me in, because the medical center wanted any information they could get above and beyond the fact that i was a carrier. if someone from homestead had been in that courtroom, i'd now be among friends. then the ugly thought hit me and my mind couldn't face it for some time. _reorientation._ catherine's cheerful willingness to help them must be reorientation and nothing else. now, although i've mentioned reorientation before, what i actually know about it is meager. it makes dr. jekylls out of former mr. hydes and the transformation is complete. it can be done swiftly; the rapidity depends upon the strength of the mind of the operator compared to the mind of the subject. it is slightly harder to reorient a defiant mind than a willing one. it sticks unless someone else begins to tinker again. it is easier to make a good man out of a bad one than the reverse, although the latter is eminently possible. this is too difficult a problem to discuss to the satisfaction of everybody, but it seems to go along with the old theory that "good" does benefit the tribe of mankind in the long run, while "bad" things cause trouble. i'll say no more than to point out that no culture based upon theft, murder, piracy, and pillage, has ever survived. the thought of catherine's mind being tampered with made me seethe with anger. i forgot my pain and began to probe around wildly, and as i probed i began to know the real feeling of helpless futility. for here i was, practically immobilized and certainly dependent upon them for help. this was no time to attempt a rescue of my sweetheart--who would only be taken away kicking and screaming all the way from here to the first place where i could find a haven and have her re-reoriented. the latter would not be hard; among the other things i knew about reorientation was that it could be negated by some strong emotional ties and a personal background that included worthy objection to the new personality. for my perceptive digging i came up with nothing but those things that any hospital held. patients, nurses, interns, orderlies; a couple of doctors, a scholar presiding over a sheaf of files. and finally catherine puttering over an autoclave. she was setting out a string of instruments under the tutelage of a superintendent of nurses who was explaining how the job should be done. i took a deep, thankful breath. her mind was occupied enough to keep her from reading the dark thoughts that were going through mine. i did not even want a loved one to know how utterly helpless and angry i felt. and then, because i was preoccupied with catherine and my own thoughts, the door opened without my having taken a dig at the opener beforehand. the arrival was all i needed to crack wide open in a howling fit of hysteria. it was so pat. i couldn't help but let myself go: "well! this looks like old home week!" miss gloria farrow, registered nurse, did not respond to my awkward joviality. her face, if anything, was darker than my thoughts. i doubted that she had her telepathy working; people who get that wound up find it hard to even see and hear straight, let alone think right. and telepathy or perception goes out of kilter first because the psi is a very delicate factor. she eyed me coldly. "you utter imbecile," she snarled. "you--" "whoa, baby!" i roared. "slow down. i'm a bit less than bright, but what have i done now?" i'd have slapped her across the face as an anodyne if she hadn't been mekstrom. farrow cooled visibly, then her face sort of came apart and she sort of flopped forward onto the bed and buried her face in my shoulder. i couldn't help but make comparisons; she was like a hunk of marble, warm and vibrant. like having a statue crying on my shoulder. she sagged against me like a loose bag of cement and her hands clutched at my shoulder blades like a pair of c-clamps. a big juicy tear dropped from her cheek to land on my chest, and i was actually surprised to find that a teardrop from a mekstrom did not land like a drop of mercury. it just splashed like any other drop of water, spread out, and made my chest wet. eventually i held her up from me, tried to shake her gently, and said, "now what's the shooting all about, farrow?" she shook her head as if to clear her thinking gear. "steve," she said in a quietly serious tone, "i've been such an utter fool." "you're not unique, farrow," i told her. "people have been doing damfool stunts since--" "i know," she broke in. then with an effort at light-heartedness, she added, "there must be a different version of that garden of eden story. eve is always blamed as having tempted adam. somewhere, old adam must have been slightly to blame--?" i didn't know what she was driving toward, but i stroked her hair and waited. she was probably right. it still takes two of a kind to make one pair. "steve--get out of here! while you're safe!" "huh?" i blurted. "what cooks, farrow?" "i was a nice patsy," she said. she sat up and wiped her eyes. "i was a fool. steve, if james thorndyke had asked me to jump off the roof, i'd have asked him 'what direction?' that's how fat-headed i am." "yes?" something was beginning to form, now. "i--led you on, steve." that blinkoed me. the phrase didn't jell. the half a minute she'd spent bawling on my shoulder with my arms around her had been the first physical contact i'd ever had with nurse farrow. it didn't seem-- "no, steve. not that way. i couldn't see you for thorndyke any more than you could see me for catherine." her telepathy had returned, obviously; she was in better control of herself. "steve," she said, "i led you on; did everything that thorndyke told me to. you fell into it like a rock. oh--it was going to be a big thing. all i had to do was to haul you deeper into this mess, then i'd disappear strangely. then we'd be--tog--ether--we'd be--" she started to come unglued again but stopped the dissolving process just before the wet and gooey stage set in. she seemed to put a set in her shoulders, and then she looked down at me with pity. "poor esper," she said softly, "you couldn't really know--" "know what?" i asked harshly. "he fooled me--too," she said, in what sounded like a complete irrelevancy. "look, farrow, try and make a bit of sense to a poor perceptive who can't read a mind. keep it running in one direction, please?" again, as apparently irrelevant, she said, "he's a top grade telepath; he knows control--" "control--?" i asked blankly. "you don't know," she said. "but a good telepath can think in patterns that prevent lesser telepaths from really digging deep. thorndyke is brilliant, of scholar grade, really. he--" "let's get back to it, farrow. what's cooking?" sternly she tossed her head. it was an angry motion, one that showed her disdain for her own tears and her own weakness. "your own sweet catherine." i eyed her, not coldly but with a growing puzzlement. i tried to formulate my own idea but she went on, briskly, "that accident of yours was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to you, steve." "how long have i been known to be a mekstrom carrier?" i asked bluntly. "no more than three weeks before you met catherine lewis," she told me as bluntly. "it took the medical center that long to work her into a position to meet you, steve." that put the icing on the cake. if nothing else, it explained why catherine was here willingly. i didn't really believe it because no one can turn one hundred and eighty degrees without effort, but i couldn't deny the fact that the evidence fits the claim. if what farrow said were true, my marriage to catherine would have provided them with the same lever as the little blonde receptionist. the pile-up must have really fouled up their plans. "it did, steve," said farrow, who had been following my mental ramblings. "the highways had to step in and help. this fouled things up for both sides." "both sides?" i asked, completely baffled. she nodded. "until the accident, the medical center did not know that the highways existed. but when catherine dropped completely out of sight, thorndyke did a fine job of probing you. that's when he came upon the scant evidence of the highway sign and the mental impression of the elder harrison lifting the car so that phillip could get you out. then he knew, and--" "farrow," i snapped, "there are a lot of holes in your story. for instance--" she held up a hand to stop me. "steve," she said quietly, "you know how difficult it is for a non-telepath to find someone he can trust. but i'm trying to convince you that--" i stopped farrow this time. "how can i believe you now?" i asked her pointedly. "you seem to have a part in this side of the quiet warfare." nurse farrow made a wry face as though she'd just discovered that the stuff she had in her mouth was a ball of wooly centipedes. "i'm a woman," she said simply. "i'm soft and gullible and easily talked into complacency. but i've just learned that their willingness to accept women is based upon the fact that no culture can thrive without women to propagate the race. i find that i am--" she paused, swallowed, and her voice became strained with bitterness, "--useful as a breeding animal. just one of the peasants whose glory lies in carrying their heirs. but i tell you, steve--" and here she became strong and her voice rang out with a vigorous rejection of her future, "i'll be forever damned if i will let my child be raised with the cockeyed notion that he has some god-granted right to rule." my vigilant sense of perception had detected a change in the human-pattern in the building. people were moving--no, it was one person who was moving. down in the laboratory below, and at the other end of the building, catherine was still working over the autoclave and instruments. the waspish-looking superintendent had taken off for somewhere else, and while catherine was alone now, she was about to be joined by dr. thorndyke. half afraid that my perception of them would touch off their own telepathic sense of danger, i watched deliberately. the door opened and thorndyke came in; catherine turned from her work and said something, which of course i could not possibly catch. #what are they saying, farrow?# i snapped mentally. "i don't know. they're too far for my range." i swore, but i didn't really have to have a dialog script. nor did they do the obvious; what they did was far more telling. catherine turned and patted his cheek. they laughed at one another, and then catherine began handing thorndyke the instruments out of the autoclave, which he proceeded to mix in an unholy mess in the surgical tray. catherine saw what he was doing and made some remark; then threatened him with a pair of haemostats big enough to clamp off a three-inch fire hose. it was pleasant enough looking horseplay; the sort of intimacy that people have when they've been together for a long time. thorndyke did not look at all frightened of the haemostats, and catherine did not really look as though she'd follow through with her threat. they finally tangled in a wrestle for the instrument, and thorndyke took it away from her. they leaned against a cabinet side by side, their elbows touching, and went on talking as if they had something important to discuss in the midst of their fun. it could have been reorientation or it could have been catherine's real self. i still couldn't quite believe that she had played me false. my mind spinned from one side to the other until i came up with a blunt question that came to my lips without any mental planning. i snapped, "farrow, what grade of telepath is catherine?" "doctor grade," she replied flatly. "might have taken some pre-scholar training if economics hadn't interfered. i'd not really call her rhine scholar material, but i'm prejudiced against her." if what farrow said was true, catherine was telepath enough to control and marshall her mind to a faretheewell. she could think and plan to herself in the presence of another telepath without giving her plots away. she was certainly smart enough to lead one half-trained perceptive around by a ring in my nose. me? i was as big a fool as farrow. xx nurse farrow caught my hand. "steve," she snapped out in a rapid, flat voice, "think only one thought. think of how catherine is here; that she came here to protect your life and your future!" "huh?" "think it!" she almost cried. "she's coming!" i nearly fumbled it. then i caught on. catherine was coming; to remove the little finger manipulator and to have a chit-chat with me. i didn't want to see her, and i was beginning to wish--then i remembered that one glimmer out of me that i knew the truth and everything would be higher than orbital station one. i shoved my mind into low gear and started to think idle thoughts, letting myself sort of daydream. i was convincing to myself; it's hard to explain exactly, but i was play-thinking like a dramatist. i fell into it; it seemed almost truth to me as i roamed on and on. i'd been trapped and catherine had come here to hand herself over as a hostage against my good behavior. she'd escaped the highways bunch or maybe she just left them quietly. somehow phelps had seen to it that catherine got word--i didn't know how, but that was not important. the important thing was catherine being here as a means of keeping me alive and well. i went on thinking the lie. catherine came in shortly and saw what nurse farrow was doing. "i was supposed to do that," said catherine. nurse farrow straightened up from her work of loosening the straps on the manipulator. "sorry," she said in a cool, crisp voice. "i didn't know that. this is usually my job. it's a rather delicate proposition, you know." there was a chill of professional rebuff in farrow's voice. it was the pert white hat and the gold pin looking down upon the gray uniform with no adornment. catherine looked a bit uncomfortable but she apparently had to take it. catherine tried lamely, "you see, mr. cornell is my fiancée." farrow jumped on that one hard. "i'm aware of that. so let's not forget that scholars of medicine do not treat their own loved ones for ethical reasons." catherine took it like a slap across the face with an iced towel. "i'm sure that dr. thorndyke would not have let me take care of him if i'd not been capable," she replied. "perhaps dr. thorndyke did not realize at the time that mr. cornell would be ready for the treatment department. or," she added slyly, "have you been trained to prepare a patient for the full treatment?" "the full treatment--? dr. thorndyke did not seem to think--" "please," said farrow with that cold crispness coming out hard, "as a nurse i must keep my own opinion to myself, as well as keeping the opinions of doctors to myself. i take orders only and i perform them." that was a sharp shot; practically telling catherine that she, as a nurses' helper, had even less right to go shooting off her mouth. catherine started to reply but gave it up. instead she came over and looked down at me. she cooed and stroked my forehead. "ah, steve," she breathed, "so you're going for the treatment. think of me, steve. don't let it hurt too much." i smiled thinly and looked up into her eyes. they were soft and warm, a bit moist. her lips were full and red and they were parted slightly; the lower lip glistened slightly in the light. these were lips i'd kissed and found sweet; a face i'd held between my hands. her hair fluffed forward a trifle; threatened to cascade down over her shoulders. no, it was not at all hard to lie there and go on thinking all the soft-sweet thoughts i'd once hoped might come true-- she recoiled, her face changing swiftly from its mask of sweet concern to one of hard calculation. i'd slipped with that last hunk of thinking and given the whole affair away. catherine straightened up and turned to head for the door. she took one step and caved in like a wet towel. over her still-falling body i saw nurse farrow calmly reloading the skin-blast hypo, which she used to fire a second load into the base of catherine's neck, just below the shoulder blades. "that," said farrow succinctly, "should keep her cold for a week. i just wish i'd been born with enough guts to commit murder." "what--?" "get dressed," she snapped. "it's cold outside, remember?" i started to dress as farrow hurled my clothing out of the closet at me. she went on in the meantime: "i knew you couldn't keep it entirely concealed from her. she's too good a telepath. so while you were holding her attention, i let her have a shot in the neck. one of the rather bad things about being a mekstrom is that minor items like the hypo don't register too well." i stopped. "isn't that bad? seems to me that i've heard that pain is a necessary factor for the preservation of the--" "stop yapping and dress," snapped farrow. "pain is useful when it's needed. it isn't needed in the case of a pin pricking the hide of a mekstrom. when a mekstrom gets in the way of something big enough to damage him physically, then it hurts him." "sort of when a locomotive falls on their head?" i grunted. "keep on dressing. we're not out of this jungle yet." "so have you any plans?" she nodded soberly. "yes, steve. once you asked me to be your telepath, to complete your team. i let you down. now i've picked you up again, and from here on--out--i--" i nodded. "sold," i told her. "good. now, steve, dig the hallway." i did. there was no one there. i opened my mouth to tell her so, and then closed it foolishly. "dig the hallway down to the left. farther. to the door down there--three beyond the one you're perceiving now--is there a wheelchair there?" "wheelchair?" i blurted. "steve, this is a hospital. they don't even let a man with an aching tooth walk to the toothache ward. he rides. now, you keep a good esper watch on the hall and if anybody looks out while i'm gone, just cast a deep dig at their face. it's possible that at this close range i can identify them from the perceived image in your mind. although, god knows, no two people ever _see_ anything alike, let alone perceive it." she slipped out, leaving me with the recumbent form of my former sweetheart. her face had fallen into the relaxed expression of sleep, sort of slack and unbuttoned. #tough, baby,# i thought as i closed my eyes so that all my energy could be aimed at the use of my perception. farrow was going down the hall like a professional heading for the wheelchair on a strict order. no one bothered to look out; she reached the locker room and dusted the wheelchair just as if she'd been getting it for a real patient. (the throb in my finger returned for a parthian shot and i remembered that i _was_ a real patient!) she trundled the chair back and into my room. "in," she said. "and keep that perception aimed on the hallway, the elevator, and the center corridor stairs." she packed me with a blanket, tucking it so that my shoes and overclothing would not show, doing the job briskly. then she scooped catherine up from the floor and dropped her into my bed, and then rolled catherine into one of those hospital doodads that hospitals use for male and female alike as bedclothing. "anyone taking a fast dig in here will think she's a patient--unless the digger knows that this room is supposed to be occupied by one steve cornell, obviously male. now, steve, ready to steer?" "steer?" "steer by esper. i'll drive. oh--i know the way," she told me with a chuckle. "you just keep your perception peeled for characters who might be over-nosy. i'll handle the rest." we went along the hallway. i took fast digs at the rooms and hall ahead of us; the whole coast seemed clear. waiting for the two-bit elevator was nerve wracking; hospitals always have such poky elevators. but eventually it came and we trundled aboard. the pilot was no big-dome. he smiled at nurse farrow and nodded genially at me. he was probably a blank, jockeying an elevator is about the top job for a non-psi these days. but as the elevator started down, a doctor came out of one of the rooms on the floor below. he took a fast look at the indicator above the elevator door and made a dash to thumb the button. the elevator came to a grinding halt and he got on. this bothered me, but farrow merely simpered at the guy and melted him down to size. she made some remark to him that i couldn't hear, but from the sudden increase of his pulse rate, i gathered that she'd really put him off guard. he replied in the same unintelligible tone and reached for her hand. she held his hand, and if the guy was thinking of me, my name is sing hoy low and i am a chinese policeman. he held her hand until we hit the first floor, and he debarked with a calf-like glance at nurse farrow. we went on to the ground floor and down the lower corridor to the end, where farrow spent another lifetime and a half filling out a white cardboard form. the superintendent eyed me with a sniff. "i'll call the car," she said. i half-expected farrow to make some objection, but she quietly nodded and we waited for another lifetime until a big car whined to a stop outside. two big guys in white coats came in, tripped the lever on back of the wheelchair and stretched me out flat and low-slung on the same wheels. it was a neat conversion from wheelchair to wheeled stretcher, but as farrow trundled me out feet first into the cold, i felt a sort of nervous chill somewhere south of my navel. she swung me around at the last minute and i was shoved head first into the back of the car. car? this was a full-fledged ambulance, about as long as a city block and as heavy as a battleship. it was completely fitted for everything that anybody could think of, including a great big muscular turbo-electric power plant capable of putting many miles per behind the tail-pipe. the door closed on my feet, and we took off with farrow sitting right behind the two big hospital attendants, one of whom was driving and the other of whom was ogling farrow in a calculating manner. she invited the ogle. heck, she did it in such a way that i couldn't help ogling a bit myself. if i haven't said that farrow was an attractive woman, it was because i hadn't really paid attention to her looks. but now i went along and ogled, realizing in the dimmer and more obscure recesses of my mind that if i ogled in a loudly lewd perceptive manner, i'd not be thinking of what she was doing. so while i was pleasantly occupied in ogling, farrow slipped two more hypos out from under her clothing. she slipped her hands out sidewise on the backs of their seats, put her face between them and said, "anybody got a cigarette, fellows?" the next that took place happened, in order of occurrence, as follows: the driver grunted and turned his head to look at her. the other guy fumbled for a cigarette. driver poked at the lighter on the dash, still dividing his attention between the road and nurse farrow. the man beside him reached for the lighter when it popped out and he held it for her while she puffed it into action. farrow fingered the triggers on the skin-blast hypos. the man beside the driver replaced the lighter in its socket on the dash. the driver slid aside and to the floor, a second before the other hospital orderly flopped down like a deflated balloon. the ambulance took a swoop to the right, nosed down into a shallow ditch and leaped like a shot deer out on the other side. farrow went over the back of the seat in a flurry and i rolled off of my stretcher into the angle of the floor and the sidewall. there was a rumble and then a series of crashes before we came to a shuddering halt. i came up from beneath a pile of assorted medical supplies, braced myself against the canted deck, and looked out the wind-shield. the trunk of a tree split the field of view as close to dead center as it could be. "out, steve," said farrow, untangling herself from the steering wheel and the two attendants. "out!" "what next?" i asked her. "we've made enough racket to wake the statue of lincoln. out and run for it." "which way?" "follow me!" she snapped, and took off. even in nurse's shoes with those semi-heels, farrow made time in a phenomenal way. i lost ground steadily. luckily it was still early in the afternoon, so i used my perception to keep track of her once she got out of sight. she was following the gently rolling ground, keeping to the lower hollows and gradually heading toward a group of buildings off in the near-distance. i caught up with her just as we hit a tiny patch of dead area; just inside the area she stopped and we flopped on the ground and panted our lungs full of nice biting cold air. then she pointed at the collection of buildings and said, "steve, take a few steps out of this deadness and take a fast dig. look for cars." i nodded; in a few steps i could send my esper forward to dig the fact that there were several cars parked in a row near one of the buildings. i wasted no time in digging any deeper, i just retreated into the dead area and told her what i'd seen. "take another dig, steve. take a dig for ignition keys. we've got to steal." "i don't mind stealing." i took another trip into the open section and gandered at ignition locks. i tried to memorize the ones with keys hanging in the locks but failed to remember all of them. "okay, steve. this is where we walk in boldly and walk up to a couple of cars and get in and drive off." "yeah, but why--" "that's the only way we'll ever get out of here," she told me firmly. i shrugged. farrow knew more about the medical center than i did. if that's the way she figured it, that's the way it had to be. we broke out of the dead area, and as we came into the open, farrow linked her arm in mine and hugged it. "make like a couple of fatuous mushbirds," she chuckled. "we've been out walking and communing with nature and getting acquainted." "isn't the fact that you're mekstrom and i'm human likely to cause some rather pointed comment?" "it would if we were to stick around to hear it," she said. "and if they try to read our minds, all we have to do is to think nice mushy thoughts. face it," she said quietly, "it won't be hard." "huh?" "you're a rather nice guy, steve. you're fast on the uptake, you're generally pleasant. you've got an awful lot of grit, guts and determination, steve. you're no pinup boy, steve, but--and this may come as a shock to you--women don't put one-tenth the stock in pulchritude that men do? you--" "hey. whoa," i bubbled. "slow down, before you--" she hugged my arm again. "steve," she said seriously, "i'm not in love with you. it's not possible for a woman to be in love with a man who does not return that love. you don't love me. but you can't help but admit that i am an attractive woman, steve, and perhaps under other circumstances you'd take on a large load of that old feeling. i'll admit that the reverse could easily take place. now, let's forget all the odd angles and start thinking like a pair of people for whom the time, the place, and the opposite sex all turned up opportunely." i couldn't help thinking of nurse farrow as--nurse farrow. the name gloria did not quite come out. i tried to submerge this mental attitude, and so i looked down at her with what i hoped to resemble the expression of a love-struck male. i think it was closer to the expression of a would-be little-theatre actor expressing lust, and not quite making the grade. farrow giggled. but as i sort of leered down at her, i had to admit upon proper examination of her charm that nurse farrow could very easily become gloria, if as she said, we had the time to let the change occur. another idea formed in my mind: if farrow had been kicked in the emotions by thorndyke, i'd equally been pushed in the face by catherine. that made us sort of kindred souls, as they used to call it in the early books of the twentieth century. gloria farrow chuckled. "unlike the old torch-carriers of that day," she said, "we rebound a bit too fast." then she let my arm go and took my hand. we went swinging across the field in a sort of happy comradeship; it must have looked as though we were long-term friends. she was a good egg, hurt and beaten down and shoved off by thorndyke, but she had a lot of the good old bounce. of a sudden impulse i wanted to kiss her. "go ahead, steve," she said. "but it'll be for the probable onlookers. i'm mekstrom, you know." so i didn't try. i just put an arm around her briefly and realized that any attempt at affection would be like trying to strike sparks off flint with a hunk of flannel. we walked hand in hand towards the buildings, strolled up saucily towards two of the parked cars, made the sort of wave that lovers give one another in goodbye when they don't really want to demonstrate their affection before ten thousand people and stepped into two cars and took off. gloria farrow was in the lead. we went howling down the road, farrow in the lead car by a hundred feet and me behind her. we went roaring around a curve, over a hill, and i had my perception out to its range, which was far ahead of her car. the main gate came into range, and we bore down upon that wire and steel portal like a pair of madmen. gloria farrow plowed into the gate without letting up. the gate went whirling in pieces, glass flew and tires howled and bits of metal and plastic sang through the air. her car weaved aside; i forgot the road ahead and put my perception into her car. farrow was fighting the wheel like a racing driver in a spin. her hands wrenched the wheel with the swift strength of the mekstrom flesh she wore, and the wheel bent under her hands. over and around she went, with a tire blown and the lower rail of the big gate hanging onto the fender like a dry-land sea-anchor. she juggled the wheel and made a snaky path off to one side of the road. out of the guardhouse came a uniformed man with a riot gun. he did not have time to raise it. farrow ironed out her course and aimed the careening car dead center. she mowed the guard down and a half-thousandth of a second later she plowed into the guardhouse. the structure erupted like a box of stove-matches hit with a heavy-caliber soft-nosed slug, like a house of cards and an air-jet. there was a roar and a small gout of flame and then out of the flying wreckage on the far side came farrow and her stolen car. out of the mess of brimstone and shingles she came, turning end for end in a crazy, metal-crushing twist and spin. she ground to a broken halt before the last of the debris landed, and then everything was silent. and then for the first and only time in my life i felt the penetrant, forceful impact of an incoming thought; a mental contact from another mind: #steve!# it screamed in my mind, #get out! get going! it's your move now----# i put my foot on the faucet and poured on the oil. xxi my car leaped forward and i headed along the outside road towards the nearby highway. through the busted gate i roared, past the downed guard and the smashed guardhouse, past the wreck of farrow's car. but nurse farrow was not finished with this gambit yet. as i drew even with her, she pried herself out of the messy tangle and came across the field in a dead run--and how that girl could run! as fast as i was going, she caught up; as fast as it all happened i had too little time to slow me down before nurse farrow closed the intervening distance from her wreck to my car and had hooked her arm in through one open window. my car lurched with the impact, but i fought the wheel straight again and farrow snapped, "keep going, steve!" i kept going; farrow snaked herself inside and flopped into the seat beside me. "now," she said, patting the dashboard of our car, "it's up to the both of us now! don't talk, steve. just drive like crazy!" "where--?" she laughed a weak little chuckle. "anywhere--so long as it's a long, long way from here." i nodded and settled down to some fancy mile-getting. farrow relaxed in the seat, opened the glove compartment and took out a first aid kit. it was only then i noticed that she was banged up quite a bit for a mekstrom. i'd not been too surprised when she emerged from the wreck; i'd become used to the idea of the indestructibility of the mekstrom. i was a bit surprised at her being banged up; i'd become so used to their damage-proof hide that the idea of minor cuts, scars, mars, and abrasions hadn't occurred to me. yes, that wreck would have mangled a normal man into an unrecognizable mess of hamburger. yet i'd expected a mekstrom to come through it unscathed. on the other hand, the damage to farrow's body was really minor. she bled from a long gash on her thigh, from a wound on her right arm, and from a myriad of little cuts on her face, neck, and shoulders. so as i drove crazy-fast away from the medical center nurse farrow relaxed in the seat and applied adhesive tape, compresses, and closed the gashes with a batch of little skin clips in lieu of sutures. then she lit two cigarettes and handed one of them to me. "okay now, steve," she said easily. "let's drive a little less crazily." i pulled the car down to a flat hundred and felt the strain go out of me. "as i remember, there's one of the highways not far from here--" she shook her head. "no, steve. we don't want the highways in hiding, either." at a mere hundred per i could let my esper do the road-sighting, so i looked over at her. she was half-smiling, but beneath the little smile was a firm look of self-confidence. "no," she said quietly, "we don't want the highways. if we go there, phelps and his outfit will turn heaven and earth to break it up, now that you've become so important. you forget that the medical center is still being run to look legal and aboveboard; while the highways are still in hiding. phelps could make quite a bitter case out of their reluctance to come out into the open." "well, where do we go?" i asked. "west," she said simply. "west, into new mexico. to my home." this sort of startled me. somehow i'd not connected farrow with any permanent home; as a nurse and later as one of the medical center, i'd come to think of her as having no permanent home of her own. yet like the rest of us, nurse farrow had been brought up in a home with a mother and a father and probably some sisters and brothers. mine were dead and the original home disbanded, but there was no reason why i should think of everybody else in the same terms. after all, catherine had had a mother and a father who'd come to see me after her disappearance. so we went west, across southern illinois and over the big bridge at st. louis into missouri and across missouri and west, west, west. we parked nights in small motels and took turns sleeping with one of us always awake and alert with esper and telepath senses geared high for the first sight of any threat. we gave the highways we came upon a wide berth; at no time did we come close to any of their way stations. it made our path crooked and much longer than it might have been if we'd strung a line and gone. but eventually we ended up in a small town in new mexico and at a small ranch house on the edge of the town. it is nice to have parents; i missed my own deeply when i was reminded of the sweet wonder of having people just plain glad to see their children again, no matter what they'd done under any circumstances. even bringing a semi-invalid into their homes for an extended course of treatment. john farrow was a tall man with gray at the temples and a pair of sharp blue eyes that missed nothing. he was a fair perceptive who might have been quite proficient if he had taken the full psi course at some university. mrs. farrow was the kind of elderly woman that any man would like to have for a mother. she was sweet and gentle but there was neither foolish softness or fatuous nonsense about her. she was a telepath and she knew her way around and let people know that she knew what the score was. farrow had a brother, james, who was not at home; he lived in town with his wife but came out to the old homestead about once every week on some errand or other. they took me in as though i'd come home with their daughter for sentimental reasons; gloria sat with us in their living room and went through the whole story, interrupted now and then by a remark aimed at me. they inspected my hand and agreed that something must be done. they were extremely interested in the mekstrom problem and were amazed at their daughter's feats of strength and endurance. my hand, by this time, was beginning to throb again. the infection was heading on a fine start down the pinky and middle fingers; the ring finger was approaching the second joint to that point where the advance stopped long enough for the infection to become complete before it crossed the joint. the first waves of that particular pain were coming at intervals and i knew that within a few hours the pain would become waves of agony so deep that i would not be able to stand it. ultimately, farrow got her brother james to come out from town with his tools, and between us all we rigged up a small manipulator for my hand. farrow performed the medical operations from the kit in the back of her car we'd stolen from the medical center. then after they'd put my hand through the next phase, nurse farrow looked me over and gave the opinion that it was now approaching the time for me to get the rest of the full treatment. one evening i went to bed, to be in bed for four solid months. * * * * * i'd like to be able to give a blow by blow description of those four solid months. unfortunately, i was under dope so much of the time that i know little about it. it was not pleasant. my arm laid like a log from the petrified forest, strapped into the machine that moved the joints with regular motion, and with each motion starting a dart of fire and mangling pain up to the shoulder. needles entered the veins at the elbow and the armpit, and from bottles suspended almost to the ceiling to provide a pressurehead, plasma and blood-sustenance was trickled in to keep the arm alive. dimly i recall having the other arm strapped down and the waves of pain that blasted at me from both sides. the only way i kept from going out of my mind with the pain was living from hypo to hypo and waiting for the blessed blackness that wiped out the agony; only to come out of it hours later with my infection advanced to another point of pain. when the infection reached my right shoulder, it stopped for a long time; the infection rose up my left arm and also stopped at the shoulder. i came out of the dope to find james and his father fitting one of the manipulators to my right leg and through that i could feel the darting pains in my calf and thigh. at those few times when my mind was clear enough to let me use my perception, i dug the room and found that i was lying in a veritable forest of bottles and rubber tubes and a swathe of bandages. utterly helpless, i vaguely knew that i was being cared for in every way. the periods of clarity were fewer, now, and shorter when they came. i awoke once to find my throat paralyzed, and again to find that my jaw, tongue, and lower face was a solid pincushion of darting needles of fire. later, my ears reported not a sound, and even later still i awoke to find myself strapped into a portable resuscitator that moved my chest up and down with an inexorable force. that's about all i know of it. when the smoke cleared away completely and the veil across my eyes was gone, it was spring outside and i was a mekstrom. * * * * * i sat up in bed. it was morning, the sun was streaming in the window brightly and the fresh morning air of spring stirred the curtains gently. it was quite warm and the smell that came in from the outside was alive with newborn greenery. it felt good just to be alive. the hanging bottles and festoons of rubber hose were gone. the crude manipulators had been stowed somewhere and the bottles of medicine and stuff were missing from the bureau. there wasn't even a thermometer in a glass anywhere within the range of my vision, and frankly i was so glad to be alive again that i did not see any point to digging through the joint with my perception to find the location of the medical junk. instead, i just wanted to get up and run. i did take a swing at the clothes closet and found my stuff. then i took a mild pass at the house, located the bathroom and also assured myself that no one was likely to interrupt me. i was going to shave and shower and dress and go downstairs. i was just shrugging myself up and out of bed when nurse farrow came bustling up the stairs and into the room with no preamble. "hi!" i greeted her. "i was going to--" "surprise us," she said quickly. "i know. so i came up to see that you don't get into trouble." "trouble?" i asked, pausing on the edge of the bed. "you're a mekstrom, steve," she told me unnecessarily. then she caught my thought and went on: "it's necessary to remind you. you have to learn how to control your strength, steve." i flexed my arms. they didn't feel any different. i pinched my muscle with my other hand and it pinched just as it always had. i took a deep breath and the air went in pleasantly and come out again. "i don't feel any different," i told her. she smiled and handed me a common wooden lead pencil. "write your name," she directed. "think i'll have to learn all over?" i grinned. i took the pencil, put my fist down on the top of the bureau above a pad of paper and chuckled at farrow. "now, let's see, my first initial is the letter 's' made by starting at the top and coming around in a sweeping, graceful curve like this--" it didn't come around in any curve. as the lead point hit the paper it bore down in, flicked off the tip, and then crunched down, breaking off the point and splintering the thin, whittled wood for about an eighth of an inch. the fact that i could not control it bothered me inside and i instinctively clutched at the shaft of the pencil. it cracked in three places in my hand; the top end with the eraser fell down over my wrist to the bureau top and rolled in a rapid rattle to the edge where it fell to the floor. "see?" asked farrow softly. "but--?" i blundered uncertainly. "steve, your muscles and your nervous system have been stepped up proportionately. you've got to re-learn the coordination between the muscle-stimulus and the feedback information from the work you are doing." i began to see what she meant. i remembered long years ago at school, when we'd been studying some of the new alloys and there had been a sample of a magnesium-lithium-something alloy that was machined into a smooth cylinder about four inches in diameter and a foot long. it looked like hard steel. people who picked it up for the first time invariably braced their muscles and set both hands on it. but it was so light that their initial effort almost tossed the bar through the ceiling, and even long after we all knew, it was hard not to attack the bar without using the experience of our mind and sense that told us that any bar of metal _that_ big had to be _that_ heavy. i went to a chair. farrow said, "be careful," and i was. but it was no trick at all to take the chair by one leg at the bottom and lift it chin high. "now, go take your shower," she told me. "but steve, please be careful of the plumbing. you can twist off the faucet handles, you know." i nodded and turned to her, holding out a hand. "farrow, you're a brick!" she took my hand. it was not steel hard. it was warm and firm and pleasant. it was--holding hands with a woman. farrow stepped back. "one thing you'll have to remember," she said cheerfully, "is only to mix with your own kind from now on. now go get that shower and shave. i'll be getting breakfast." showering was not hard and i remembered not to twist off the water-tap handles. shaving was easy although i had to change razor blades three times in the process. i broke all the teeth out of the comb because it was never intended to be pulled through a thicket of piano wire. getting dressed was something else. i caught my heel in one trouser leg and shredded the cloth. i broke the buckle on my belt. my shoelaces went like parting a length of wet spaghetti. the button on the top of my shirt pinched off and when i gave that final jerk to my necktie it pulled the knot down into something about the size of a pea. breakfast was very pleasant, although i bent the fork tines spearing a rasher of bacon and removed the handle of my coffee cup without half trying. after breakfast i discovered that i could not remove a cigarette from the package without pinching the end down flat, and after i succeeded in getting one into my mouth by treating both smoke and match as if they were made of tissue paper, my first drag on the smoke lit a howling furnace-fire on the end that consumed half of the cigarette in the first puff. "you're going to take some school before you are fit to walk among normal people, steve," said gloria with amused interest. "you're informing me?" i asked with some dismay, eyeing the wreckage left in my wake. compared to the new steve cornell, the famous bull in the china shop was gentle ferdinand. i picked up the cigarette package again; it squoze down even though i tried to treat it gentle; i felt like lenny, pinching the head off of the mouse. i also felt about as much of a bumbling idiot as lenny, too. my re-education went on before, through, and after breakfast. i manhandled old books from the attic. i shredded newspapers. i ruined some more lead pencils and finally broke the pencil sharpener to boot. i put an elbow through the middle panel of the kitchen door without even feeling it and then managed to twist off the door knob. generally operating like a one-man army of vandals, i laid waste to the farrow home. having thus ruined a nice house, gloria decided to try my strength on her car. i was much too fast and too hard on the brakes, which of course was not too bad because my foot was also too insensitive on the go-pedal. we took off like a rocket being launched and then i tromped on the brakes (bending the pedal) which brought us down sharp like hitting a haystack. this allowed our heads to catch up with the rest of us; i'm sure that if we'd been normal-bodied human beings we'd have had our spines snapped. eventually i learned that everything had to be handled as if it were tissue paper, and gradually re-adjusted my reflexes to take proper cognizance of the feedback data according to my new body. we returned home after a hectic twenty miles of roadwork and i broke the glass as i slammed the car door. "it's going to take time," i admitted with some reluctance. "it always does," smiled farrow as cheerfully as if i hadn't ruined their possessions. "i don't know how i'm going to face your folks." farrow's smile became cryptic. "maybe they won't notice." "now look, farrow----" "steve, don't forget for the moment that you're the only known mekstrom carrier." "in other words your parents are due for the treatment next?" "oh, i was most thorough. both of them are in the final stages right now. i'm sure that anything you did to the joint will only be added to by the time they get to the walking stage. and also anything you did they'll feel well repaid." "i didn't do anything for them." "you provided them with mekstrom bodies," she said simply. "they took to it willingly?" "yes. as soon as they were convinced by watching me and my strength. they knew what it would be like, but they were all for it." "you've been a very busy girl," i told her. she just nodded. then she looked up at me with troubled eyes and asked, "what are you going to do now, steve?" "i'm going to haul the whole shebang down like samson in the temple." "a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if you do that." "i can't very well find a cave in antarctica and hide," i replied glumly. "think a bit, steve. could either side afford to let you walk into new washington with the living proof of your mekstrom body?" #didn't stop 'em before,# i thought angrily. #and it seems to me that both sides were sort of urging me to go and do something that would uncover the other side.# "not deep enough," said farrow. "that was only during the early phases. go back to the day when you didn't know what was going on." i grunted sourly, "look, farrow, tell me. why must i fumble my way through this as i've fumbled through everything else?" "because only by coming to the conclusion in your own way will you be convinced that someone isn't lying to you. now, think it over, steve." it made sense. even if i came to the wrong conclusion, i'd believe it more than if someone had told me. farrow nodded, following my thoughts. then i plunged in: #first we have a man who is found to be a carrier of mekstrom's disease. he doesn't know anything about the disease. right?# (farrow nodded slowly.) #so now the medical center puts an anchor onto their carrier by sicking an attractive dame on his trail. um--# at this point i went into a bit of a mental whirly-around trying to find an answer to one of the puzzlers. farrow just looked at me with a non-leading expression, waiting. i came out of the merry-go-round after six times around the circuit and went on: #i don't know all the factors. obviously, catherine had to lead me fast because we had to marry before she contracted the disease from me. but there's a discrepancy, farrow. the little blonde receptionist caught it in twenty-four hours--?# "steve," said farrow, "this is one i'll have to explain, since you're not a medical person. the period of incubation depends upon the type of contact. you actually bit the receptionist. that put blood contact into it. you didn't draw any blood from catherine." "we were pretty close," i said with a slight reddening of the ears. "from a medical standpoint, you were not much closer to catherine than you have been to me, or dr. thorndyke. you were closer to thorndyke and me, say, than you've been to many of the incidental parties along the path of our travels." "well, let that angle go for the moment. anyway, catherine and i had to marry before the initial traces were evident. then i'd be in the position of a man whose wife had contracted mekstrom's disease on our honeymoon, whereupon the medical center would step in and cure her, and i'd be in the position of being forever grateful and willing to do anything that the medical center wanted me to do. and as a poor non-telepath, i'd probably never learn the truth. right?" "so far," she said, still in a noncommittal tone. "so now we crack up along the highway near the harrison place. the highways take her in because they take any victim in no matter what. i also presume from what's gone on that catherine is a high enough telepath to conceal her thinking and so to become an undercover agent in the midst of the highways organization. and at this point the long long trail takes a fork, doesn't it? the medical center gang did not know about the highways in hiding until catherine and i barrelled into it end over end." farrow's face softened, and although she said nothing i knew i was on the right track. #so at this point,# i went on silently, #medical center found themselves in a mild quandary. they could hardly put another woman on my trail because i was already emotionally involved with the missing catherine--and so they decided to use me in another way. i was shown enough to keep me busy, i was more or less urged to go track down the highways in hiding for the medical center. after all, as soon as i'd made the initial discovery, phelps and his outfit shouldn't have needed any more help.# "a bit more thinking, steve. you've come up with that answer before." #sure. phelps wanted me to take my tale to the government. about this secret highway outfit. but if neither side can afford to have the secret come out, how come--?# i pondered this for a long time and admitted that it made no sense to me. finally farrow shook her head and said, "steve, i've got to prompt you now and then. but remember that i'm trying to make you think it out yourself. now consider: you are running an organization that must be kept secret. then someone learns the secret and starts heading for the authorities. what is your next move?" "okay," i replied. "so i'm stupid. naturally, i pull in my horns, hide my signs, and make like nothing was going on." "so stopping the advance of your organization, which is all that phelps really can expect." i thought some more. #and the fact that i was carrying a story that would get me popped into the nearest hatch for the incipient paranoid made it all right?# she nodded. "and now?" she asked me. "and now i'm living proof of my story. is that right?" "right. and steve, do not forget for one moment that the only reason that you're still alive is because you are valuable to both sides alive. dead, you're only good for a small quantity of mekstrom inoculation." "don't follow," i grunted. "as you say, i'm no medical person." "alive, your hair grows and must be cut. you shave and trim off beard. your fingernails are pared. now and then you lose a small bit of hide or a few milliliters of blood. these are things that, when injected under the skin of a normal human, makes them mekstrom. dead, your ground up body would not provide much substance." "pleasant prospect," i growled. "so what do i do to avert this future?" "steve, i don't know. i've done what i can for you. i've effected the cure and i've done it in safety; you're still steve cornell." xxii "look," i blurted with a sudden rush of brain to the head, "if i'm so all-fired important to both sides, how come you managed to sequester me for four months?" "we do have the laws of privacy," said farrow simply. "which neither side can afford to flout overtly. furthermore, since neither side really knew where you were, they've been busily prowling one another's camps and locking up the prowlers from one another's camps, and playing spy and counterspy and counter-counterspy, and generally piling it up pyramid-wise," she finished with a chuckle. "you got away with following that letter to catherine because uppermost in your mind was the brain of a lover hunting down his missing sweetheart. no one could go looking for steve cornell, mekstrom carrier, for reasons not intrinsically private." "for four months?" i asked, still incredulous. "well, one of the angles is that both sides knew you were immobilized somewhere, going through this cure. having you a full mekstrom is something that both sides want. so they've been willing to have you cured." "so long as someone does the work, huh?" "right," she said seriously. "well, then," i said with a grim smile, "the obvious thing for me to do is to slink quietly into new washington and to seek out some high official in secrecy. i'll put my story and facts into his hands, make him a mekstrom, have him cured, and then we'll set up an agency to provide the general public with--" "steve, you're an engineer. i presume you've studied mathematics. so let's assume that you can--er--bite one person every ten seconds." "that's six persons per minute; three-sixty per hour; and, ah, eighty-six-forty per day. with one hundred and sixty million americans at the last census--um. sixty years without sleep. i see what you mean." "not only that, steve, but it would create a panic, if not a global war. make an announcement like that, and certain of our not-too-friendly neighbors would demand their shares or else. so now add up your time to take care of about three billion human souls on this earth, steve." "all right. so i'll forget that cockeyed notion. but still, the government should know--" "if we could be absolutely certain that every elected official is a sensible, honest man, we could," said farrow. "the trouble is that we've got enough demagogues, publicity hounds, and rabble-rousers to make the secret impossible to keep." i couldn't argue against that. farrow was right. not only that, but government found it hard enough to function in this world of rhine institute with honest secrets. "okay, then," i said. "the only thing to do is to go back to homestead, texas, throw my aid to the highways in hiding, and see what we can do to provide the earth with some more sensible method of inoculation. i obviously cannot go around biting people for the rest of my life." "i guess that's it, steve." i looked at her. "i'll have to borrow your car." "it's yours." "you'll be all right?" she nodded. "eventually i'll be a way station on the highways, i suppose. can you make it alone, steve? or would you rather wait until my parents are cured? you could still use a telepath, you know." "think it's safe for me to wait?" "it's been four months. another week or two--?" "all right. and in the meantime i'll practice getting along with this new body of mine." we left it there. i roamed the house with farrow, helping her with her parents. i gradually learned how to control the power of my new muscles; learned how to walk among normal people without causing their attention; and one day succeeded in shaking hands with a storekeeper without giving away my secret. eventually nurse farrow's parents came out of their treatment and we spent another couple of days with them. we left them too soon, i'm sure, but they seemed willing that we take off. they'd set up a telephone system for getting supplies so that they'd not have to go into town until they learned how to handle their bodies properly, and farrow admitted that there was little more that we could do. so we took off because we all knew that time was running out. even though both sides had left us alone while i was immobilized, both sides must have a time-table good enough to predict my eventual cure. in fact, as i think about it now, both sides must have been waiting along the outer edges of some theoretical area waiting for me to emerge, since they couldn't come plowing in without giving away their purpose. so we left in farrow's car and once more hit the big broad road. we drove towards texas until we came upon a highway, and then turned along it looking for a way station. i wanted to get in touch with the highways. i wanted close communication with the harrisons and the rest of them, no matter what. eventually we came upon a sign with a missing spoke and turned in. the side road wound in and out, leading us back from the highway towards the conventional dead area. the house was a white structure among a light thicket of trees, and as we came close to it, we met a man busily tilling the soil with a tractor plow. farrow stopped her car. i leaned out and started to call, but something stopped me. "he is no mekstrom, steve," said farrow in a whisper. "but this is a way station, according to the road sign." "i know. but it isn't, according to him. he doesn't know any more about mekstrom's disease than you did before you met catherine." "then what the devil is wrong?" "i don't know. he's perceptive, but not too well trained. name's william carroll. let me do the talking, i'll drop leading remarks for you to pick up." the man came over amiably. "looking for someone?" he asked cheerfully. "why, yes," said gloria. "we're sort of mildly acquainted with the--mannheims who used to live here. sort of friends of friends of theirs, just dropped by to say hello, sort of," she went on, covering up the fact that she'd picked the name of the former occupant out of his mind. "the mannheims moved about two months ago," he said. "sold the place to us--we got a bargain. don't really know, of course, but the story is that one of them had to move for his health." "too bad. know where they went?" "no," said carroll regretfully. "they seem to have a lot of friends. always stopping by, but i can't help 'em any." #so they moved so fast that they couldn't even change their highway sign?# i thought worriedly. farrow nodded at me almost imperceptibly. then she said to carroll, "well, we won't keep you. too bad the mannheims moved, without leaving an address." "yeah," he said with obvious semi-interest. he eyed his half-plowed field and farrow started her car. we started off and he turned to go back to his work. "anything?" i asked. "no," she said, but it was a very puzzled voice. "nothing that i can put a finger on." "but what?" "i don't know much about real estate deals," she said. "i suppose that one family could move out and another family move in just in this short a time." "usually they don't let farmlands lie fallow," i pointed out. "if there's anything off color here, it's the fact that they changed their residence without changing the highway sign." "unless," i suggested brightly, "this is the coincidence. maybe this sign is really one that got busted." farrow turned her car into the main highway and we went along it. i could have been right about the spoke actually being broken instead of removed for its directing purpose. i hoped so. in fact i hoped so hard that i was almost willing to forget the other bits of evidence. but then i had to face the truth because we passed another highway sign and, of course, its directional information pointed to that farm. the signs on our side of the highway were upside down; indicating that we were leaving the way station. the ones that were posted on the left hand side were rightside up, indicating that the drive was approaching a way station. that cinched it. #well,# as i told both farrow and me, #one error doesn't create a trend. let's take another look!# one thing and another, we would either hit another way station before we got to homestead, or we wouldn't. either one could put us wise. so we took off again with determination and finally left that side of erroneous highway signs when we turned onto route . we weren't on route very long because the famous u.s. highway sort of trends to the northeast and homestead was in a southern portion of texas. we left route at amarillo and picked up u.s. , which leads due south. not many miles out of amarillo we came up another set of highway signs that pointed us on to the south. i tried to remember whether this section led to homestead by a long route, but i hadn't paid too much attention to the maps when i'd had the chance and therefore the facts eluded me. we'd find out, farrow and i agreed, and then before we could think much more about it, we came upon a way station sign that pointed in to another farmhouse. "easy," i said. "you bet," she replied, pointing to the rural-type mailbox alongside the road. i nodded. the box was not new but the lettering on the side was. "still wet," i said with a grunt. farrow slowed her car as we approached the house and i leaned out and gave a cheerful hail. a woman came out of the front door and waved at us. "i'm trying to locate a family named harrison," i called. "lived around here somewhere." the woman looked thoughtful. she was maybe thirty-five or so, clean but not company-dressed. there was a smudge of flour on her cheek and a smile on her face and she looked wholesome and honest. "why, i don't really know," she said. "that name sounds familiar, but it is not an uncommon name." "i know," i said uselessly. farrow nudged me on the ankle with her toe and then made a swift sign for "p" in the hand-sign code. "why don't you come on in?" invited the woman. "we've got an area telephone directory here. maybe--?" farrow nudged me once more and made the sign of "m" with her swift fingers. we had hit it this time; here was a woman perceptive and a mekstrom residing in a way station. i took a mild dig at her hands and there was no doubt of her. a man's head appeared in the doorway above the woman; he had a hard face and he was tall and broad shouldered but there was a smile on his face that spread around the pipe he was biting on. he called, "come on in and take a look." farrow made the sign of "t" and "m" and that told me that he was a telepath. she hadn't needed the "m" sign because i'd taken a fast glimpse of his hide as soon as he appeared. parrying for time and something evidential, i merely said, "no, we'd hate to intrude. we were just asking." the man said, "oh, shucks, mister. come on in and have a cup of coffee, anyway." his invitation was swift enough to set me on edge. i turned my perception away from him and took a fast cast at the surrounding territory. there was a mildly dead area along the lead-in road to the left; it curved around in a large arc and the other horn of this horseshoe shape came up behind the house and stopped abruptly just inside of their front door. the density of this area varied, the end in which the house was built was so total that i couldn't penetrate, while the other end that curved around to end by the road tapered off in deadness until it was hard to define the boundary. if someone were pulling a flanking movement around through that horseshoe to cut off our retreat, it would become evident very soon. a swift thought went through my mind: #farrow, they're mekstroms and he's a telepath and she's a perceptive, and they know we're friendly if they're highways. if they're connected with scholar phelps and his--# the man repeated, "come on in. we've some mail to go to homestead that you can take if you will." farrow made no sound. she just seesawed her car with three rapid back-and-forth jerks that sent showers of stones from her spinning wheels. we whined around in a curve that careened the car up on its outside wheels. then we ironed out and showered the face of the man with stones from the wheels as we took off. the shower of dust and stones blinded him, and kept him from latching onto the tail of the car and climbing in. we left him behind, swearing and rubbing dirt from his eyes. we whipped past the other end of the horseshoe area just as a jeepster came roaring down out of the thickened part into the region where my perception could make out the important things (like three burly gents wearing hunting rifles, for instance.) they jounced over the rough ground and onto the lead-in road just behind us; another few seconds of gab with our friends and they'd have been able to cut us off. "pour it on, farrow!" i knew i was a bit of a cowboy, but farrow made me look like a tenderfoot. we rocketed down the winding road with our wheels riding up on either side like the course in a toboggan run and farrow rode that car like a test pilot in a sudden thunderstorm. i was worried about the hunting rifles, but i need not have been concerned. we were going too fast to make good aim, and their jeepster was not a vehicle known for its smooth riding qualities. they lost one character over a rough bounce and he went tail over scalp into the grass along the way. he scared me by leaping to his feet, grabbing the rifle and throwing it up to aim. but before he could squeeze off a round we were out of the lead-in road and on the broad highway. once on the main road again, farrow put the car hard down by the nose and we outran them. the jeepster was a workhorse and could have either pulled over the house or climbed the wall and run along the roof, but it was not made for chase. "that," i said, "seems to be that." "something is bad," agreed farrow. "well, i doubt that they'll be able to clean out a place as big as homestead. so let's take our careful route to homestead and find out precisely what the devil is cooking." "know the route?" "no, but i know where it is on the map and we can figure it out from--" "steve, stop. take a very careful and delicate view over to the right." "digging for what?" "another car pacing us along a road on the other side of that field." i tried and failed. then i leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes and tried again. on this second try i got a very hazy perception of a large moving mass that could only have been a car. in the car i received a stronger impression of weapons. it was the latter that cinched it. i hauled out my roadmap and turned it to texas. i thumbed the sectional maps of texas until i located the sub-district through which we were passing and then i identified this section of u.s. precisely. there was another road parallel and a half mile to the right, a dirt road according to the map-legend. it intersected our road a few miles ahead. my next was a thorough covering of the road behind; as i expected another car was pacing us just beyond the range of my perception for anything but a rifle aimed at my hide. pacing isn't quite the word, i use it in the sense of their keeping up with us. fact is that all of us were going about as fast as we could go, with safety of tertiary importance. anyway, they were pacing us and closing down from that parallel road on the right. i took a fast and very careful scanning of the landscape to our left but couldn't find anything. i spent some time at it then, but still came up with a blank. #turn left at that feeder road a mile ahead,# i thought at farrow and she nodded. there was one possibility that i did not like to face. we had definitely detected pursuit to our right and behind, but not to our left. this did not mean that the left-side was not covered. it was quite likely that the gang to the rear were in telepathic touch with a network of other telepaths, the end of which mental relay link was far beyond range, but as close in touch with our position and action as if we'd been in sight. the police make stake-out nets that way, but the idea is not exclusive. i recall hazing an eloping couple that way once. but there was nothing to do but to take the feeder road to the left, because the devil we could see was more dangerous than the devil we couldn't. farrow whipped into the side road and we tore along with only a slight slowing of our headlong speed. i ranged ahead, worried, suspicious of everything, scanning very carefully and strictly on the watch for any evidence of attempted interception. i caught a touch of danger converging up from the south on a series of small roads. this i did not consider dangerous after a fast look at my roadmap because this series of roads did not meet our side road for a long time and only after a lot of turning and twisting. so long as we went easterly, we were okay from that angle. the gang behind, of course, followed us, staying at the very edge of my range. "you'll have to fly, farrow," i told her. "if that gang to our south stays there, we'll not be able to turn down homestead way." "steve, i'm holding this crate on the road by main force and awkwardness as it is." but she did step it up a bit, at that. i kept a cautious and suspicious watchout, worrying in the back of my mind that someone among them might turn up with a jetcopter. so long as the sky remained clear-- as time went on, i perceived that the converging car to the south was losing ground because of the convolutions of their road. accordingly we turned to the south, making our way around their nose, sort of, and crossing their anticipated course to lead south. we hit u.s. to the west of breckenridge, texas and then farrow really poured on the coal. the idea was to hit fort worth and lose them in the city where fun, games, and telepath-perceptive hare-and-hounds would be viewed dimly by the peaceloving citizens. then we'd slope to the south on u.s. , cut over to u.s. somewhere to the south and take like a cannonball until we turned off on the familiar road to homestead. fort worth was a haven and a detriment to both sides. neither of us could afford to run afoul of the law. so we both cut down to sensible speeds and snaked our way through the town, with farrow and me probing the roads to the south in hope of finding a clear lane. there were three cars pacing us, cutting off our retreat southward. they hazed us forward to the east like a dog nosing a bunch of sheep towards pappy's barn. then we were out of forth worth and on u.s. . we whipped into dallas and tried the same circumfusion as before and we were as neatly barred. so we went out of dallas on u.s. and as we left the city limits, we poured on the oil again, hoping to get around them so that we could turn back south towards homestead. "boxed," i said. "looks like it," said farrow unhappily. i looked at her. she was showing signs of weariness and i realized that she'd been riding this road for hours. "let me take it," i said. "we need your perception," she objected. "you can't drive and keep a ranging perception, steve." "a lot of good a ranging perception will do once you drop for lack of sleep and we tie us up in a ditch." "but--" "we're boxed," i told her. "we're being hazed. let's face it, farrow. they could have surrounded us and glommed us any time in the past six hours." "why didn't they?" she asked. "you ask that because you're tired," i said with a grim smile. "any bunch that has enough cars to throw a barrier along the streets of cities like forth worth and dallas have enough manpower to catch us if they want to. so long as we drive where they want us to go, they won't cramp us down." "i hate to admit it." "so do i. but let's swap, farrow. then you can use your telepathy on them maybe and find out what their game is." she nodded, pulled the car down to a mere ramble and we swapped seats quickly. as i let the crate out again, i took one last, fast dig of the landscape and located the cars that were blocking out the passageways to the south, west, and north, leaving a nice inviting hole to the easterly-north way. then i had to haul in my perception and slap it along the road ahead, because i was going to ramble far and fast and see if i could speed out of the trailing horseshoe and cut out around the south horn with enough leeway to double back towards homestead. "catch any plans from them?" i asked farrow. there was no answer. i looked at her. gloria farrow was semi-collapsed in her seat, her eyes closed gently and her breath coming in long, pleasant swells. i'd known she was tired, but i hadn't expected this absolute ungluing. a damned good kid, farrow. at that last thought, farrow moved slightly in her sleep and a wisp of a smile crossed her lips briefly. then she turned a bit and snuggled down in the seat and really hit the slumber-path. a car came roaring at me with flashing headlamps and i realized that dusk was coming. i didn't need the lights, but oncoming drivers did, so i snapped them on. the beams made bright tunnels in the light and we went along and on and on and on, hour after hour. now and then i caught a perceptive impression the crescent of cars that were corralling us along u.s. and not letting us off the route. i hauled out my roadmap and eyed the pages as i drove by perception. u.s. led to st. louis and from there due north. i had a hunch that by the time we played hide and seek through st. louis and got ourselves hazed out to their satisfaction, i'd be able to give a strong guess as to our ultimate destination. i settled down in my seat and just drove, still hoping to cut fast and far around them on my way to homestead. xxiii three times during the night i tried to flip around and cut my way through their cordon, and each time i faced interception. it was evident that we were being driven and so long as we went to their satisfaction they weren't going to clobber us. nurse farrow woke up along about dawn, stretched, and remarked that she could use a toothbrush and a tub of hot water and amusedly berated herself for not filling the back seat before we took off. then she became serious again and asked for the details of the night, which i slipped her as fast as i could. we stopped long enough to swap seats, and i stretched out but i couldn't sleep. finally i said, "stop at the next dog wagon, farrow. we're going to eat, comes anything." "won't that be dangerous?" "shucks," i grunted angrily. "they'll probably thank us. they're probably hungry too." "we'll find out." the smell of a roadside diner is usually a bit on the thick and greasy side, but i was so hungry that morning that it smelled like mother's kitchen. we went in, ordered coffee and orange juice, and then disappeared into the rest rooms long enough to clean up. that felt so good we ordered the works and watched the guy behind the fryplate handle the bacon, eggs, and home-fries with a deft efficient manner. we pitched in fast, hoping to beat the flies to our breakfast. we were so intent that we paid no attention to the car that came into the lot until a man came in, ordered coffee and a roll, and then carried it over to our table. "fine day for a ride, isn't it?" i eyed him; farrow bristled and got very tense. i said, "i doubt that i know you, friend." "quite likely. but i know you, cornell." i took a fast dig; there was no sign of anything lethal except the usual collection of tire irons, screwdrivers, and other tools which, oddly enough, seldom come through as being dangerous because they're not weapons-by-design. "i'm not heeled, cornell. i'm just here to save us all some trouble." #telepath?# he nodded imperceptibly. then he said, "we'll all save time, gasoline, and maybe getting into grief with the cops if you take route out of st. louis." "suppose i don't like u.s. ?" "get used to it," he said with a crooked smile. "because you'll take u.s. out of st. louis whether you like it or not." i returned his crooked smile. i also dug his hide and he was a mekstrom, of course. "friend," i replied, "nothing would convince me, after what you've said, that u.s. is anything but a cowpath; slippery when wet; and impassible in the early spring, late summer, and the third thursday after michelmas." he stood up. "cornell, i can see your point. you don't like u.s. . so i'll help you good people. if you don't want to drive along such a lousy slab of concrete, just say the word and we'll arrange for you to take it in style, luxury, and without a trace of pain or strain. i'll be seein' you. and a very pleasant trip to you, miss farrow." then the character got up, went to the cashier and paid for our breakfast as well as his own. he took off in his car and i have never seen him since. farrow looked at me, her face white and her whole attitude one of fright. "u.s. ," she said in a shaky voice, "runs like a stretched string from st. louis to indianapolis." she didn't have to tell me any more. about sixty miles north of indianapolis on indiana state highway lies the thriving metropolis of marion, indiana, the most important facet of which (to farrow and me) is an establishment called the medical research center. nothing was going to make me drive out of st. louis along u.s. . period; end of message; no answer required. nothing, because i was very well aware of their need to collect me alive and kicking. if i could not roar out of st. louis in the direction i selected, i was going to turn my car end for end and have at them. not in any mild manner, but with deadly intent to do deadly damage. if i'd make a mild pass, they'd undoubtedly corral me by main force and carry me off kicking and screaming. but if i went at them to kill or get killed, they'd have to move aside just to prevent me from killing myself. i didn't think i'd get to the last final blow of that self-destruction. i'd win through. so we left the diner after a breakfast on our enemy's expense account and took off again. i was counting on st. louis. the center of the old city is one big shapeless blob of a dead area; so nice and cold that st. louis has reversed the usual city-type blight area growth. ever since rhine, the slum sections have been moving out and the new buildings have been moving in. so with the dead area and the brand-new, wide streets and fancy traffic control, st. louis was the place to go in along one road, get lost in traffic, and come out, roaring along any road desirable. i could not believe that any outfit, hoping to work under cover, could collect enough manpower and cars to block every road, lane, highway and duckrunway that led out of a city as big as st. louis. again they hazed us by pacing along parallel roads and behind us with the open end of their crescent aimed along u.s. . we went like hell; without slowing a bit we sort of swooped up to st. louis and took a fast dive into that big blob-shaped dead area. we wound up in traffic and tied boy scout knots in our course. i was concerned about overhead coverage from a 'copter even though i've been told that the st. louis dead area extends upward in some places as high as thirteen thousand feet. the only thing missing was some device or doodad that would let us use our perception or telepathy in this deadness while they couldn't. as it was, we were as psi-blind as they were, so we had to go along the streets with our eyes carefully peeled for cars of questionable ownership. we saw some passenger cars with out-of-state licenses and gave them wide clearances. one of them hung on our tail until i committed a very neat coup by running through a stoplight and sandwiching my car between two whopping big fourteen-wheel moving vans. i'd have enjoyed the expression on the driver's face if i could have seen it. but then we were gone and he was probably cussing. i stayed between the vans as we wound ourselves along the road and turned into a side street. i stayed between them too long. because the guy in front slammed on his air-brakes and the big van came to a stop with a howl of tires on concrete. the guy behind did not even slow down. he closed in on us like an avalanche. i took a fast look around and fought the wheel of my car to turn aside, but he whaled into my tail and we went sliding forward. i was riding my brakes but the mass of that moving van was so great that my tires just wore flats on the pavement-side. we were bearing down on that stopped van and it looked as though we were going to be driving a very tall car with a very short wheelbase in a very short time. then the whole back panel of the front van came tumbling towards me from the top, pivoting on a hinge at the bottom, making a fine ramp. the van behind me nudged us up the ramp and we hurtled forward against a thick, resilient pad that stopped my car without any damage either to the car or to the inhabitants. then the back panel closed up and the van took off. two big birds on each side opened the doors of our car simultaneously and said "out!" the tall guy on my side gave me a cocksure smile and the short guy said, "we're about to leave st. louis on u.s. , cornell. i hope you won't find this journey too rough." i started to take a swing, but the tall one caught my elbow and threw me off balance. the short one reached down and picked up a baseball bat. "use this, cornell," he told me. "then no one will get hurt." i looked at the pair of them, and then gave up. there are odd characters in this world who actually enjoy physical combat and don't mind getting hurt if they can hurt the other guy more. these were the type. taking that baseball bat and busting it over the head of either one would be the same sort of act as kids use when they square off in an alley and exchange light blows which they call a "cardy" just to make the fight legal. all it would get me was a sore jaw and a few cracked ribs. so after my determination to take after them with murderous intent, they'd pulled my teeth by scooping me up in this van and disarming me. i relaxed. the short one nodded, although he looked disappointed that i hadn't allowed him the fun of a shindy. "you'll find u.s. less rough than you expected," he said. "after all, it's like life; only rough if you make it rough." "go to hell and stay there," i snapped. that was about as weak a rejoinder as i've ever emitted, but it was all i could get out. the tall one said, "take it easy, cornell. you can't win 'em all." i looked across the nose of our trapped car to farrow. she was leaning against the hood, facing her pair. they were just standing there at ease. one of them was offering a cigarette and the other held a lighter ready. "relax," said the one with the smokes. the other one said, "might as well, miss farrow. fighting won't get nobody nowhere but where you're going anyway. might as well go on your own feet." scornfully, farrow shrugged. "why should i smoke my own?" she asked nobody in particular. mentally i agreed: #take 'em for all they're worth, farrow!# and then i reached for one, too. along the side of the van were benches. i sat down, stretched out on my back and let the smoke trickle up. i finished my cigarette and then found that the excitement of this chase, having died so abruptly, left me with only a desire to catch up on sleep. i dozed off thinking that it wasn't everybody who started off to go to homestead, texas, and ended up in marion, indiana. * * * * * scholar phelps did not have the green carpet out for our arrival, but he was present when our mobile prison cell opened deep inside of the medical center grounds. so was thorndyke. thorndyke and three nurses of amazon build escorted farrow off with the air of captors collecting a traitor. phelps smiled superciliously at me and said, "well, young sir, you've given us quite a chase." "give me another chance and we'll have another chase," i told him grumpily. "not if we can help it," he boomed cheerfully. "we've big plans for you." "have i got a vote? it's 'nay!' if i do." "you're too precipitous," he told me. "it is always an error, mr. cornell, to be opinionated. have an open mind." "to what?" "to everything," he said with an expansive gesture. "the error of all thinking, these days, is that people do not think. they merely follow someone else's thinking." "and i'm to follow yours?" "i'd prefer that, of course. it would indicate that you were possessed of a mind of your own; that you weren't merely taking the lazy man's attitude and following in the footsteps of your father." "skip it," i snapped. "your way isn't--" "now," he warned with a wave of a forefinger like a prohibitionist warning someone not to touch that quart, "one must never form an opinion on such short notice. remember, all ideas are not to be rejected just because they do not happen to agree with your own preconceived notions." "look, phelps," i snapped, deliberately omitting his title which i knew would bite a little, "i don't like your personal politics and i deplore your methods. you can't go on playing this way--" "young man, you err," he said quietly. he did not even look nettled that i'd addressed him in impolite (if not rough) terms. "may i point out that i am far ahead of your game? thoroughly outnumbered, and in ignorance of the counter-movement against me until you so vigorously brought it to my attention; within a year i have fought the counter-movement to a standstill, caused the dispersement of their main forces, ruined their far-flung lines of communication, and have so consolidated my position that i have now made open capture of the main roving factor. the latter is you, young man. a very disturbing influence and so very necessary to the conduct of this private war. you prate of my attitude, mr. cornell. you claim that such an attitude must be defeated. yet as you stand there mouthing platitudes, we are preparing to make a frontal assault upon their main base at homestead. we've waged our war of attrition; a mere spearhead will break them and scatter them to the far winds." "nice lecture," i grunted. "who are your writers?" "let's not attempt sarcasm," he said crisply. "it sits ill upon you, mr. cornell." "i'd like to sit on you," i snapped. "your humor is less tolerable than your sarcasm." "can it!" i snapped. "so you've collected me. i'll still--" "you'll do very little, mr. cornell," he told me. "your determination to attack us tooth and nail was an excellent program, and with another type of person it might have worked. but i happen to know that your will to live is very great, young man, and that in the final blow, you'd not have the will to die great enough to carry your assault to its completion." "know a lot, don't you." "yes, indeed i do. so now if you're through trying to fence at words, we'll go to your quarters." "lead on," i said in a hollow voice. with an air of stage-type politeness, he indicated a door. he showed me out and followed me. he steered me to a big limousine with a chauffeur and offered me cigarettes from a box on the arm rest as the driver started the turbine. the car purred with that muted sound of well-leashed power. "you could be of inestimable value to us," he said in a conversational tone. "i am talking this way to you because you can be of much more value as a willing ally than you would be if unwilling." "no doubt," i replied dryly. "i suggest you set aside your preconceived notions and employ a modicum of practical logic," suggested scholar phelps. "observe your position from a slightly different reign of vantage. be convinced that no matter what you do or say, we intend to make use of you to the best of our ability. you are not entertaining any doubts of that fact, i'm sure." i shrugged. phelps was not asking me these things, the inquisitor was actually telling me. he went right on telling me: "since you will be used no matter what, you might consider the advisability of being sensible, mr. cornell. in blunt words, we are prepared to meet cooperation with certain benefits which will not be proffered otherwise." "in blunter words you are offering to hire me." scholar phelps smiled in a superior manner. "not that blunt, mr. cornell, not that crude. the term 'hire' implies the performance of certain tasks in return for stipulated remuneration. no, my intention is to give you a position in this organization the exact terms of which are not clearly definable. look, young man, i've indicated that your willing cooperation is more valuable to us than otherwise. join us and you will enjoy the freedom of our most valued and trusted members; you will take part in upper level planning; you will enjoy the income and advantages of top executive personnel." he stopped short and eyed me with a peculiar expression. "mr. cornell, you have the most disconcerting way. you've actually caused me to talk as if this organization were some sort of big business instead of a cultural unit." i eyed him with the first bit of humor i'd found in many days. "you seem to talk just as though a cultural unit were set above, beyond, and spiritually divorced from anything so sordid as money, position, and the human equivalent of the barnyard pecking order," i told him. "so now let's stop goofing off, and put it into simple terms. you want me to join you willingly, to do your job for you, to advance your program. in return for which i shall be permitted to ride in the solid gold cadillac, quaff rare champagne, and select my own office furniture. isn't that about it?" scholar phelps smiled, using a benign expression that indicated that he was pleased with himself, but which had absolutely nothing to do with his attitude towards me or any of the rest of the human race. "mr. cornell, i am well aware of the time it may take for a man to effect a change in his attitude. in fact, i would be very suspicious if you were to make an abrupt reversal. however, i have outlined my position and you may have time to think it over. consider, at the very least, the fact that while cooperation will bring you pleasure and non-cooperation will bring you pain, the ultimate result will be that we will make use of your ability in either case. now--i will say no more for the present." the limousine had stopped in front of a four story brick building that was only slightly different in general architecture than others in the medical center. i could sense some slight difference, but when i took a dig at the interior i found to my amazement that this building had been built deliberately in a dead zone. the dead area stood up in the clarity like a little blob of black ink at the bottom of a crystal clear swimming pool, seen just before the ink began to diffuse. scholar phelps saw my look of puzzlement and said, suavely, "we've reversed the usual method of keeping unwilling guests. here we know their frame of mind and attitude; therefore to build the place in a dead area keeps them from plotting among themselves. i trust that your residence herein will be only temporary, mr. cornell." i nodded glumly. i was facing those last and final words: _or else!_ phelps signed a register at a guard's station in the lobby. we took a very fast and efficient elevator to the third floor and phelps escorted me along a hallway that was lined with doors, dormitory style. in the eye-level center of each door was a bull's eye that looked like one-way glass and undoubtedly was. i itched to take a look, but phelps was not having any; he stopped my single step with a hand on my arm. "this way," he said smoothly. i went this way and was finally shown into one of the rooms. my nice clean cell away from home. xxiv as soon as phelps was gone, i took a careful look at my new living quarters. the room itself was about fourteen by eighteen, but the end in which i was confined was only fourteen by ten, the other eight feet of end being barred off by a very efficient-looking set of heavy metal rods and equally strong cross-girdering. there was a sliding door that fit in place as nicely as the door to a bank vault; it was locked by heavy keeper-bars that slid up from the floor and down from the ceiling and they were actuated by hidden motors. in the barrier was a flat horizontal slot wide enough to take a tray and high enough to pass a teacup. the bottom of this slot was flush with a small table that extended through the barrier by a couple of feet on both sides so that a tray could be set down on the outside and slipped in. i tested the bars with my hands, but even my new set of muscles wouldn't flex them more than a few thousandths of an inch. the walls were steel. all i got as i tried them was a set of paint-clogged fingernails. the floor was also steel. the ceiling was a bit too high for me to tackle, but i assumed that it, too, was steel. the window was barred from the inside, undoubtedly so that any visitor from the outside could not catch on to the fact that this building was a private calaboose. the--er--furnishings of this cold storage bin were meager of minimum requirements. a washstand and toilet. a bunk made of metal girders welded to the floor. the bedding rested on wide resilient straps fixed to the cross-bars at top and bottom of the bed. a foam-rubber mattress, sheets, and one blanket finished off the bed. it was a cell designed by mekstroms to contain mekstroms and by wiseacres to contain other wiseacres. the non-metallic parts of the room were, of course, fireproof. anything i could get hold of was totally useless as a weapon or lever or tool; anything that might have been useful to a prisoner was welded down. having given up in the escape department, i sat on my bunk and lit a cigarette. i looked for tell-tales, and found a television lens set above the door of the room eight feet outside of my steel barrier. beside the lens was a speaker grille and a smaller opening that looked like a microphone dust cover. with a grunt, i flipped my cigarette at the television lens. i hit just above the hole, missing it by about an inch. immediately a tinny-sounding voice said, "that is not permitted, mr. cornell. you are expected to maintain some degree of personal cleanliness. since you cannot pick up that cigarette butt, you have placed an unwelcome task upon our personnel. one more infraction of this nature and you will not be permitted the luxury of smoking." "go to the devil!" i snapped. there was no reply. not even a haughty chuckle. the silence was worse than any reply because it pointed out the absolute superiority of their position. eventually i dozed off, there being nothing else to do. when i awoke they'd shoved a tray of food in on my table. i ate unenthusiastically. i dozed again, during which time someone removed the tray. when i woke up the second time it was night and time to go to bed, so i went. i woke up in the morning to see a burly guy enter with a tray of breakfast. i attempted to engage him in light conversation but he did not even let on that i was in the cell. later he removed the tray as silently as he'd brought it, and i was left with another four hours of utter boredom until the same bird returned with a light lunch. six hours after lunch came a slightly more substantial dinner, but no talk. by bedtime the second night i was getting stir-crazy. i hit the sack at about nine thirty, and tossed and turned, unable to drop off because i was not actually tired. i was also wondering when they'd come around with their brain-washing crew, or maybe someone who'd enter with an ultimatum. on the following morning, the tray-bearer was dr. thorndyke, who sat on the chair on the outside of my bars and looked at me silently. i tried giving him stare for stare, but eventually i gave up and said, "so now where do we go?" "cornell, you're in a bad spot of your own making." "could be," i admitted. "and yet, really, you're more of a victim of circumstances." "forgetting all the sideplay, i'm a prisoner," i told him curtly. "let's face a few facts, thorndyke, and stop tossing this guff." "all right," he said shortly, "the facts are these: we would prefer that you help us willingly. we'd further prefer to have you as you are. that is, un-reoriented mentally." "you couldn't afford to trust me," i grunted. "maybe we can. it's no secret that we've latched on to quite a number of your friends. let's assume that they will all be well-treated if you agree to join us willingly." "i'm sure that the attitude of any of my friends is such that they'd prefer me to stand my ground rather than betray their notions of right and wrong." i told him. "that's a foolish premise," he replied. "you could no more prevail against us than you could single-handedly overthrow the government. having faced that fact, it becomes sound and sensible to accept the premise and then see what sort of niche you can carve out of the new order." "i don't like your new order," i grunted. "many people will not," he admitted. "but then, people do not really know what's good for them." i almost laughed at him. "look," i said, "i'd rather make my own ignorant mistakes than to have some great father supervise my life. and speaking of fathers, we've both got to admit that god himself permits us the complete freedom of our wills." thorndyke sneered at me. "if we're to quote the scripture," he said sourly, "i'll point out that 'the lord thy god is a jealous god, visiting his wrath even upon seven generations of those who hate him.'" "granted," i replied calmly, "but whether we love him or hate him is entirely up to our own particular notion. now--" "cornell, stop talking like an idiot. here, too, you can take your choice. i'm not ordering you. i'm just trying to point out that whether you go on suffering or enjoying life is entirely up to your own decision. and also your decision will help or hinder others." "you're entirely too godlike," i told him. "well," he said, "think it over." "go to the devil!" "now, that's a very weak response," he said loftily, "doing nobody any good or harm. just talk. so stop gabbing and think." thorndyke left me with my thoughts. sure, i had bargaining power, but it was no good. i'd be useful only until they discovered some method of inoculating normal flesh with mekstrom's disease, and once that was taken care of, steve cornell would be a burden upon their resources. so that was the morning of my third day of incarceration and nothing more took place all day. they didn't even give me anything to read, and i almost went nuts. you have no idea of how long fourteen hours can be until you've been sitting in a cell with absolutely nothing to do. i exercised by chinning myself on the bars and playing gymnastics. i wanted to run but there was not enough room. the physical thrill i got out of being able to chin myself with one hand wore off after a half hundred pull-ups because it was no great feat for a mekstrom. i did push-ups and bridges and other stunts until i was bored again. and all the while, my thinking section was going around and around. the one main point that i kept coming back to was a very unpleasant future to face: it was certain that no matter what i did, nor how i argued, i was going to help them out. either i would do it willingly or they'd grow tired of the lecture routine and take me in for a mental re-evaluation, after which (being not-steve cornell any more) i'd join their ranks and do their bidding. about the only thing i could look at with self-confidence was my determination to hold out. if i was going to join them, it would be after i were no longer the man i am, but reoriented into whatever design they wanted. and that resolve was weakened by the normal human will to live. you can't make a horse drink water, but you can lead a human being to a well and he will drink it dry if you keep a shotgun pointed in his direction. and so it ended up with my always wondering if, when the cards were all dealt out face up, whether i would have the guts to keep on saying 'no' right up to the point where i walked into their department of brain-washing. in fact, i was rather afraid that in the last moment i'd weaken, just to stay being me. that uncertainty of mine was, of course, just the idea they wanted to nourish in my mind. they were doing it by leaving me alone with my mental merry-go-round. again i hit the sack out of sheer boredom and i turned and tossed for what seemed like hours before i dropped off to sleep, wondering and dreaming about who was to be the next visitor with a bill of goods to sell. the next visitor came in about midnight, or thereabouts. i woke up with the realization that someone had come in through the outer door and was standing there in the semi-dark caused by a bright moon shining in through my barred window. "steve," she said, in a near whisper. "go away," i told her. "haven't you done enough already?" "oh, please, steve. i've got to talk to you." i sat on the edge of my bunk and looked at her. she was fully dressed; her light printed silk was of the same general pattern and fit that she preferred. in fact, catherine looked as i'd always seen her, and as i'd pictured her during the long hopeless weeks of our separation. "you've got something to add?" i asked her coldly. "i've got to make you understand, steve," she pleaded. "understand what?" i snapped. "i know already. you deliberately set out to marry, or else-how tie some emotional cable onto me. god knows that you succeeded. if it hadn't been for that accident, i'd have been nailed down tight." "that part is true," she whispered. "naturally, you've got justification." "well, i have." "so has any burglar." she shook her head at me. "steve, you don't really understand. if only you could read my mind and know the truth--" she let this trail off in a helpless awkwardness. it was one of those statements that are meaningless because it can be said by either friend or foe and cannot be checked. i just looked at her and suddenly remembered something: this was the first time in my life that i was in a position to do some verbal fencing with a telepath on even terms. i could say 'yes' and think 'no' with absolute impunity. in fact, i might even have had an edge, since as a poor non-telepath i did have some training in subterfuge, falsehood, and diplomatic maneuver that the telepath couldn't have. catherine and i, at long last, were in the position of the so-called good old days when boys and girls couldn't really know the truth about one another's real thoughts. "so what's this truth?" i demanded. "steve, answer me truly. have you ever been put on an odious job, only to find that the job is really pleasant?" "yes." "then hear me out. i--in fact, no woman--takes kindly to being directed to do what i did. i was told to meet you, to marry--" her face looked flustered and it might have been a bit flushed for all i knew. i couldn't see color enough in the dim light to be sure. "--and then i met you, steve, and i found out that you were really a very nice sort of guy." "well, thanks." "don't be bitter. hear the truth. if otto mekstrom had not existed, if there were no such thing as mekstrom's disease, and i had met you freely and openly as men and women meet, i'd have come to feel the same, steve. i must make you understand that my emotional attachment to you was not increased nor decreased by the fact that my physical actions were directed at you. if anything, my job was just rendered pleasantly easier." i grunted. "and so you were made happy." "yes," she whispered. "and i was going to marry you and live honestly with you--" "heck of a marriage with the wife in the medical center for mekstrom's disease and our first child--" "steve, you poor fool, don't you understand? if our child came as predicted, the first thing i'd do would be to have the child inoculate the father? then we'd be--" "um," i grunted. "i hadn't thought of that." this was a flat lie. i'd considered it a-plenty since my jailing here. present the medical center with a child, a mekstrom, and a carrier, and good old pappy would be no longer needed. "well, after i found out all about you, steve, that's what i had in mind. but now--" "now what?" i urged her gently. i had a hunch that she was leading up to something, but ducking shy about it until she managed to find out how i thought. it would have been all zero if we'd been in a clear area, but as it was i led her gently on. "but now i've failed," she said with a slight wail. "what do they do with failures?" i asked harshly. "siberia? or a gunny sack weighted down with an anvil? or do they drum you out of the corps?" "i don't know." i eyed her closely. i was forced to admit that no matter how catherine thought, she was a mighty attractive dish from the physical standpoint. and regardless of the trouble she'd put me through, i could not overlook the fact that i had been deep enough in love to plan elopement and marriage. i'd held her slender body close, and either her response had been honestly warm or catherine was an actress of very rare physical ability. scholar phelps could hardly have picked a warmer temptress in the first place; putting her onto me now was a stroke of near-genius. i got up from the edge of my bunk and faced her through my bars. she came close, too, and we looked into each other's faces over a cross-rail of the heavy fence. i managed a wistful grin at her. "you're not really a failure yet, are you, kid?" "i don't quite know how to--to--" she replied. i looked around my little cell with a gruesome gesture. "this isn't my idea of a pleasant home. and yet it will be my home until someone decides that i'm too expensive to keep." "i know," she breathed. taking the bit in my teeth, i said, "catherine even though--well, heck. i'd like to help you." "you mean that?" she asked in almost an eager voice. "it's not impossible to forget that we were eloping when all this started." "it all seems so long ago," she said with a thick voice. "and i wish we were back there--no, steve, i wish mekstrom's disease had never happened--i wish--" "stop wishing and think," i told her half-humorously. "if there were no mekstrom's disease, the chances are that we'd never have met in the first place." "that's the cruel part of it all," she cried. and i mean _cried_. i rapped on the metal bars with a fist. "so here we are," i said unhappily. "i can't help you now, catherine." she put her hands through the bars and held my face between them. she looked searching into my eyes, as if straining to force her blocked telepath sense through the deadness of the area. she leaned against the steel but the barrier was very effective; our lips met through the cold metal. it was a very unsatisfactory kiss because we had to purse our lips like a pair of piccolo players to make them meet. it was like making love through a keyhole. this unsatisfactory lovemaking did not last long. unsteadily, catherine said, "i want you, steve." inwardly i grinned, and then with the same feeling as if i'd laughed out loud at a funeral, i said, "through these steel bars?" she brought out a little cylindrical key. then went to a brass wall plate beside the outer door, inserted the key, and turned. the sliding door to my cell opened on noiseless machined slides. then with a careful look at me, catherine slipped a little shutter over the glass bull's eye in the door. her hand reached up to a hidden toggle above the door and as she snapped it, a thick cover surged out above the speaker, television lens, and microphone grille, curved down and shut off the tell-tales with a cushioned sound. apparently the top management of the joint used these cells for other things than mere containment of unruly prisoners. i almost grinned; the society that scholar phelps proposed was not the kind that flourished in an atmosphere of trust, or privacy--except for the top brass. catherine turned from her switch plate and came across the floor with her face lifted and her lips parted. "hold me, steve." my hand came forward in a short jab that caught her dead center in the plexus below the ribs. her breath caught in one strangled gasp and her eyes went glassy. she swayed stiffly in half-paralysis. my other hand came up, closing as it rose, until it became a fist that connected in a shoulder-jarring wallop on the side of her jaw. her head snapped up and her knees caved in. she folded from the hips and went down bonelessly. from her throat came the bubbly sound of air being forced painfully through a flaccid wet tube. i jumped outside of the cell barrier because i was certain that they had some means of closing the cell from a master control center. i don't know much about penology, but that's the way i'd do it. i was half-surprised that i'd been able to get away with this much. catherine stirred and moaned, and i stopped long enough to take the key out of the wall plate. the cell door closed on its silent slides. i had hardly been able to more than run the zipper up my shirt when the door opened and i had to dance like a fool to get behind it. the door admitted a flood of bright light from the corridor, and dr. james thorndyke. the cell door must have been bugged. thorndyke came in behind a large automatic clutched in one nervous fist. he strained his eyes at the gloom that was not cut by the ribbon of light. and then i cut him down with a solid slice of my right hand to the base of his neck. i remembered to jump off the ground as the blow went home; there was a sickening crunch of bone and muscle as thorndyke caved forward to the floor. he dropped the gun, luckily, as his body began to twitch and kick spasmodically as the life drained out of him. i re-swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile as i reached down to pick up his gun. then the room got hot and unbearably small and i felt a frantic urge to leave, to close the door upon that sight. xxv i was yards away from my door before my panic left me. then i remembered where and who i was and took a fast look around. there was no one else in the corridor, of course, or i would not have been able to cut and run as i had. but i looked around anyway until my reasoning power told me that i had done little to help my position. like the canary, my plans for escape ended once i was outside of my cage. i literally did not know what to do with my new-found freedom. one thing was becoming painfully obvious: i'd be pinned down tight once i put a foot outside of the dead area in which this building was constructed. what i needed was friends, arms, ammunition, and a good, solid plan of escape. i had neither; unless you call my jailed friends such help. and there i could not go; the tell-tales would give me away to the master control center before i could raise my small--and unarmed--army. so i stood there in the brightly lighted corridor and tried to think. i got nowhere, but i was driven to action again by the unmistakable sound of the elevator at the end of the corridor. i eyed the various cell doors with suspicion; opening any but an empty room would cause some comment from the occupant, which again would give me away. nor did i have time to canvass the joint by peeking into the one-way bull's eyes, peering into a semi-gloom to see which room was empty. so instead of hiding in the corridor, i sloped towards the elevator and the stairwell that surrounded it, hoping that i could make it before the elevator rose to my floor. i know that my passage must have sounded like a turbojet in full flight, but i made the stairway and took a headlong leap down the first short flight of stairs just as the elevator door rolled open. i hit the wall with a bumping crash that jarred my senses, but i kept my feet and looked back up the stairs. i caught a flash of motion; a guard sauntering past the top of the well, a cigarette in one hand and a lazy-looking air about him. he was expecting no trouble, and so i gave him none. i crept up the stairs and poked my head out just at the floor level. the guard, obviously confident that nothing, but nothing, could ever happen in this welded metal crib, jauntily peered into a couple of the rooms at random, took a long squint at the room i'd recently vacated, and then went on to the end of the hall where he stuck a key in a signal-box. on his way back he paused again to peer into my room, straining to see if he could peer past the little shutter over the bull's eye. then he shrugged unhappily, and started to return. i loped down the stairs to the second floor and waited. the elevator came down, stopped, and the guard repeated his desultory search, not stopping to pry into any darkened rooms. just above the final, first-floor flight, i stopped and sprawled on the floor with only my head and the nose of my gun over the top step. below was the guard's desk and standing beside the desk with anger in every line of his ugly face was scholar phelps! the elevator came down, stopped, and the guard walked out, to be nailed by phelps. "your job," snapped the good scholar coldly, "says you are to walk." "well, er--sir--it's--" "walk!" stormed phelps angrily. "you can't cover that stairway in the elevator, you fumbling idiot." "but, sir--" "someone could easily come down while you go up." "i know that, sir, but--" "then why do you disobey?" roared phelps. "well, you see, sir, i know how this place is built and no one has ever made it yet. who could?" the guard looked mystified. phelps had to face that fact. he did not accept it gracefully. "my orders are orders," he said stiffly. "you'll follow them. to the last letter." "yes sir. i will." "see that you do. now, i'm going up. i'll ride and you walk. meet me on the fourth and bring the elevator down with you." "yessir." i sloped upstairs like a scared rabbit. up to the third again where i moved down the corridor and slipped into the much-too-thin niche made by a door. stolidly the guard came up the stairs, crossed in front of the elevator with his back to me, turned the far corner and went on up to the fourth. as his feet started up the stairs, i was behind him; by the time he reached the top, i was half way up. phelps said, "now, from this moment on, waldron, you'll follow every order to the absolute letter. and when i ring, don't make the error of bringing the elevator. send it. it'll come up and stop without a pilot." "yes sir. i'm sorry sir. but you understand, sir, there isn't really much to guard, sir." "then guard nothing. but guard it well, because a man in your position is gauged in success by the amount of boredom he creates for himself." the guard started down and i darted up to poke my head out to see where phelps was going. as i neared the floor level, i had a shock like someone hurling twenty gallons of ice water in my face. the top floor was the end of the dead area, and i-- --pulled my head down into the murk like a diver taking a plunge. so i stood there making like a guppy with my head, sounding out the boundary of that deadness, ducking down as soon as the mental murk gave me a faint perception of the wall and ceiling above me. then i'd move aside and sound it again. eventually i found a little billowing furrow that rose above the floor level and i crawled out along the floor, still sounding and moving cautiously with my body hidden in the deadness that rose and fell like a cloud of murky mental smoke to my sense of perception. i would have looked silly to any witness; wallowing along the floor like a porpoise acting furtive in the bright lights. but then i couldn't go any farther; the deadness sank below the floor level and left me looking along a bare floor that was also bare to my sense of perception. i shoved my head out of the dead zone and took a fast dig, then dropped back in again and lay there re-constructing what i'd perceived mentally. i did it the second time and the third, each time making a rapid scan of some portion of that fourth floor. in three fast swings, i collected a couple of empty offices, a very complete hospital set-up operating room, and a place that looked like a consultation theatre. on my fourth scan, i whipped past scholar phelps, who was apparently deep in some personal interest. i rose at once and strode down the hall and snapped the door open just as phelps' completely unexpecting mind grasped the perceptive fact that someone was coming down his hallway wearing a great big forty five automatic. "freeze!" i snapped. "put that weapon down, mr. cornell. it, nor its use, will get your freedom." "maybe all i want out of life is to see you leave it," i told him. "you'd not be that foolish, i'm sure," he said. "i might." he laughed, with all the self-confidence in the world. "mr. cornell, you have too much will to live. you're not the martyr type." "i might turn out to be the cornered-rat type," i told him seriously. "so play it cagey, phelps." "scholar phelps, please." "i wouldn't disgrace the medical profession," i told him. "so--" "so what do you propose to do about this?" "i'm getting out." "don't be ridiculous. one step out of this building and you'll return within a half minute. how did you get out?" "i was seduced out. now--" "i'd advise you to surrender; to stop this hopeless attempt; to put that weapon down. you cannot escape. there are, in this building, your mental and intellectual superiors whose incarceration bear me witness." i eyed him coldly and quietly. "i'm not convinced. i'm out. and if you could take a dig below you'd see a dead man and an unconscious woman to bear me witness. i broke your dr. thorndyke's neck with a chop of my bare hand, phelps; i knocked catherine cold with a fist. this thing might not kill you, but i'm a mekstrom, too, and so help me i can cool you down but good." "violence will get you nothing." "try my patience. i'll bet my worthless hide on it." then i grinned at him. "oh, it isn't so worthless, is it?" "one cry from me, mr. cornell, and--" "and you'll not live to see what happens. i've killed once tonight. i didn't like it. but the idea is not as new now as it was then. i'll kill you, phelps, if for no other reason than merely to keep my word." with a sneer, phelps turned to his desk and i stabbed my perception behind the papers and stuff to the call button; then i launched myself across the room like a rocket, swinging my gun hand as i soared. the steel caught him on the side of the head and drove him back from his call button before his finger could press it. then i let him have a fist in the belly because the pistol swat hadn't much more than dazed him. the fist did it. he crumpled in a heap and fought for breath unconsciously. i turned to the wall he'd been eyeing with so much attention. there was row upon row of small kine tubes, each showing the dark interior of a cell. below each was a row of pilot lights, all dark. on his desk was a large bank of push buttons, a speaker, and a microphone. and beside the push button set-up was a ledger containing a list of names with their cell numbers. i found marian harrison; pushed her button, and heard her ladylike snore from the speaker. a green lamp winked under one of the kine tubes and i walked over and looked into the darkened cell to see her familiar hair sprawled over a thick pillow. i went to the desk and snapped on the microphone. "marian," i said. "marian! hey! marian harrison!" in the picture tube there was a stir, then she sat up and looked around in a sort of daze. "marian, this is steve cornell, but don't--" "steve!" "--cry out," i finished uselessly. "where are you?" she asked in a whisper. "i'm in the con room." "but how on earth--?" "no time to gab. i'll be down in a rush with the key. get dressed!" "yes, steve." i took off in a headlong rush with the 'hotel register' in one hand. i made the third floor and marian's cell in slightly more than nothing flat, but she was ready when i came barging into her room. she was out of the cell before it hit the backstop and following me down the hall towards her brother's room. "what happened?" she asked breathlessly. "later," i told her. i opened phillip harrison's cell. "you go wake up fred macklin and tell him to come here. then get the macklin girl--alice, it says here--and the pair of you wake up others and start sending 'em up stairs. i'll call you on the telltale as soon as i can." marian took off with the key and the register and i started to shake phillip harrison's shoulder. "wake up!" i cried. "wake up, phillip!" phillip made a noise like a baby seal. "wake up!" "wha--?" "it's steve cornell. wake up!" with a rough shake of his head, phillip groaned and unwound himself out of a tangle of bedclothing. he looked at me through half-closed glassy eyes. then he straightened and made a perilous course to the washstand where he sopped a towel in cold water and applied it to his face, neck, and shoulders. when he dropped the towel in the sink, his expression was fresher and his eyes were mingled curiosity and amazement. "what gives?" he asked, starting to dress in a hurry. "i busted out, slugged scholar phelps, and took over the master control room. i need help. we can't keep it long unless we move fast." "yeah man. any moving will be fast," he said sourly. "got any plans?" "we've--" the door opened to let fred macklin enter. he carried his shirt and had been dressing on the run. "what goes on?" he asked. "look," i said quickly. "if i have to stop and give anybody a rundown, we'll have no time to do what has to be done. there are a couple of sources of danger. one is the guard down at the bottom of the stairway. the other is the possible visitor. you get a couple of other young, ambitious fellows and push that guard post over, but quick." "right. and you?" "i've got to keep our hostage cold," i snapped. "and i'm running the show by virtue of being the guy that managed to bust loose." in the hallway there was movement, but i left it to head back to scholar phelps. i got there in time to hear him groan and make scratching noises on the carpet. i took no chances; i cooled him down with a short jab to the pit of the stomach and doubled him over again. he was sleeping painfully but soundlessly when marian came in. i turned to her. "you're supposed to be waking up--" "i gave the key and the register to jo anne tweedy," she said. "jo anne's the brash young teenager you took a bump with in ohio. she's competent, steve. and she's got the macklin twins to help her. waking up the camp is a job for the junior division." she eyed the recumbent phelps distastefully. "what have you in mind for him?" "he's valuable," i said. "we'll use him to buy our freedom." the door opened again, interrupting marian. it was jonas harrison. he stood there in the frame of the door and looked at us with a sort of grim smile. i had never met the old patriarch of the harrison family before, but he lived up to my every expectation. he stood tall and straight; topped by a wealth of snow white hair, white eyebrows, and the touch of a white moustache. his eyes contrasted with the white; a rich and startling brown. this was a man to whom i could hand the basic problem of engineering our final escape; jonas harrison was capable of plotting an airtight getaway. his voice was rich and resonant; it had a lift in its tone that sounded as though his self-confidence had never been in danger of a set-back: "well, son, you seem to have accomplished quite a job this night. what shall we do next?" "get the devil out of here," i replied-- --wondering just exactly how i'd known so instantly that this was jonas harrison. the rich and resonant voice had flicked a subsurface recollection on a faint, raw spot and now something important was swimming around in the mire of my mind trying to break loose and come clear. i turned from the sword-sharp brown eyes and looked at marian. she was almost as i had first seen her: not much make-up if any at all, her hair free of fancy dressing but neat, her legs were bare and healthy-tanned. i looked at her, and for a half dozen heartbeats her image faded from my sight, replaced by the well remembered figure of catherine as i had known her first. it was a dizzy-making montage because my perception senses the real figure of marian, superimposed on the visual memory-image of catherine. then the false sight faded and both perception and eyesight focused upon the true person of marian harrison. marian stood there, her face softly proud. her eyes were looking straight into mine, as if she were mentally urging me to fight that hidden memory into full recollection. then i both saw and perceived something that i had never noticed before. a fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. but my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and i could even dig the tiny initials engraved in the metal circlet: sc-mh to dig anything that fine, i knew that it must be of importance to me. and then i knew that it had once been so very personally my own business, for the submerged recollection came bursting up to the top of my mind. marian henderson had been mine once long ago! boldly i stepped forward and took the chain between my fingers. i snapped it, and held the ring. "will you wear it again, my dear?" she held up her left hand for me to slip it on. "steve," she breathed, "i've never stopped wearing it, not really." "but i didn't see it until now--" jonas harrison said, "no, steve, you couldn't see it until you remembered." "but look--" "blame me," he said in his firm determined voice. "the story begins and ends with you, steve. when marian contracted mekstrom's disease, she herself insisted that you be spared the emotional pain that the rest of us could not avoid. so i erased her from your mind, steve, and submerged any former association. then when the highways in hiding came to take us in, i left it that way because marian was still as unattainable to you as if she were dead. if an apology is needed, i'll only ask that you forgive my tampering with your mind and personality." "apologize?" i exploded. "i'm here, we're here, and you've just provided me with a way out of this mousetrap!" "a way out?" he murmured, in that absent way that telepaths have when they're concentrating on another mind. fast comprehension dawned in the sharp brown eyes and he looked even more self-confident and determined. marian leaned back in my arms to look into my eyes. "steve," she cried, "it's simply got to work!" gloria farrow merely said, "he'll have to have medication, of course," and went briskly to a wall cabinet and began to fiddle with medical tools. howard macklin and jonas harrison went into a deep telepathic conference that was interrupted only when jonas harrison turned to phillip to say, "you'll have to provide us with uninterrupted time, somehow." marian disengaged herself reluctantly and started to propel me out of the room. "go help him, steve. what we are going to do is not for any non-telepath to watch." outside, phillip threatened me with the guard's signal-box key. "mind telling a non-telepath what the devil you cooked up?" i smiled. "if your father has the mental power to erase marian from my mind, he also has the power to do a fine reorientation job on scholar phelps. once we get the spiderwebs cleaned out of the top dog, we start down the pyramid, line by line and echelon by echelon, with each reoriented recruit adding to our force. once we get this joint operating on the level, we can all go to work for the rest of the human race!" * * * * * there is little left to tell. the medical center and the highways in hiding are one agency dedicated to the conquest of the last and most puzzling of the diseases and maladies that beset mankind. we are no closer to a solution than we ever were, and so i am still a very busy man. i have written this account and disclosed our secret because we want no more victims of mekstrom's disease to suffer. so i will write finish with one earnest plea and one ray of hope: please do not follow one of our highways unless you are already infected. since i cannot hope to inoculate the entire human race, and will not pick or choose certain worthy types for special attention, i will deal only with those folks who find mekstrom's disease among their immediate family. such people need never be parted from their loved ones. the rest of you will have to wait your turn. but we'll get to it sooner or later. thirty days ago, steve, junior, was born. he's a healthy little mekstrom, and like his pappy, steve junior is a carrier, too. * * * * * [transcriber's note: back cover] quest impossible someone had stolen an important part of steve cornell's life. it was bad enough when his fiancée vanished. it was infinitely worse when everyone in the world insisted it couldn't have happened the way he knew it had. in a world where esp and telepathy were normal, it was difficult to keep secrets. but steve's search for his missing sweetheart brought him to the threshold of one of the greatest secrets of all time. and it was obvious that somebody would stop at nothing to keep him from uncovering it. what were the oddly sinister symbols along otherwise ordinary roads? what was behind the spreading plague called mekstrom's disease? why were there "blank" spots where telepathy didn't work? who was the elusive enemy with powers even beyond those esp had bestowed on mankind? and, most important of all ... could steve find that enemy before they made him vanish too? a lancer book · never before complete in paperback this ebook was produced by charles franks and the online distributed proofreading team. the little minister by j. m. barrie author of "window in thrums," "auld light idylls," "when a man's single." etc. contents. chapter i. the love-light ii. runs alongside the making of a minister iii. the night-watchers iv. first coming of the egyptian woman v. a warlike chapter, culminating in the flouting of the minister by the woman vi. in which the soldiers meet the amazons of thrums vii. has the folly of looking into a woman's eyes by way of text viii. a.m.--monstrous audacity of the woman ix. the woman considered in absence--adventures of a military cloak x. first sermon against women xi. tells in a whisper of man's fall during the curling season xii. tragedy of a mud house xiii. second coming of the egyptian woman xiv. the minister dances to the woman's piping xv. the minister bewitched--second sermon against women xvi. continued misbehavior of the egyptian woman xvii. intrusion of haggart into these pages against the author's wish xviii. caddam--love leading to a rupture xix. circumstances leading to the first sermon in approval of women xx. end of the state of indecision xxi. night--margaret--flashing of a lantern xxii. lovers xxiii. contains a birth, which is sufficient for one chapter xxiv. the new world, and the women who may not dwell therein xxv. beginning of the twenty-four hours xxvi. scene at the spittal xxvii. first journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours xxviii. the hill before darkness fell--scene of the impending catastrophe xxix. story of the egyptian xxx. the meeting for rain xxxi. various bodies converging on the hill xxxii. leading swiftly to the appalling marriage xxxiii. while the ten o'clock bell was ringing xxxiv. the great rain xxxv. the glen at break of day xxxvi. story of the dominie xxxvii. second journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours xxxviii. thrums during the twenty-four hours--defence of the manse xxxix. how babbie spent the night of august fourth xl. babbie and margaret--defence of the manse continued xli. rintoui and babbie--break-down of the defence of the manse xlii. margaret, the precentor, and god between xliii. rain--mist--the jaws xliv. end of the twenty-four hours xlv. talk of a little maid since grown tall chapter i. the love-light. long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's soldier without whistling impudently, "come ower the water to charlie," a minister of thrums was to be married, but something happened, and he remained a bachelor. then, when he was old, he passed in our square the lady who was to have been his wife, and her hair was white, but she, too, was still unmarried. the meeting had only one witness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards, "they didna speak, but they just gave one another a look, and i saw the love-light in their een." no more is remembered of these two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a battered weaver makes them human to us for ever. it is of another minister i am to tell, but only to those who know that light when they see it. i am not bidding good-bye to many readers, for though it is true that some men, of whom lord rintoul was one, live to an old age without knowing love, few of us can have met them, and of women so incomplete i never heard. gavin dishart was barely twenty-one when he and his mother came to thrums, light-hearted like the traveller who knows not what awaits him at the bend of the road. it was the time of year when the ground is carpeted beneath the firs with brown needles, when split-nuts patter all day from the beech, and children lay yellow corn on the dominie's desk to remind him that now they are needed in the fields. the day was so silent that carts could be heard rumbling a mile away. all thrums was out in its wynds and closes-- a few of the weavers still in knee-breeches--to look at the new auld licht minister. i was there too, the dominie of glen quharity, which is four miles from thrums; and heavy was my heart as i stood afar off so that gavin's mother might not have the pain of seeing me. i was the only one in the crowd who looked at her more than at her son. eighteen years had passed since we parted. already her hair had lost the brightness of its youth, and she seemed to me smaller and more fragile; and the face that i loved when i was a hobbledehoy, and loved when i looked once more upon it in thrums, and always shall love till i die, was soft and worn. margaret was an old woman, and she was only forty-three: and i am the man who made her old. as gavin put his eager boyish face out at the carriage window, many saw that he was holding her hand, but none could be glad at the sight as the dominie was glad, looking on at a happiness in which he dared not mingle. margaret was crying because she was so proud of her boy. women do that. poor sons to be proud of, good mothers, but i would not have you dry those tears. when the little minister looked out at the carriage window, many of the people drew back humbly, but a little boy in a red frock with black spots pressed forward and offered him a sticky parly, which gavin accepted, though not without a tremor, for children were more terrible to him then than bearded men. the boy's mother, trying not to look elated, bore him away, but her face said that he was made for life. with this little incident gavin's career in thrums began. i remembered it suddenly the other day when wading across the wynd where it took place. many scenes in the little minister's life come back to me in this way. the first time i ever thought of writing his love story as an old man's gift to a little maid since grown tall, was one night while i sat alone in the school-house; on my knees a fiddle that has been my only living companion since i sold my hens. my mind had drifted back to the first time i saw gavin and the egyptian together, and what set it wandering to that midnight meeting was my garden gate shaking in the wind. at a gate on the hill i had first encountered these two. it rattled in his hand, and i looked up and saw them, and neither knew why i had such cause to start at the sight. then the gate swung to. it had just such a click as mine. these two figures on the hill are more real to me than things that happened yesterday, but i do not know that i can make them live to others. a ghost-show used to come yearly to thrums on the merry muckle friday, in which the illusion was contrived by hanging a glass between the onlookers and the stage. i cannot deny that the comings and goings of the ghost were highly diverting, yet the farmer of t'nowhead only laughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door like the rest of us. t'nowhead sat at the end of a form where he saw round the glass and so saw no ghost. i fear my public may be in the same predicament. i see the little minister as he was at one-and-twenty, and the little girl to whom this story is to belong sees him, though the things i have to tell happened before she came into the world. but there are reasons why she should see; and i do not know that i can provide the glass for others. if they see round it, they will neither laugh nor cry with gavin and babbie. when gavin came to thrums he was as i am now, for the pages lay before him on which he was to write his life. yet he was not quite as i am. the life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. but the biographer sees the last chapter while he is still at the first, and i have only to write over with ink what gavin has written in pencil. how often is it a phanton woman who draws the man from the way he meant to go? so was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. he does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. it is the joining of two souls on their way to god. but if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakens from his dream. the nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run after little things will not go far. his love may now sink into passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown. babbie, what shall i say of you who make me write these things? i am not your judge. shall we not laugh at the student who chafes when between him and his book comes the song of the thrushes, with whom, on the mad night you danced into gavin's life, you had more in common than with auld licht ministers? the gladness of living was in your step, your voice was melody, and he was wondering what love might be. you were the daughter of a summer night, born where all the birds are free, and the moon christened you with her soft light to dazzle the eyes of man. not our little minister alone was stricken by you into his second childhood. to look upon you was to rejoice that so fair a thing could be; to think of you is still to be young. even those who called you a little devil, of whom i have been one, admitted that in the end you had a soul, though not that you had been born with one. they said you stole it, and so made a woman of yourself. but again i say i am not your judge, and when i picture you as gavin saw you first, a bare-legged witch dancing up windyghoul, rowan berries in your black hair, and on your finger a jewel the little minister could not have bought with five years of toil, the shadows on my pages lift, and i cannot wonder that gavin loved you. often i say to myself that this is to be gavin's story, not mine. yet must it be mine too, in a manner, and of myself i shall sometimes have to speak; not willingly, for it is time my little tragedy had died of old age. i have kept it to myself so long that now i would stand at its grave alone. it is true that when i heard who was to be the new minister i hoped for a day that the life broken in harvie might be mended in thrums, but two minutes' talk with gavin showed me that margaret had kept from him the secret which was hers and mine and so knocked the bottom out of my vain hopes. i did not blame her then, nor do i blame her now, nor shall anyone who blames her ever be called friend by me; but it was bitter to look at the white manse among the trees and know that i must never enter it. for margaret's sake i had to keep aloof, yet this new trial came upon me like our parting at harvie. i thought that in those eighteen years my passions had burned like a ship till they sank, but i suffered again as on that awful night when adam dishart came back, nearly killing margaret and tearing up all my ambitions by the root in a single hour. i waited in thrums until i had looked again on margaret, who thought me dead, and gavin, who had never heard of me, and then i trudged back to the school-house. something i heard of them from time to time during the winter--for in the gossip of thrums i was well posted--but much of what is to be told here i only learned afterwards from those who knew it best. gavin heard of me at times as the dominie in the glen who had ceased to attend the auld licht kirk, and margaret did not even hear of me. it was all i could do for them. chapter ii. runs alongside the making of a minister. on the east coast of scotland, hidden, as if in a quarry, at the foot of cliffs that may one day fall forward, is a village called harvie. so has it shrunk since the day when i skulked from it that i hear of a traveller's asking lately at one of its doors how far he was from a village; yet harvie throve once and was celebrated even in distant thrums for its fish. most of our weavers would have thought it as unnatural not to buy harvies in the square on the muckle friday, as to let saturday night pass without laying in a sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the family twice. gavin was born in harvie, but left it at such an early age that he could only recall thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs, and a sandy shore in which coarse grass grew. in the picture he could not pick out the house of his birth, though he might have been able to go to it had he ever returned to the village. soon he learned that his mother did not care to speak of harvie, and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it too, all save one scene to which his memory still guided him. when his mind wandered to harvie, gavin saw the door of his home open and a fisherman enter, who scratched his head and then said, "your man's drowned, missis." gavin seemed to see many women crying, and his mother staring at them with a face suddenly painted white, and next to hear a voice that was his own saying, "never mind, mother; i'll be a man to you now, and i'll need breeks for the burial." but adam required no funeral, for his body lay deep in the sea. gavin thought that this was the tragedy of his mother's life, and the most memorable event of his own childhood. but it was neither. when margaret, even after she came to thrums, thought of harvie, it was not at adam's death she shuddered, but at the recollection of me. it would ill become me to take a late revenge on adam dishart now by saying what is not true of him. though he died a fisherman he was a sailor for a great part of his life, and doubtless his recklessness was washed into him on the high seas, where in his time men made a crony of death, and drank merrily over dodging it for another night. to me his roars of laughter without cause were as repellent as a boy's drum; yet many faces that were long in my company brightened at his coming, and women, with whom, despite my yearning, i was in no wise a favorite, ran to their doors to listen to him as readily as to the bell-man. children scurried from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all other times, while me they merely disregarded. there was always a smell of the sea about him. he had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk, when he walked very straight, and before both sexes he boasted that any woman would take him for his beard alone. of this beard he took prodigious care, though otherwise thinking little of his appearance, and i now see that he understood women better than i did, who had nevertheless reflected much about them. it cannot be said that he was vain, for though he thought he attracted women strangely, that, i maintain, is a weakness common to all men, and so no more to be marvelled at than a stake in a fence. foreign oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together, yet i doubt not they were a curiosity gathered at sea, like his chains of shells, more for his own pleasure than for others' pain. his friends gave them no weight, and when he wanted to talk emphatically he kept them back, though they were then as troublesome to him as eggs to the bird-nesting boy who has to speak with his spoil in his mouth. adam was drowned on gavin's fourth birthday, a year after i had to leave harvie. he was blown off his smack in a storm, and could not reach the rope his partner flung him. "it's no go, lad," he shouted; "so long, jim," and sank. a month afterwards margaret sold her share in the smack, which was all adam left her, and the furniture of the house was rouped. she took gavin to glasgow, where her only brother needed a housekeeper, and there mother and son remained until gavin got his call to thrums. during those seventeen years i lost knowledge of them as completely as margaret had lost knowledge of me. on hearing of adam's death i went back to harvie to try to trace her, but she had feared this, and so told no one where she was going. according to margaret, gavin's genius showed itself while he was still a child. he was born with a brow whose nobility impressed her from the first. it was a minister's brow, and though margaret herself was no scholar, being as slow to read as she was quick at turning bannocks on the girdle, she decided, when his age was still counted by months, that the ministry had need of him. in those days the first question asked of a child was not, "tell me your name," but "what are you to be?" and one child in every family replied, "a minister." he was set apart for the church as doggedly as the shilling a week for the rent, and the rule held good though the family consisted of only one boy. from his earliest days gavin thought he had been fashioned for the ministry as certainly as a spade for digging, and margaret rejoiced and marvelled thereat, though she had made her own puzzle. an enthusiastic mother may bend her son's mind as she chooses if she begins it once; nay, she may do stranger things. i know a mother in thrums who loves "features," and had a child born with no chin to speak of. the neighbors expected this to bring her to the dust, but it only showed what a mother can do. in a few months that child had a chin with the best of them. margaret's brother died, but she remained in his single room, and, ever with a picture of her son in a pulpit to repay her, contrived to keep gavin at school. everything a woman's fingers can do margaret's did better than most, and among the wealthy people who employed her--would that i could have the teaching of the sons of such as were good to her in those hard days!--her gentle manner was spoken of. for though margaret had no schooling, she was a lady at heart, moving and almost speaking as one even in harvie, where they did not perhaps like her the better for it. at six gavin hit another boy hard for belonging to the established church, and at seven he could not lose himself in the shorter catechism. his mother expounded the scriptures to him till he was eight, when he began to expound them to her. by this time he was studying the practical work of the pulpit as enthusiastically as ever medical student cut off a leg. from a front pew in the gallery gavin watched the minister's every movement, noting that the first thing to do on ascending the pulpit is to cover your face with your hands, as if the exalted position affected you like a strong light, and the second to move the big bible slightly, to show that the kirk officer, not having had a university education, could not be expected to know the very spot on which it ought to lie. gavin saw that the minister joined in the singing more like one countenancing a seemly thing than because he needed it himself, and that he only sang a mouthful now and again after the congregation was in full pursuit of the precentor. it was noteworthy that the first prayer lasted longer than all the others, and that to read the intimations about the bible-class and the collection elsewhere than immediately before the last psalm would have been as sacrilegious as to insert the dedication to king james at the end of revelation. sitting under a minister justly honoured in his day, the boy was often some words in advance of him, not vainglorious of his memory, but fervent, eager, and regarding the preacher as hardly less sacred than the book. gavin was encouraged by his frightened yet admiring mother to saw the air from their pew as the minister sawed it in the pulpit, and two benedictions were pronounced twice a sabbath in that church, in the same words, the same manner, and simultaneously. there was a black year when the things of this world, especially its pastimes, took such a grip of gavin that he said to margaret he would rather be good at the high jump than the author of "the pilgrim's progress." that year passed, and gavin came to his right mind. one afternoon margaret was at home making a glen-garry for him out of a piece of carpet, and giving it a tartan edging, when the boy bounded in from school, crying, "come quick, mother, and you'll see him." margaret reached the door in time to see a street musician flying from gavin and his friends. "did you take stock of him, mother?" the boy asked when he reappeared with the mark of a muddy stick on his back. "he's a papist!--a sore sight, mother, a sore sight. we stoned him for persecuting the noble martyrs." "when gavin was twelve he went to the university, and also got a place in a shop as errand boy. he used to run through the streets between his work and his classes. potatoes and salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the half- hundred weight, were his food. there was not always a good meal for two, yet when gavin reached home at night there was generally something ready for him, and margaret had supped "hours ago." gavin's hunger urged him to fall to, but his love for his mother made him watchful. "what did you have yourself, mother?" he would demand suspiciously. "oh, i had a fine supper, i assure you." "what had you?" "i had potatoes, for one thing." "and dripping?" "you may be sure." "mother, you're cheating me. the dripping hasn't been touched since yesterday." "i dinna--don't--care for dripping--no much." then would gavin stride the room fiercely, a queer little figure. "do you think i'll stand this, mother? will i let myself be pampered with dripping and every delicacy while you starve?" "gavin, i really dinna care for dripping." "then i'll give up my classes, and we can have butter." "i assure you i'm no hungry. it's different wi' a growing laddie." "i'm not a growing laddie," gavin would say, bitterly; "but, mother, i warn you that not another bite passes my throat till i see you eating too." so margaret had to take her seat at the table, and when she said "i can eat no more," gavin retorted sternly, "nor will i, for fine i see through you." these two were as one far more than most married people, and, just as gavin in his childhood reflected his mother, she now reflected him. the people for whom she sewed thought it was contact with them that had rubbed the broad scotch from her tongue, but she was only keeping pace with gavin. when she was excited the harvie words came back to her, as they come back to me. i have taught the english language all my life, and i try to write it, but everything i say in this book i first think to myself in the doric. this, too, i notice, that in talking to myself i am broader than when gossiping with the farmers of the glen, who send their children to me to learn english, and then jeer at them if they say "old lights" instead of "auld lichts." to margaret it was happiness to sit through the long evenings sewing, and look over her work at gavin as he read or wrote or recited to himself the learning of the schools. but she coughed every time the weather changed, and then gavin would start. "you must go to your bed, mother," he would say, tearing himself from his books; or he would sit beside her and talk of the dream that was common to both--a dream of a manse where margaret was mistress and gavin was called the minister. every night gavin was at his mother's bedside to wind her shawl round her feet, and while he did it margaret smiled. "mother, this is the chaff pillow you've taken out of my bed, and given me your feather one." "gavin, you needna change them. i winna have the feather pillow." "do you dare to think i'll let you sleep on chaff? put up your head. now, is that soft?" "it's fine. i dinna deny but what i sleep better on feathers. do you mind, gavin, you bought this pillow for me the moment you got your bursary money?" the reserve that is a wall between many of the scottish poor had been broken down by these two. when he saw his mother sleeping happily, gavin went back to his work. to save the expense of a lamp, he would put his book almost beneath the dying fire, and, taking the place of the fender, read till he was shivering with cold. "gavin, it is near morning, and you not in your bed yet! what are you thinking about so hard?" "oh, mother, i was wondering if the time would ever come when i would be a minister, and you would have an egg for your breakfast every morning." so the years passed, and soon gavin would be a minister. he had now sermons to prepare, and every one of them was first preached to margaret. how solemn was his voice, how his eyes flashed, how stern were his admonitions. "gavin, such a sermon i never heard. the spirit of god is on you. i'm ashamed you should have me for a mother." "god grant, mother," gavin said, little thinking what was soon to happen, or he would have made this prayer on his knees, "that you may never be ashamed to have me for a son." "ah, mother," he would say wistfully, "it is not a great sermon, but do you think i'm preaching christ? that is what i try, but i'm carried away and forget to watch myself." "the lord has you by the hand, gavin; and mind, i dinna say that because you're my laddie." "yes, you do, mother, and well i know it, and yet it does me good to hear you." that it did him good i, who would fain have shared those days with them, am very sure. the praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out of him. not long before gavin preached for our kirk and got his call, a great event took place in the little room at glasgow. the student appeared for the first time before his mother in his ministerial clothes. he wore the black silk hat, that was destined to become a terror to evil-doers in thrums, and i dare say he was rather puffed up about himself that day. you would probably have smiled at him. "it's a pity i'm so little, mother," he said with a sigh. "you're no what i would call a particularly long man," margaret said, "but you're just the height i like." then gavin went out in his grandeur, and margaret cried for an hour. she was thinking of me as well as of gavin, and as it happens, i know that i was thinking at the same time of her. gavin kept a diary in those days, which i have seen, and by comparing it with mine, i discovered that while he was showing himself to his mother in his black clothes, i was on my way back from tilliedrum, where i had gone to buy a sand-glass for the school. the one i bought was so like another margaret had used at harvie that it set me thinking of her again all the way home. this is a matter hardly worth mentioning, and yet it interests me. busy days followed the call to thrums, and gavin had difficulty in forcing himself to his sermons when there was always something more to tell his mother about the weaving town they were going to, or about the manse or the furniture that had been transferred to him by the retiring minister. the little room which had become so familiar that it seemed one of a family party of three had to be stripped, and many of its contents were sold. among what were brought to thrums was a little exercise book, in which margaret had tried, unknown to gavin, to teach herself writing and grammar, that she might be less unfit for a manse. he found it accidentally one day. it was full of "i am, thou art, he is," and the like, written many times in a shaking hand. gavin put his arms round his mother when he saw what she had been doing. the exercise book is in my desk now, and will be my little maid's when i die. "gavin, gavin," margaret said many times in those last days at glasgow, "to think it has all come true!" "let the last word you say in the house be a prayer of thankfulness," she whispered to him when they were taking a final glance at the old home. in the bare room they called the house, the little minister and his mother went on their knees, but, as it chanced, their last word there was not addressed to god. "gavin," margaret whispered as he took her arm, "do you think this bonnet sets me?" chapter iii. the night-watchers. what first struck margaret in thrums was the smell of the caddis. the town smells of caddis no longer, but whiffs of it may be got even now as one passes the houses of the old, where the lay still swings at little windows like a great ghost pendulum. to me it is a homely smell, which i draw in with a great breath, but it was as strange to margaret as the weavers themselves, who, in their colored nightcaps and corduroys streaked with threads, gazed at her and gavin. the little minister was trying to look severe and old, but twenty-one was in his eye. "look, mother, at that white house with the green roof. that is the manse." the manse stands high, with a sharp eye on all the town. every back window in the tenements has a glint of it, and so the back of the tenements is always better behaved than the front. it was in the front that jamie don, a pitiful bachelor all his life because he thought the women proposed, kept his ferrets, and here, too, beattie hanged himself, going straight to the clothes-posts for another rope when the first one broke, such was his determination. in the front sanders gilruth openly boasted (on don's potato-pit) that by having a seat in two churches he could lie in bed on sabbath and get the credit of being at one or other. (gavin made short work of him.) to the right-minded the auld licht manse was as a family bible, ever lying open before them, but beattie spoke for more than him-self when he said, "dagone that manse! i never gie a swear but there it is glowering at me." the manse looks down on the town from the northeast, and is reached from the road that leaves thrums behind it in another moment by a wide, straight path, so rough that to carry a fraught of water to the manse without spilling was to be superlatively good at one thing. packages in a cart it set leaping like trout in a fishing-creel. opposite the opening of the garden wall in the manse, where for many years there had been an intention of putting up a gate, were two big stones a yard apart, standing ready for the winter, when the path was often a rush of yellow water, and this the only bridge to the glebe dyke, down which the minister walked to church. when margaret entered the manse on gavin's arm, it was a whitewashed house of five rooms, with a garret in which the minister could sleep if he had guests, as during the fast week. it stood with its garden within high walls, and the roof awing southward was carpeted with moss that shone in the sun in a dozen shades of green and yellow. three firs guarded the house from west winds, but blasts from the north often tore down the steep fields and skirled through the manse, banging all its doors at once. a beech, growing on the east side, leant over the roof as if to gossip with the well in the courtyard. the garden was to the south, and was over full of gooseberry and currant bushes. it contained a summer seat, where strange things were soon to happen. margaret would not even take off her bonnet until she had seen through the manse and opened all the presses. the parlour and kitchen were downstairs, and of the three rooms above, the study was so small that gavin's predecessor could touch each of its walls without shifting his position. every room save margaret's had long-lidded beds, which close as if with shutters, but hers was coff-fronted, or comparatively open, with carving on the wood like the ornamentation of coffins. where there were children in a house they liked to slope the boards of the closed-in bed against the dresser, and play at sliding down mountains on them. but for many years there had been no children in the manse. he in whose ways gavin was to attempt the heavy task of walking had been a widower three months after his marriage, a man narrow when he came to thrums, but so large-hearted when he left it that i, who know there is good in all the world because of the lovable souls i have met in this corner of it, yet cannot hope that many are as near to god as he. the most gladsome thing in the world is that few of us fall very low; the saddest that, with such capabilities, we seldom rise high. of those who stand perceptibly above their fellows i have known very few; only mr. carfrae and two or three women. gavin only saw a very frail old minister who shook as he walked, as if his feet were striking against stones. he was to depart on the morrow to the place of his birth, but he came to the manse to wish his successor god-speed. strangers were so formidable to margaret that she only saw him from her window. "may you never lose sight of god, mr. dishart," the old man said in the parlour. then he added, as if he had asked too much, "may you never turn from him as i often did when i was a lad like you." as this aged minister, with the beautiful face that god gives to all who love him and follow his commandments, spoke of his youth, he looked wistfully around the faded parlour. "it is like a dream," he said. "the first time i entered this room the thought passed through me that i would cut down that cherry- tree, because it kept out the light, but, you see, it outlives me. i grew old while looking for the axe. only yesterday i was the young minister, mr. dishart, and to-morrow you will be the old one, bidding good-bye to your successor." his eyes came back to gavin's eager face. "you are very young, mr. dishart?" "nearly twenty-one." "twenty-one! ah, my dear sir, you do not know how pathetic that sounds to me. twenty-one! we are children for the second time at twenty-one, and again when we are grey and put all our burden on the lord. the young talk generously of relieving the old of their burdens, but the anxious heart is to the old when they see a load on the back of the young. let me tell you, mr. dishart, that i would condone many things in one-and-twenty now that i dealt hardly with at middle age. god himself, i think, is very willing to give one-and-twenty a second chance." "i am afraid," gavin said anxiously, "that i look even younger." "i think," mr. carfrae answered, smiling, "that your heart is as fresh as your face; and that is well. the useless men are those who never change with the years. many views that i held to in my youth and long afterwards are a pain to me now, and i am carrying away from thrums memories of errors into which i fell at every stage of my ministry. when you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility." he paused. "i hope," he said nervously, "that you don't sing the paraphrases?" mr. carfrae had not grown out of all his prejudices, you see; indeed, if gavin had been less bigoted than he on this question they might have parted stiffly. the old minister would rather have remained to die in his pulpit than surrender it to one who read his sermons. others may blame him for this, but i must say here plainly that i never hear a minister reading without wishing to send him back to college. "i cannot deny," mr. carfrae said, "that i broke down more than once to-day. this forenoon i was in tillyloss, for the last time, and it so happens that there is scarcely a house in it in which i have not had a marriage or prayed over a coffin. ah, sir, these are the scenes that make the minister more than all his sermons. you must join the family, mr. dishart, or you are only a minister once a week. and remember this, if your call is from above, it is a call to stay. many such partings in a lifetime as i have had to- day would be too heartrending." "and yet," gavin said, hesitatingly, "they told me in glasgow that i had received a call from the mouth of hell." "those were cruel words, but they only mean that people who are seldom more than a day's work in advance of want sometimes rise in arms for food. our weavers are passionately religious, and so independent that they dare any one to help them, but if their wages were lessened they could not live. and so at talk of reduction they catch fire. change of any kind alarms them, and though they call themselves whigs, they rose a few years ago over the paving of the streets and stoned the workmen, who were strangers, out of the town." "and though you may have thought the place quiet to-day, mr. dishart, there was an ugly outbreak only two months ago, when the weavers turned on the manufacturers for reducing the price of the web, made a bonfire of some of their doors, and terrified one of them into leaving thrums. under the command of some chartists, the people next paraded the streets to the music of fife and drum, and six policemen who drove up from tilliedrum in a light cart were sent back tied to the seats." "no one has been punished?" "not yet, but nearly two years ago there was a similar riot, and the sheriff took no action for months. then one night the square suddenly filled with soldiers, and the ringleaders were seized in their beds, mr. dishart, the people are determined not to be caught in that way again, and ever since the rising a watch has been kept by night on every road that leads to thrums. the signal that the soldiers are coining is to be the blowing of a horn. if you ever hear that horn, i implore you to hasten to the square." "the weavers would not fight?" "you do not know how the chartists have fired this part of the country. one misty day, a week ago, i was on the hill; i thought i had it to myself, when suddenly i heard a voice cry sharply, 'shoulder arms.' i could see no one, and after a moment i put it down to a freak of the wind. then all at once the mist before me blackened, and a body of men seemed to grow out of it. they were not shadows; they were thrums weavers drilling, with pikes in their hands. "they broke up," mr. carfrae continued, after a pause, "at my entreaty, but they have met again since then." "and there were auld lichts among them?" gavin asked. "i should have thought they would be frightened at our precentor, lang tammas, who seems to watch for backsliding in the congregation as if he had pleasure in discovering it." gavin spoke with feeling, for the precentor had already put him through his catechism, and it was a stiff ordeal. "the precentor!" said mr. carfrae. "why, he was one of them." the old minister, once so brave a figure, tottered as he rose to go, and reeled in a dizziness until he had walked a few paces. gavin went with him to the foot of the manse road; without his hat, as all thrums knew before bedtime. "i begin," gavin said, as they were parting, "where you leave off, and my prayer is that i may walk in your ways." "ah, mr. dishart," the white-haired minister said, with a sigh, "the world does not progress so quickly as a man grows old. you only begin where i began." he left gavin, and then, as if the little minister's last words had hurt him, turned and solemnly pointed his staff upward. such men are the strong nails that keep the world together. the twenty-one-years-old minister returned to the manse somewhat sadly, but when he saw his mother at the window of her bed-room, his heart leapt at the thought that she was with him and he had eighty pounds a year. gaily he waved both his hands to her, and she answered with a smile, and then, in his boyishness, he jumped over a gooseberry bush. immediately afterwards he reddened and tried to look venerable, for while in the air he had caught sight of two women and a man watching him from the dyke. he walked severely to the door, and, again forgetting himself, was bounding upstairs to margaret, when jean, the servant, stood scandalised in his way. "i don't think she caught me," was gavin's reflection, and "the lord preserves!" was jean's. gavin found his mother wondering how one should set about getting a cup of tea in a house that had a servant in it. he boldly rang the bell, and the willing jean answered it so promptly (in a rush and jump) that margaret was as much startled as aladdin the first time he rubbed his lamp. manse servants of the most admired kind move softly, as if constant contact with a minister were goloshes to them; but jean was new and raw, only having got her place because her father might be an elder any day. she had already conceived a romantic affection for her master; but to say "sir" to him-as she thirsted to do--would have been as difficult to her as to swallow oysters. so anxious was she to please that when gavin rang she fired herself at the bed-room, but bells were novelties to her as well as to margaret, and she cried, excitedly, "what is it?" thinking the house must be on fire. "there's a curran folk at the back door," jean announced later, "and their respects to you, and would you gie them some water out o' the well? it has been a drouth this aucht days, and the pumps is locked. na," she said, as gavin made a too liberal offer, "that would toom the well, and there's jimply enough for oursels. i should tell you, too, that three o' them is no auld lichts." "let that make no difference," gavin said grandly, but jean changed his message to: "a bowlful apiece to auld lichts; all other denominations one cupful." "ay, ay," said snecky hobart, letting down the bucket, "and we'll include atheists among other denominations." the conversation came to gavin and margaret through the kitchen doorway. "dinna class jo cruickshanks wi' me," said sam'l langlands the u. p. "na, na," said cruickshanks the atheist, "i'm ower independent to be religious. i dinna gang to the kirk to cry, 'oh, lord, gie, gie, gie.'" "take tent o' yoursel', my man," said lang tammas sternly, "or you'll soon be whaur you would neifer the warld for a cup o' that cauld water." "maybe you've ower keen an interest in the devil, tammas," retorted the atheist; "but, ony way, if it's heaven for climate, it's hell for company." "lads," said snecky, sitting down on the bucket, "we'll send mr. dishart to jo. he'll make another rob dow o' him." "speak mair reverently o' your minister," said the precentor. "he has the gift." --i hinna naturally your solemn rasping word, tammas, but in the heart i speak in all reverence. lads, the minister has a word! i tell you he prays near like one giving orders." "at first," snecky continued, "i thocht yon lang candidate was the earnestest o' them a", and i dinna deny but when i saw him wi' his head bowed-like in prayer during the singing i says to rnysel', 'thou art the man.' ay, but betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna praying. he was combing his hair wi' his fingers on the sly." "you ken fine, sneck," said cruickshanks, "that you said, 'thou art the man' to ilka ane o' them, and just voted for mr. dishart because he preached hinmost." "i didna say it to--mr. urquhart, the ane that preached second," sneck said. "that was the lad that gaed through ither." "ay," said susy tibbits, nicknamed by haggart "the timidest woman" because she once said she was too young to marry, "but i was fell sorry for him, just being over anxious. he began bonny, flinging himself, like ane inspired, at the pulpit door, but after hendry munn pointed at it and cried out, 'be cautious, the sneck's loose,' he a' gaed to bits. what a coolness hendry has, though i suppose it was his duty, him being kirk-officer." "we didna want a man," lang tammas said, "that could be put out by sic a sma' thing as that. mr. urquhart was in sic a ravel after it that when he gies out the first line o' the hunder and nineteenth psalm for singing, says he, 'and so on to the end.' ay, that finished his chance." "the noblest o' them to look at," said tibbie birse, "was that ane frae aberdeen, him that had sic a saft side to jacob." "ay," said snecky, "and i speired at dr. mcqueen if i should vote for him. 'looks like a genius, does he?' says the doctor. 'weel, then,' says he, 'dinna vote for him, for my experience is that there's no folk sic idiots as them that looks like geniuses.'" "sal," susy said, "it's a guid thing we've settled, for i enjoyed sitting like a judge upon them so muckle that i sair doubt it was a kind o' sport to me." "it was no sport to them, susy, i'se uphaud, but it is a blessing we've settled, and ondoubtedly we've got the pick o' them. the only thing mr. dishart did that made me oneasy was his saying the word caesar as if it began wi' a k." "he'll startle you mair afore you're done wi' him," the atheist said maliciously. "i ken the ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks. oh, they're cunning. you was a' pleased that mr. dishart spoke about looms and webs, but, lathies, it was a trick. ilka ane o' thae young ministers has a sermon about looms for weaving congregations, and a second about beating swords into ploughshares for country places, and another on the great catch of fishes for fishing villages. that's their stock-in-trade; and just you wait and see if you dinna get the ploughshares and the fishes afore the month's out. a minister preaching for a kirk is one thing, but a minister placed in't may be a very different berry." "joseph cruickshanks," cried the precentor, passionately, "none o' your d----d blasphemy!" they all looked at whamond, and he dug his teeth into his lips in shame. "wha's swearing now?" said the atheist. but whamond was quick. "matthew, twelve and thirty-one," he said. "dagont, tammas," exclaimed the baffled cruickshanks, "you're aye quoting scripture. how do you no quote feargus o'connor?" "lads," said snecky, "jo hasna heard mr. dishart's sermons. ay, we get it scalding when he comes to the sermon. i canna thole a minister that preaches as if heaven was round the corner." "if you're hitting at our minister, snecky," said james cochrane, "let me tell you he's a better man than yours." "a better curler, i dare say." "a better prayer." "ay, he can pray for a black frost as if it was ane o' the royal family. i ken his prayers, 'o lord, let it haud for anither day, and keep the snaw awa'.' will you pretend, jeames, that mr. duthie could make onything o' rob dow?" "i admit that rob's awakening was an extraordinary thing, and sufficient to gie mr. dishart a name. but mr. carfrae was baffled wi' rob too." "jeames, if you had been in our kirk that day mr. dishart preached for't you would be wearying the now for sabbath, to be back in't again. as you ken, that wicked man there, jo cruickshanks, got rob dow, drucken, cursing, poaching--rob dow, to come to the kirk to annoy the minister. ay, he hadna been at that work for ten minutes when mr. dishart stopped in his first prayer and ga'e rob a look. i couldna see the look, being in the precentor's box, but as sure as death i felt it boring through me. rob is hard wood, though, and soon he was at his tricks again. weel, the minister stopped a second time in the sermon, and so awful was the silence that a heap o' the congregation couldna keep their seats. i heard rob breathing quick and strong. mr. dishart had his arm pointed at him a' this time, and at last he says sternly, 'come forward.' listen, joseph cruickshanks, and tremble. rob gripped the board to keep himsel' frae obeying, and again mr. dishart says, 'come forward,' and syne rob rose shaking, and tottered to the pulpit stair like a man suddenly shot into the day of judgment. 'you hulking man of sin,' cries mr. dishart, not a tick fleid, though rob's as big as three o' him, 'sit down on the stair and attend to me, or i'll step doun frae the pulpit and run you out of the house of god,'" "and since that day," said hobart, "rob has worshipped mr. dishart as a man that has stepped out o' the bible. when the carriage passed this day we was discussing the minister, and sam'l dickie wasna sure but what mr. dishart wore his hat rather far back on his head. you should have seen rob. 'my certie,' he roars, 'there's the shine frae heaven on that little minister's face, and them as says there's no has me to fecht.'" "ay, weel," said the u. p., rising, "we'll see how rob wears--and how your minister wears too. i wouldna like to sit in a kirk whaur they daurna sing a paraphrase." "the psalms of david," retorted whamond, "mount straight to heaven, but your paraphrases sticks to the ceiling o' the kirk." "you're a bigoted set, tammas whamond, but i tell you this, and it's my last words to you the nicht, the day'll come when you'll hae mr. duthie, ay, and even the u. p. minister, preaching in the auld licht kirk." "and let this be my last words to you," replied the precentor, furiously; "that rather than see a u. p. preaching in the auld licht kirk i would burn in hell fire for ever!" this gossip increased gavin's knowledge of the grim men with whom he had now to deal. but as he sat beside margaret after she had gone to bed, their talk was pleasant. "you remember, mother," gavin said, "how i almost prayed for the manse that was to give you an egg every morning. i have been telling jean never to forget the egg." "ah, gavin, things have come about so much as we wanted that i'm a kind o' troubled. it's hardly natural, and i hope nothing terrible is to happen now." gavin arranged her pillows as she liked them, and when he next stole into the room in his stocking soles to look at her, he thought she was asleep. but she was not. i dare say she saw at that moment gavin in his first frock, and gavin in knickerbockers, and gavin as he used to walk into the glasgow room from college, all still as real to her as the gavin who had a kirk. the little minister took away the lamp to his own room, shaking his fist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. he pulled up his blind. the town lay as still as salt. but a steady light showed in the south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw another in the west. mr. carfrae's words about the night-watch came back to him. perhaps it had been on such a silent night as this that the soldiers marched into thrums. would they come again? chapter iv. first coming of the egyptian woman. a learned man says in a book, otherwise beautiful with truth, that villages are family groups. to him thrums would only be a village, though town is the word we have ever used, and this is not true of it. doubtless we have interests in common, from which a place so near (but the road is heavy) as tilliedrum is shut out, and we have an individuality of our own too, as if, like our red houses, we came from a quarry that supplies no other place. but we are not one family. in the old days, those of us who were of the tenements seldom wandered to the croft head, and if we did go there we saw men to whom we could not always give a name. to flit from the tanage brae to haggart's road was to change one's friends. a kirk- wynd weaver might kill his swine and tillyloss not know of it until boys ran westward hitting each other with the bladders. only the voice of the dulsemen could be heard all over thrums at once. thus even in a small place but a few outstanding persons are known to everybody. in eight days gavin's figure was more familiar in thrums than many that had grown bent in it. he had already been twice to the cemetery, for a minister only reaches his new charge in time to attend a funeral. though short of stature he cast a great shadow. he was so full of his duties, jean said, that though he pulled to the door as he left the manse, he had passed the currant bushes before it snecked. he darted through courts, and invented ways into awkward houses. if you did not look up quickly he was round the corner. his visiting exhausted him only less than his zeal in the pulpit, from which, according to report, he staggered damp with perspiration to the vestry, where hendry munn wrung him like a wet cloth. a deaf lady, celebrated for giving out her washing, compelled him to hold her trumpet until she had peered into all his crannies, with the shorter catechism for a lantern. janet dundas told him, in answer to his knock, that she could not abide him, but she changed her mind when he said her garden was quite a show. the wives who expected a visit scrubbed their floors for him, cleaned out their presses for him, put diamond socks on their bairns for him, rubbed their hearthstones blue for him, and even tidied up the garret for him, and triumphed over the neighbours whose houses he passed by. for gavin blundered occasionally by inadvertence, as when he gave dear old betty davie occasion to say bitterly-- "ou ay, you can sail by my door and gang to easie's, but i'm thinking you would stop at mine too if i had a brass handle on't." so passed the first four weeks, and then came the fateful night of the seventeenth of october, and with it the strange woman. family worship at the manse was over and gavin was talking to his mother, who never crossed the threshold save to go to church (though her activity at home was among the marvels jean sometimes slipped down to the tenements to announce). when wearyworld the policeman came to the door "with rob dow's compliments, and if you're no wi' me by ten o'clock i'm to break out again." gavin knew what this meant, and at once set off for rob's. "you'll let me gang a bit wi' you," the policeman entreated, "for till rob sent me on this errand not a soul has spoken to me the day; ay, mony a ane hae i spoken to, but not a man, woman, nor bairn would fling me a word." "i often meant to ask you," gavin said as they went along the tenements, which smelled at that hour of roasted potatoes, "why you are so unpopular." "it's because i'm police. i'm the first ane that has ever been in thrums, and the very folk that appointed me at a crown a week looks upon me as a disgraced man for accepting. it's gospel that my ain wife is short wi' me when i've on my uniform, though weel she kens that i would rather hae stuck to the loom if i hadna ha'en sic a queer richt leg. nobody feels the shame o' my position as i do mysel', but this is a town without pity." "it should be a consolation to you that you are discharging useful duties." "but i'm no. i'm doing harm. there's charles dickson says that the very sicht o' my uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it makes him break windows, though a peaceably-disposed man till i was appointed. and what's the use o' their haeing a policeman when they winna come to the lock-up after i lay hands on them?" "do they say they won't come?" "say? catch them saying onything! they just gie me a wap into the gutters. if they would speak i wouldna complain, for i'm nat'rally the sociablest man in thrums." "rob, however, had spoken to you." "because he had need o' me. that was ay rob's way, converted or no converted. when he was blind drunk he would order me to see him safe hame, but would he crack wi' me? na, na." wearyworld, who was so called because of his forlorn way of muttering, "it's a weary warld, and nobody bides in't," as he went his melancholy rounds, sighed like one about to cry, and gavin changed the subject. "is the watch for the soldiers still kept up?" he asked. "it is, but the watchers winna let me in aside them. i'll let you see that for yoursel' at me head o' the roods, for they watch there in the auld windmill." most of the thrums lights were already out, and that in the windmill disappeared as footsteps were heard. "you're desperate characters," the policeman cried, but got no answer. he changed his tactics. "a fine nicht for the time o' year," he cried. no answer. "but i wouldna wonder," he shouted, "though we had rain afore morning." no answer. "surely you could gie me a word frae ahint the door. you're doing an onlawful thing, but i dinna ken wha you are." "you'll swear to that?" some one asked gruffly. "i swear to it, peter." wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain. "ay," he said to the minister, "that's what it is to be an onpopular man. and now i'll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join them would be the first to complain if i gaed out o' bounds." gavin found dow at new zealand, a hamlet of mud houses, whose tenants could be seen on any sabbath morning washing themselves in the burn that trickled hard by. rob's son, micah, was asleep at the door, but he brightened when he saw who was shaking him. "my father put me out," he explained, "because he's daft for the drink, and was fleid he would curse me. he hasna cursed me," micah added, proudly, "for an aught days come sabbath. hearken to him at his loom. he daurna take his feet off the treadles for fear o' running straucht to the drink." gavin went in. the loom, and two stools, the one four-footed and the other a buffet, were rob's most conspicuous furniture. a shaving-strap hung on the wall. the fire was out, but the trunk of a tree, charred at one end, showed how he heated his house. he made a fire of peat, and on it placed one end of a tree trunk that might be six feet long. as the tree burned away it was pushed further into the fireplace, and a roaring fire could always be got by kicking pieces of the smouldering wood and blowing them into flame with the bellows. when rob saw the minister he groaned relief and left his loom. he had been weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, for seven hours. "i wasna fleid," little micah said to the neighbours afterwards, "to gang in wi' the minister. he's a fine man that. he didna ca' my father names. na, he said, 'you're a brave fellow, rob,' and he took my father's hand, he did. my father was shaking after his fecht wi' the drink, and, says he. 'mr. dishart,' he says, 'if you'll let me break out nows and nans, i could, bide straucht atween times, but i canna keep sober if i hinna a drink to look forrit to.' ay, my father prigged sair to get one fou day in the month, and he said, 'syne if i die sudden, there's thirty chances to one that i gang to heaven, so it's worth risking.' but mr. dishart wouldna hear o't, and he cries, 'no, by god,' he cries, 'we'll wrestle wi' the devil till we throttle him,' and down him and my father gaed on their knees. "the minister prayed a lang time till my father said his hunger for the drink was gone, 'but', he says, 'it swells up in me o' a sudden aye, and it may be back afore you're hame.' 'then come to me at once,' says mr. dishart; but my father says, 'na, for it would haul me into the public-house as if it had me at the end o' a rope, but i'll send the laddie." "you saw my father crying the minister back? it was to gie him twa pound, and, says my father, 'god helping me,' he says, 'i'll droon mysel in the dam rather than let the drink master me, but in case it should get haud o' me and i should die drunk, it would be a michty gratification to me to ken that you had the siller to bury me respectable without ony help frae the poor's rates.' the minister wasna for taking it at first, but he took it when he saw how earnest my father was. ay, he's a noble man. after he gaed awa my father made me learn the names o' the apostles frae luke sixth, and he says to me, 'miss out bartholomew,' he says, 'for he did little, and put gavin dishart in his place.'" feeling as old as he sometimes tried to look, gavin turned homeward. margaret was already listening for him. you may be sure she knew his step. i think our steps vary as much as the human face. my book-shelves were made by a blind man who could identify by their steps nearly all who passed his window. yet he has admitted to me that he could not tell wherein my steps differed from others; and this i believe, though rejecting his boast that he could distinguish a minister's step from a doctor's, and even tell to which denomination the minister belonged. i have sometimes asked myself what would have been gavin's future had he gone straight home that night from dow's. he would doubtless have seen the egyptian before morning broke, but she would not have come upon him like a witch. there are, i dare say, many lovers who would never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time, as, say, they met the second time. but such dreaming is to no purpose. gavin met sanders webster, the mole-catcher, and was persuaded by him to go home by caddam wood. gavin took the path to caddam, because sanders told him the wild lindsays were there, a gypsy family that threatened the farmers by day and danced devilishly, it was said, at night. the little minister knew them by repute as a race of giants, and that not many persons would have cared to face them alone at midnight; but he was feeling as one wound up to heavy duties, and meant to admonish them severely. sanders, an old man who lived with his sister nanny on the edge of the wood, went with him, and for a time both were silent. but sanders had something to say. "was you ever at the spittal, mr. dishart?" he asked. "lord rintoul's house at the top of glen quharity? no." "hae you ever looked on a lord?" "no." "or on an auld lord's young leddyship? i have." "what is she?" "you surely ken that rintoul's auld, and is to be married on a young leddyship. she's no' a leddyship yet, but they're to be married soon, so i may say i've seen a leddyship. ay, an impressive sicht. it was yestreen." "is there a great difference in their ages?" "as muckle as atween auld peter spens and his wife, wha was saxteen when he was saxty, and she was playing at dumps in the street when her man was waiting for her to make his porridge. ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi' common folk, but of course earls can please themsels. rintoul's so fond o' the leddyship 'at is to be, that when she was at the school in edinbury he wrote to her ilka day. kaytherine crummie telled me that, and she says aince you're used to it, writing letters is as easy as skinning moles. i dinna ken what they can write sic a heap about, but i daur say he gies her his views on the chartist agitation and the potato disease, and she'll write back about the romantic sichts o' edinbury and the sermons o' the grand preachers she hears. sal, though, thae grand folk has no religion to speak o', for they're a' english kirk. you're no' speiring what her leddyship said to me?" "what did she say?" "weel, you see, there was a dancing ball on, and kaytherine crummie took me to a window whaur i could stand on a flower-pot and watch the critturs whirling round in the ball like teetotums. what's mair, she pointed out the leddyship that's to be to me, and i just glowered at her, for thinks i, 'take your fill, sanders, and whaur there's lords and leddyships, dinna waste a minute on colonels and honourable misses and sic like dirt.' ay, but what wi' my een blinking at the blaze o' candles, i lost sicht o' her till all at aince somebody says at my lug, 'well, my man, and who is the prettiest lady in the room?' mr. dishart, it was her leddyship. she looked like a star." "and what did you do?" "the first thing i did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne i came to, and says i, wi' a polite smirk, 'i'm thinking your leddyship,' says i, 'as you're the bonniest yourself.'" "i see you are a cute man, sanders.'" "ay, but that's no' a'. she lauched in a pleased way and tapped me wi' her fan, and says she, 'why do you think me the prettiest?' i dinna deny but what that staggered me, but i thocht a minute, and took a look at the other dancers again, and syne i says, michty sly like, 'the other leddies,' i says, 'has sic sma' feet.'" sanders stopped here and looked doubtingly at gavin. "i canna make up my mind," he said, "whether she liked that, for she rapped my knuckles wi' her fan fell sair, and aff she gaed. ay, i consulted tammas haggart about it, and he says, 'the flirty crittur,' he says. what would you say, mr. dishart?" gavin managed to escape without giving an answer, for here their roads separated. he did not find the wild lindsays, however. children of whim, of prodigious strength while in the open, but destined to wither quickly in the hot air of towns, they had gone from caddam, leaving nothing of themselves behind but a black mark burned by their fires into the ground. thus they branded the earth through many counties until some hour when the spirit of wandering again fell on them, and they forsook their hearths with as little compunction as the bird leaves its nest. gavin had walked quickly, and he now stood silently in the wood, his hat in his hand. in the moonlight the grass seemed tipped with hoar frost. most of the beeches were already bare, but the shoots, clustering round them, like children at their mother's skirts, still retained their leaves red and brown. among the pines these leaves were as incongruous as a wedding-dress at a funeral. gavin was standing on grass, but there were patches of heather within sight, and broom, and the leaf of the blaeberry. where the beeches had drawn up the earth with them as they grew, their roots ran this way and that, slippery to the feet and looking like disinterred bones. a squirrel appeared suddenly on the charred ground, looked doubtfully at gavin to see if he was growing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat eyeing him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow. caddam was very still. at long intervals came from far away the whack of an axe on wood. gavin was in a world by himself, and this might be someone breaking into it. the mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled the little minister. his eyes rested on the shining roots, and he remembered what had been told him of the legend of caddam, how once on a time it was a mighty wood, and a maiden most beautiful stood on its confines, panting and afraid, for a wicked man pursued her; how he drew near, and she ran a little way into the wood, and he followed her, and she still ran, and still he followed, until both were for ever lost, and the bones of her pursuer lie beneath a beech, but the lady may still be heard singing in the woods if the night be fine, for then she is a glad spirit, but weeping when there is wild wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking a way out of the wood. the squirrel slid down the fir and was gone. the axe's blows ceased. nothing that moved was in sight. the wind that has its nest in trees was circling around with many voices, that never rose above a whisper, and were often but the echo of a sigh. gavin was in the caddam of past days, where the beautiful maiden wanders ever, waiting for him who is so pure that he may find her. he will wander over the tree-tops looking for her, with the moon for his lamp, and some night he will hear her singing. the little minister drew a deep breath, and his foot snapped a brittle twig. then he remembered who and where he was, and stooped to pick up his staff. but he did not pick it up, for as his fingers were closing on it the lady began to sing. for perhaps a minute gavin stood stock still, like an intruder. then he ran towards the singing, which seemed to come from windy ghoul, a straight road through caddam that farmers use in summer, but leave in the back end of the year to leaves and pools. in windyghoul there is either no wind or so much that it rushes down the sieve like an army, entering with a shriek of terror, and escaping with a derisive howl. the moon was crossing the avenue. but gavin only saw the singer. she was still fifty yards away, sometimes singing gleefully, and again letting her body sway lightly as she came dancing up windyghoul. soon she was within a few feet of the little minister, to whom singing, except when out of tune, was a suspicious thing, and dancing a device of the devil. his arm went out wrathfully, and his intention was to pronounce sentence on this woman. but she passed, unconscious of his presence, and he had not moved nor spoken. though really of the average height, she was a little thing to the eyes of gavin, who always felt tall and stout except when he looked down. the grace of her swaying figure was a new chapter v. a warlike chapter, culminating in the flouting of the minister by the woman. "mr. dishart!" jean had clutched at gavin in bank street. her hair was streaming, and her wrapper but half buttoned. "oh, mr. dishart, look at the mistress! i couldna keep her in the manse." gavin saw his mother beside him, bare-headed, trembling. "how could i sit still, gavin, and the town full o' the skirls of women and bairns? oh, gavin, what can i do for them? they will suffer most this night." as gavin took her hand he knew that margaret felt for the people more than he. "but you must go home, mother," he said, "and leave me to do my duty. i will take you myself if you will not go with jean. be careful of her, jean." "ay, will i," jean answered, then burst into tears. "mr. dishart,"' she cried, "if they take my father they'd best take my mither too." the two women went back to the manse, where jean re-lit the fire, having nothing else to do, and boiled the kettle, while margaret wandered in anguish from room to room. men nearly naked ran past gavin, seeking to escape from thrums by the fields he had descended. when he shouted to them they only ran faster. a tillyloss weaver whom he tried to stop struck him savagely and sped past to the square. in bank street, which was full move. he had heard the horn. thrice it sounded, and thrice it struck him to the heart. he looked again and saw a shadow stealing along the tenements, then, another, then half-a-dozen. he remembered mr. carfrae's words, "if you ever hear that horn, i implore you to hasten to the square," and in another minute he had reached the tenements. now again he saw the gypsy. she ran past him, half-a-score of men, armed with staves and pikes, at her heels. at first he thought they were chasing her. but they were following her as a leader. her eyes sparkled as she waved them to the square with her arms. "the soldiers, the soldiers!" was the universal cry. "who is that woman?" demanded gavin, catching hold of a frightened old man. "curse the egyptian limmer," the man answered, "she's egging my laddie on to fecht." "bless her rather," the son cried, "for warning us that the sojers is coming. put your ear to the ground, mr. dishart, and you'll hear the dirl o' their feet." the young man rushed away to the square, flinging his father from him. gavin followed. as he turned into the school wynd, the town drum began to beat, windows were thrown open, and sullen men ran out of closes where women were screaming and trying to hold them back. at the foot of the wynd gavin passed sanders webster. "mr. dishart," the mole-catcher cried, "hae you seen that egyptian? may i be struck dead if it's no' her little leddyship." but gavin did not hear him. thing in the world to him. only while she passed did he see her as a gleam of colour, a gypsy elf poorly clad, her bare feet flashing beneath a short green skirt, a twig of rowan berries stuck carelessly into her black hair. her face was pale. she had an angel's loveliness. gavin shook. still she danced onwards, but she was very human, for when she came to muddy water she let her feet linger in it, and flung up her arms, dancing more wantonly than before. a diamond on her finger shot a thread of fire over the pool. undoubtedly she was the devil. gavin leaped into the avenue, and she heard him and looked behind. he tried to cry "woman!" sternly, but lost the word, for now she saw him, and laughed with her shoulders, and beckoned to him, so that he shook his fist at her. she tripped on, but often turning her head beckoned and mocked him, and he forgot his dignity and his pulpit and all other things, and ran after her. up windyghoul did he pursue her, and it was well that the precentor was not there to see. she reached the mouth of the avenue, and kissing her hand to gavin, so that the ring gleamed again, was gone. the minister's one thought was to find her, but he searched in vain. she might be crossing the hill on her way to thrums, or perhaps she was still laughing at him from behind a tree. after a longer time than he was aware of, gavin realised that his boots were chirping and his trousers streaked with mud. then he abandoned the search and hastened homewards in a rage. from the hill to the manse the nearest way is down two fields, and the little minister descended them rapidly. thrums, which is red in daylight, was grey and still as the cemetery. he had glimpses of several of its deserted streets. to the south the watch-light showed brightly, but no other was visible. so it seemed to gavin, and then--suddenly--he lost the power to of people at one moment and empty the next, the minister stumbled over old charles yuill, "take me and welcome," yuill cried, mistaking gavin for the enemy. he had only one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and his feet were bare. "i am mr. dishart. are the soldiers already in the square, yuill?" "they'll be there in a minute." the man was so weak that gavin had to hold him. "be a man, charles. you have nothing to fear. it is not such as you the soldiers have come for. if need be, i can swear that you had not the strength, even if you had the will, to join in the weavers' riot." "for godsake, mr. dishart," yuill cried, his hands chattering on gavin's coat, "dinna swear that. my laddie was in the thick o' the riot; and if he's ta'en there's the poor's-house gaping for kitty and me, for i couldna weave half a web a week. if there's a warrant agin onybody o' the name of yuill, swear it's me; swear i'm a desperate character, swear i'm michty strong for all i look palsied; and if when they take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear i confessed my guilt to you on the book." as yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a drum was heard. "the soldiers!" gavin let go his hold of the old man, who hastened away to give himself up. "that's no the sojers," said a woman; "it's the folk gathering in the square. this'll be a watery sabbath in thrums." "rob dow," shouted gavin, as dow flung past with a scythe in his hand, "lay down that scythe." "to hell wi' religion!" rob retorted, fiercely; "it spoils a' thing." "lay down that scythe; i command you." rob stopped undecidedly, then cast the scythe from him, but its rattle on the stones was more than he could bear. "i winna," he cried, and, picking it up, ran to the square. an upper window in bank street opened, and dr. mcqueen put out his head. he was smoking as usual. "mr. dishart," he said, "you will return home at once if you are a wise man; or, better still, come in here. you can do nothing with these people to-night." "i can stop their fighting." "you will only make black blood between them and you." "dinna heed him, mr. dishart," cried some women. "you had better heed him," cried a man. "i will not desert my people," gavin said. "listen, then, to my prescription," the doctor replied. "drive that gypsy lassie out of the town before the soldiers reach it. she is firing the men to a red-heat through sheer devilry." "she brocht the news, or we would have been nipped in our beds," some people cried. "does any one know who she is?" gavin demanded, but all shook their heads. the egyptian, as they called her, had never been seen in these parts before. "has any other person seen the soldiers?" he asked. "perhaps this is a false alarm." "several have seen them within the last few minutes," the doctor answered. "they came from tilliedrum, and were advancing on us from the south, but when they heard that we had got the alarm they stopped at the top of the brae, near t'nowhead's farm. man, you would take these things more coolly if you smoked." "show me this woman," gavin said sternly to those who had been listening. then a stream of people carried him into the square. the square has altered little, even in these days of enterprise, when tillyloss has become newton bank. and the craft head croft terrace, with enamelled labels on them for the guidance of slow people, who forget their address and have to run to the end of the street and look up every time they write a letter. the stones on which the butter-wives sat have disappeared, and with them the clay walls and the outside stairs. gone, too, is the stair of the town-house, from the top of which the drummer roared the gossip of the week on sabbaths to country folk, to the scandal of all who knew that the proper thing on that day is to keep your blinds down; but the townhouse itself, round and red, still makes exit to the south troublesome. wherever streets meet the square there is a house in the centre of them, and thus the heart of thrums is a box, in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, wondering at first how he is to get out, and presently how he got in. to gavin, who never before had seen a score of people in the square at once, here was a sight strange and terrible. andrew struthers, an old soldier, stood on the outside stair of the town- house, shouting words of command to some fifty weavers, many of them scantily clad, but all armed with pikes and poles. most were known to the little minister, but they wore faces that were new to him. newcomers joined the body every moment. if the drill was clumsy the men were fierce. hundreds of people gathered around, some screaming, some shaking their fists at the old soldier, many trying to pluck their relatives out of danger. gavin could not see the egyptian. women and old men, fighting for the possession of his ear, implored him to disperse the armed band. he ran up the town-house stair, and in a moment it had become a pulpit. "dinna dare to interfere, mr. dishart," struthers said savagely. "andrew struthers," said gavin solemnly, "in the name of god i order you to leave me alone. if you don't," he added ferociously, "i'll fling you over the stair." "dinna heed him, andrew," some one shouted and another cried, "he canna understand our sufferings; he has dinner ilka day." struthers faltered, however, and gavin cast his eye over the armed men. "rob dow," he said, "william carmichael, thomas whamond, william munn, alexander hobart, henders haggart, step forward." these were auld lichts, and when they found that the minister would not take his eyes off them, they obeyed, all save rob dow. "never mind him, rob," said the atheist, cruickshanks, "it's better playing cards in hell than singing psalms in heaven." "joseph cruickshanks," responded gavin grimly, "you will find no cards down there." then rob also came to the foot of the stair. there was some angry muttering from the crowd, and young charles yuill exclaimed, "curse you, would you lord it ower us on week-days as weel as on sabbaths?" "lay down your weapons," gavin said to the six men. they looked at each other. hobart slipped his pike behind his back. "i hae no weapon," he said slily. "let me hae my fling this nicht," dow entreated, "and i'll promise to bide sober for a twelvemonth." "oh, rob, rob!" the minister said bitterly, "are you the man i prayed with a few hours ago?" the scythe fell from rob's hands. "down wi' your pikes," he roared to his companions, "or i'll brain you wi' them." "ay, lay them down," the precentor whispered, "but keep your feet on them." then the minister, who was shaking with excitement, though he did not know it, stretched forth his arms for silence, and it came so suddenly as to frighten the people in the neighboring streets. "if he prays we're done for," cried young charles yuill. but even in that hour many of the people were unbonneted. "oh, thou who art the lord of hosts," gavin prayed, "we are in thy hands this night. these are thy people, and they have sinned; but thou art a merciful god, and they were sore tried, and knew not what they did. to thee, our god, we turn for deliverance, for without thee we are lost." the little minister's prayer was heard all round the square, and many weapons were dropped as an amen to it. "if you fight," cried gavin, brightening as he heard the clatter of the iron on the stones, "your wives and children may be shot in the streets. these soldiers have come for a dozen of you; will you be benefited if they take away a hundred?" "oh, hearken to him," cried many women. "i winna," answered a man, "for i'm ane o' the dozen. whaur's the egyptian?" "here." gavin saw the crowd open, and the woman of windy ghoul come out of it, and, while he should have denounced her, he only blinked, for once more her loveliness struck him full in the eyes. she was beside him on the stair before he became a minister again. "how dare you, woman?" he cried; but she flung a rowan berry at him. "if i were a man," she exclaimed, addressing the people, "i wouldna let myself be catched like a mouse in a trap." "we winna," some answered. "what kind o' women are you," cried the egyptian, her face gleaming as she turned to her own sex, "that bid your men folk gang to gaol when a bold front would lead them to safety? do you want to be husbandless and hameless?" "disperse, i command you!" cried gavin. "this abandoned woman is inciting you to riot." "dinna heed this little man," the egyptian retorted. it is curious to know that even at that anxious moment gavin winced because she called him little. "she has the face of a mischief-maker," he shouted, "and her words are evil." "you men and women o' thrums," she responded, "ken that i wish you weel by the service i hae done you this nicht. wha telled you the sojers was coming?" "it was you; it was you!" "ay, and mony a mile i ran to bring the news, listen, and i'll tell you mair." "she has a false tongue," gavin cried; "listen not to the brazen woman." "what i have to tell," she said, "is as true as what i've telled already, and how true that is you a' ken. you're wondering how the sojers has come to a stop at the tap o' the brae instead o' marching on the town. here's the reason. they agreed to march straucht to the square if the alarm wasna given, but if it was they were to break into small bodies and surround the town so that you couldna get out. that's what they're doing now." at this the screams were redoubled, and many men lifted the weapons they had dropped. "believe her not," cried gavin. "how could a wandering gypsy know all this?" "ay, how can you ken?" some demanded. "it's enough that i do ken," the egyptian answered. "and this mair i ken, that the captain of the soldiers is confident he'll nab every one o' you that's wanted anless you do one thing." "what is 't?" "if you a' run different ways you're lost, but if you keep thegither you'll be able to force a road into the country, whaur you can scatter. that's what he's fleid you'll do." "then it's what we will do." "it is what you will not do," gavin said passionately. "the truth is not in this wicked woman." but scarcely had he spoken when he knew that startling news had reached the square. a murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, and swept with the roar of the sea towards the town-house. a detachment of the soldiers were marching down the roods from the north. "there's some coming frae the east-town end," was the next intelligence; "and they've gripped sanders webster, and auld charles yuill has given himsel' up." "you see, you see," the gypsy said, flashing triumph at gavin. "lay down your weapons," gavin cried, but his power over the people had gone. "the egyptian spoke true," they shouted; "dinna heed the minister." gavin tried to seize the gypsy by the shoulders, but she slipped past him down the stair, and crying "follow me!" ran round the town-house and down the brae. "woman!" he shouted after her, but she only waved her arms scornfully. the people followed her, many of the men still grasping their weapons, but all in disorder. within a minute after gavin saw the gleam of the ring on her finger, as she waved her hands, he and dow were alone in the square. "she's an awfu' woman that," rob said." i saw her lauching." gavin ground his teeth. "rob dow," he said, slowly, "if i had not found christ i would have throttled that woman. you saw how she flouted me?" chapter vi. in which the soldiers meet the amazons of thrums dow looked shamefacedly at the minister, and then set off up the square. "where are you going, rob?" "to gie myself up. i maun do something to let you see there's one man in thrums that has mair faith in you than in a fliskmahoy." "and only one, rob. but i don't know that they want to arrest you." "ay, i had a hand in tying the polissman to the--" "i want to hear nothing about that," gavin said, quickly. "will i hide, then?" "i dare not advise you to do that. it would be wrong." half a score of fugitives tore past the town-house, and were out of sight without a cry. there was a tread of heavier feet, and a dozen soldiers, with several policemen and two prisoners, appeared suddenly on the north side of the square. "rob," cried the minister in desperation, "run!" when the soldiers reached the town-house, where they locked up their prisoners, dow was skulking east-ward, and gavin running down the brae. "they're fechting," he was told, "they're fechting on the brae, the sojers is firing, a man's killed!" but this was an exaggeration. the brae, though short, is very steep. there is a hedge on one side of it, from which the land falls away, and on the other side a hillock. gavin reached the scene to see the soldiers marching down the brae, guarding a small body of policemen. the armed weavers were retreating before them. a hundred women or more were on the hillock, shrieking and gesticulating. gavin joined them, calling on them not to fling the stones they had begun to gather. the armed men broke into a rabble, flung down their weapons, and fled back towards the town-house. here they almost ran against the soldiers in the square, who again forced them into the brae. finding themselves about to be wedged between the two forces, some crawled through the hedge, where they were instantly seized by policemen. others sought to climb up the hillock and then escape into the country. the policemen clambered after them. the men were too frightened to fight, but a woman seized a policeman by the waist and flung him head foremost among the soldiers. one of these shouted "fire!" but the captain cried "no." then came showers of missiles from the women. they stood their ground and defended the retreat of the scared men. who flung the first stone is not known, but it is believed to have been the egyptian. the policemen were recalled, and the whole body ordered to advance down the brae. thus the weavers who had not escaped at once were driven before them, and soon hemmed in between the two bodies of soldiers, when they were easily captured. but for two minutes there was a thick shower of stones and clods of earth. it was ever afterwards painful to gavin to recall this scene, but less on account of the shower of stones than because of the flight of one divit in it. he had been watching the handsome young captain, halliwell, riding with his men; admiring him, too, for his coolness. this coolness exasperated the gypsy, who twice flung at halliwell and missed him. he rode on smiling contemptuously. "oh, if i could only fling straight!" the egyptian moaned. then she saw the minister by her side, and in the tick of a clock something happened that can never be explained. for the moment gavin was so lost in misery over the probable effect of the night's rioting that he had forgotten where he was. suddenly the egyptian's beautiful face was close to his, and she pressed a divit into his hand, at the same time pointing at the officer, and whispering "hit him." gavin flung the clod of earth, and hit halliwell on the head. i say i cannot explain this. i tell what happened, and add with thankfulness that only the egyptian witnessed the deed. gavin, i suppose, had flung the divit before he could stay his hand. then he shrank in horror. "woman!" he cried again. "you are a dear," she said, and vanished. by the time gavin was breathing freely again the lock-up was crammed with prisoners, and the riot act had been read from the town-house stair. it is still remembered that the baron-bailie, to whom this duty fell, had got no further than, "victoria, by the grace of god," when the paper was struck out of his hands. when a stirring event occurs up here we smack our lips over it for months, and so i could still write a history of that memorable night in thrums. i could tell how the doctor, a man whose shoulders often looked as if they had been caught in a shower of tobacco ash, brought me the news to the school-house, and now, when i crossed the fields to dumfounder waster lunny with it, i found birse, the post, reeling off the story to him as fast as a fisher could let out line. i know who was the first woman on the marywell brae to hear the horn, and how she woke her husband, and who heard it first at the denhead and the tenements, with what they immediately said and did. i had from dite deuchar's own lips the curious story of his sleeping placidly throughout the whole disturbance, and on wakening in the morning yoking to his loom as usual; and also his statement that such ill-luck was enough to shake a man's faith in religion. the police had knowledge that enabled them to go straight to the houses of the weavers wanted, but they sometimes brought away the wrong man, for such of the people as did not escape from the town had swopped houses for the night--a trick that served them better than all their drilling on the hill. old yuill's son escaped by burying himself in a peat- rick, and snecky hobart by pretending that he was a sack of potatoes. less fortunate was sanders webster, the mole-catcher already mentioned. sanders was really an innocent man. he had not even been in thrums on the night of the rising against the manufacturers, but thinking that the outbreak was to be left unpunished, he wanted his share in the glory of it. so he had boasted of being a ringleader until many believed him, including the authorities. his braggadocio undid him. he was run to earth in a pig-sty, and got nine months. with the other arrests i need not concern myself, for they have no part in the story of the little minister. while gavin was with the families whose bread-winners were now in the lock-up, a cell that was usually crammed on fair nights and empty for the rest of the year, the sheriff and halliwell were in the round-room of the town-house, not in a good temper. they spoke loudly, and some of their words sank into the cell below. "the whole thing has been a fiasco," the sheriff was heard saying, "owing to our failing to take them by surprise. why, three-fourths of those taken will have to be liberated, and we have let the worst offenders slip through our hands." "well," answered halliwell, who was wearing a heavy cloak, "i have brought your policemen into the place, and that is all i undertook to do." "you brought them, but at the expense of alarming the country- side. i wish we had come without you." "nonsense! my men advanced like ghosts. could your police have come down that brae alone to-night?" "yes, because it would have been deserted. your soldiers, i tell you, have done the mischief. this woman, who, so many of our prisoners admit, brought the news of our coming, must either have got it from one of your men or have seen them on the march." "the men did not know their destination. true, she might have seen us despite our precautions, but you forget that she told them how we were to act in the event of our being seen. that is what perplexes me." "yes, and me too, for it was a close secret between you and me and lord rintoul and not half-a-dozen others." "well, find the woman, and we shall get the explanation. if she is still in the town she cannot escape, for my men are everywhere." "she was seen ten minutes ago." "then she is ours. i say, riach, if i were you i would set all my prisoners free and take away a cartload of their wives instead. i have only seen the backs of the men of thrums, but, on my word, i very nearly ran away from the women. hallo! i believe one of your police has caught our virago single-handed." so halliwell exclaimed, hearing some one shout, "this is the rascal!" but it was not the egyptian who was then thrust into the round-room. it was john dunwoodie, looking very sly. probably there was not, even in thrums, a cannier man than dunwoodie. his religious views were those of cruickshanks, but he went regularly to church "on the off-chance of there being a god after all; so i'm safe, whatever side may be wrong." "this is the man," explained a policeman, "who brought the alarm. he admits himself having been in tilliedrum just before we started." "your name, my man?" the sheriff demanded. "it micht be john dunwoodie," the tinsmith answered cautiously. "but is it?" "i dinna say it's no." "you were in tilliedrum this evening?" "i micht hae been." "were you?" "i'll swear to nothing." "why not?" "because i'm a canny man." "into the cell with him," halliwell cried, losing patience. "leave him to me," said the sheriff. "i understand the sort of man. now, dunwoodie, what were you doing in tilliedrum?" "i was taking my laddie down to be prenticed to a writer there," answered dunwoodie, falling into the sheriff's net. "what are you yourself?" "i micht be a tinsmith to trade." "and you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell me that a lawyer was willing to take your son into his office? be cautious, dunwoodie." "weel, then, the laddie's highly edicated and i hae siller, and that's how the writer was to take him and make a gentleman o' him." "i learn from the neighbours," the policeman explained, "that this is partly true, but what makes us suspect him is this. he left the laddie at tilliedrum, and yet when he came home the first person he sees at the fireside is the laddie himself. the laddie had run home, and the reason plainly was that he had heard of our preparations and wanted to alarm the town." "there seems something in this, dunwoodie," the sheriff said, "and if you cannot explain it i must keep you in custody." "i'll make a clean breast o't," dunwoodie replied, seeing that in this matter truth was best. "the laddie was terrible against being made a gentleman, and when he saw the kind o' life he would hae to lead, clean hands, clean dickies, and no gutters on his breeks, his heart took mair scunner at genteelity than ever, and he ran hame. ay, i was mad when i saw him at the fireside, but he says to me, 'how would you like to be a gentleman yoursel', father?' he says, and that so affected me 'at i'm to gie him his ain way." another prisoner, dave langlands, was confronted with dunwoodie. "john dunwoodie's as innocent as i am mysel," dave said, "and i'm most michty innocent. it wasna john but the egyptian that gave the alarm. i tell you what, sheriff, if it'll make me innocenter-like i'll picture the egyptian to you just as i saw her, and syne you'll be able to catch her easier." "you are an honest fellow," said the sheriff. "i only wish i had the whipping of him," growled halliwell, who was of a generous nature. "for what business had she," continued dave righteously, "to meddle in other folks' business? she's no a thrums lassie, and so i say, 'let the law take its course on her.'" "will you listen to such a cur, riach?" asked halliwell. "certainly. speak out, langlands." "weel, then, i was in the windmill the nicht." "you were a watcher?" "i happened to be in the windmill wi' another man," dave went on, avoiding the officer's question. "what was his name?" demanded halliwell. "it was the egyptian i was to tell you about," dave said, looking to the sheriff. "ah, yes, you only tell tales about women," said halliwell. "strange women," corrected dave. "weel, we was there, and it would maybe be twal o'clock, and we was speaking (but about lawful things) when we heard some ane running yont the road. i keeked through a hole in the door, and i saw it was an egyptian lassie 'at i had never clapped een on afore. she saw the licht in the window, and she cried, 'hie, you billies in the windmill, the sojers is coming!' i fell in a fricht, but the other man opened the door, and again she cries, 'the sojers is coming; quick, or you'll be ta'en.' at that the other man up wi' his bonnet and ran, but i didna make off so smart." "you had to pick yourself up first," suggested the officer. "sal, it was the lassie picked me up; ay, and she picked up a horn at the same time." "'blaw on that,' she cried, 'and alarm the town.' but, sheriff, i didna do't. na, i had ower muckle respect for the law." "in other words," said halliwell, "you also bolted, and left the gypsy to blow the horn herself." "i dinna deny but what i made my feet my friend, but it wasna her that blew the horn. i ken that, for i looked back and saw her trying to do't, but she couldna, she didna ken the way." "then who did blow it?" "the first man she met, i suppose. we a' kent that the horn was to be the signal except wearywarld. he's police, so we kept it frae him." "that is all you saw of the woman?" "ay, for i ran straucht to my garret, and there your men took me. can i gae hame now, sheriff?" "no. you cannot. describe the woman's appearance." "she had a heap o' rowan berries stuck in her hair, and, i think, she had on a green wrapper and a red shawl. she had a most extraordinary face. i canna exact describe it, for she would be lauchin' one second and syne solemn the next. i tell you her face changed as quick as you could turn the pages o' a book. ay, here comes wearywarld to speak up for me." wearyworld entered cheerfully. "this is the local policeman," a tilliedrum officer said; "we have been searching for him everywhere, and only found him now." "where have you been?" asked the sheriff, wrathfully. "whaur maist honest men is at this hour," replied wearyworld; "in my bed." "how dared yon ignore your duty at such a time?" "it's a long story," the policeman answered, pleasantly, in anticipation of a talk at last. "answer me in a word." "in a word!" cried the policeman, quite crestfallen. "it canna be done. you'll need to cross-examine me, too. it's my lawful richt." "i'll take you to the tilliedrum gaol for your share in this night's work if you do not speak to the purpose. why did you not hasten to our assistance?" "as sure as death i never kent you was here. i was up the roods on my rounds when i heard an awfu' din down in the square, and thinks i, there's rough characters about, and the place for honest folk is their bed. so to my bed i gaed, and i was in't when your men gripped me." "we must see into this before we leave. in the meantime you will act as a guide to my searchers. stop! do you know anything of this egyptian?" "what egyptian? is't a lassie wi' rowans in her hair?" "the same. have you seen her?" "that i have. there's nothing agin her, is there? whatever it is, i'll uphaud she didna do't, for a simpler, franker-spoken crittur couldna be." "never mind what i want her for. when did you see her?" "it would be about twal o'clock," began wearyworld unctuously, "when i was in the roods, ay, no lang afore i heard the disturbance in the square. i was standing in the middle o' the road, wondering how the door o' the windmill was swinging open, when she came up to me. "'a fine nicht for the time o' year,' i says to her, for nobody but the minister had spoken to me a' day. "'a very fine nicht,' says she, very frank, though she was breathing quick like as if she had been running, 'you'll be police?' says she. "'i am,' says i, 'and wha be you?' "'i'm just a puir gypsy lassie,' she says. "'and what's that in your hand?' says i. "'it's a horn i found in the wood,' says she, 'but it's rusty and winna blaw.' "i laughed at her ignorance, and says i, 'i warrant i could blaw it,' "'i dinna believe you,' says she. "'gie me haud o't,' says i, and she gae it to me, and i blew some bonny blasts on't. ay, you see she didna ken the way o't. 'thank you kindly,' says she, and she ran awa without even minding to take the horn back again." "you incredible idiot!" cried the sheriff. "then it was you who gave the alarm?" "what hae i done to madden you?" honest wearyworld asked in perplexity. "get out of my sight, sir!" roared the sheriff. but the captain laughed. "i like your doughty policeman, riach," he said. "hie, obliging friend, let us hear how this gypsy struck you. how was she dressed?" "she was snod, but no unca snod," replied weary. world, stiffly. "i don't understand you." "i mean she was couthie, but no sair in order." "what on earth is that?" "weel, a tasty stocky, but gey orra put on." "what language are you speaking, you enigma?" "i'm saying she was naturally a bonny bit kimmer rather than happit up to the nines." "oh, go away," cried halliwell; whereupon weary-world descended the stair haughtily, declaring that the sheriff was an unreasonable man, and that he was a queer captain who did not understand the english language. "can i gae hame now, sheriff?" asked langlands, hopefully. "take this fellow back to his cell," riach directed shortly, "and whatever else you do, see that you capture this woman. halliwell, i am going out to look for her myself. confound it, what are you laughing at?" "at the way this vixen has slipped through your fingers." "not quite that, sir, not quite that. she is in thrums still, and i swear i'll have her before day breaks. see to it, halliwell, that if she is brought here in my absence she does not slip through your fingers." "if she is brought here," said halliwell, mocking him, "you must return and protect me. it would be cruelty to leave a poor soldier in the hands of a woman of thrums." "she is not a thrums woman. you have been told so a dozen times." "then i am not afraid." in the round-room (which is oblong) there is a throne on which the bailie sits when he dispenses justice. it is swathed in red cloths that give it the appearance of a pulpit. left to himself, halliwell flung off his cloak and taking a chair near this dais rested his legs on the bare wooden table, one on each side of the lamp. he was still in this position when the door opened, and two policemen thrust the egyptian into the room. chapter vii. has the folly of looking into a woman's eyes by way of text. "this is the woman, captain," one of the policemen said in triumph; "and, begging your pardon, will you keep a grip of her till the sheriff comes back?" halliwell did not turn his head. "you can leave her here." he said carelessly, "three of us are not needed to guard a woman." "but she's a slippery customer." "you can go," said halliwell; and the policemen withdrew slowly, eyeing their prisoner doubtfully until the door closed. then the officer wheeled round languidly, expecting to find the egyptian gaunt and muscular. "now then," he drawled, "why--by jove!" the gallant soldier was as much taken aback as if he had turned to find a pistol at his ear. he took his feet off the table. yet he only saw the gypsy's girlish figure in its red and green, for she had covered her face with her hands. she was looking at him intently between her fingers, but he did not know this. all he did want to know just then was what was behind the hands. before he spoke again she had perhaps made up her mind about him, for she began to sob bitterly. at the same time she slipped a finger over her ring. "why don't you look at me?" asked halliwell, selfishly. "i daurna." "am i so fearsome?" "you're a sojer, and you would shoot me like a craw." halliwell laughed, and taking her wrists in his hands, uncovered her face. "oh, by jove!" he said again, but this time to himself. as for the egyptian, she slid the ring into her pocket, and fell back before the officer's magnificence. "oh," she cried, "is all sojers like you?" there was such admiration in her eyes that it would have been self-contempt to doubt her. yet having smiled complacently, halliwell became uneasy. "who on earth are you?" he asked, finding it wise not to look her in the face. "why do you not answer me more quickly?" "dinna be angry at that, captain," the egyptian implored. "i promised my mither aye to count twenty afore i spoke, because she thocht i was ower glib. captain, how is't that you're so fleid to look at me?" thus put on his mettle, halliwell again faced her, with the result that his question changed to "where did you get those eyes?" then was he indignant with himself. "what i want to know," he explained severely, "is how you were able to acquaint the thrums people with our movements? that you must tell me at once, for the sheriff blames my soldiers. come now, no counting twenty!" he was pacing the room now, and she had her face to herself. it said several things, among them that the officer evidently did not like this charge against his men. "does the shirra blame the sojers?" exclaimed this quick-witted egyptian. "weel, that cows, for he has nane to blame but himsel'." "what!" cried halliwell, delighted. "it was the sheriff who told tales? answer me. you are counting a hundred this time." perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for withholding her answer. if so, one of them was that as the sheriff had told nothing, she had a story to make up. the other was that she wanted to strike a bargain with the officer. "if i tell you," she said eagerly, "will you set me free?" "i may ask the sheriff to do so." "but he mauna see me," the egyptian said in distress. "there's reasons, captain." "why, surely you have not been before him on other occasions," said halliwell, surprised. "no in the way you mean," muttered the gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled. but the light in them went out when she remembered that the sheriff was near, and she looked desperately at the window as if ready to fling herself from it. she had very good reasons for not wishing to be seen by riach, though fear that he would put her in gaol was not one of them. halliwell thought it was the one cause of her woe, and great was his desire to turn the tables on the sheriff. "tell me the truth," he said, "and i promise to befriend you." "weel, then," the gypsy said, hoping still to soften his heart, and making up her story as she told it, "yestreen i met the shirra, and he tolled me a' i hae telled the thrums folk this nicht." "you can scarcely expect me to believe that. where did you meet him?" "in glen quharity. he was riding on a horse." "well, i allow he was there yesterday, and on horseback. he was on his way back to tilliedrum from lord rintoul's place. but don't tell me that he took a gypsy girl into his confidence." "ay, he did, without kenning. he was gieing his horse a drink when i met him, and he let me tell him his fortune. he said he would gaol me for an impostor if i didna tell him true, so i gaed about it cautiously, and after a minute or twa i telled him he was coming to thrums the nicht to nab the rioters." "you are trifling with me," interposed the indignant soldier. "you promised to tell me not what you said to the sheriff, but how he disclosed our movements to you." "and that's just what i am telling you, only you hinna the rumelgumption to see it. how do you think fortunes is telled? first we get out o' the man, without his seeing what we're after, a' about himsel", and syne we repeat it to him. that's what i did wi' the shirra." "you drew the whole thing out of him without his knowing?" "'deed i did, and he rode awa' saying i was a witch." the soldier heard with the delight of a schoolboy. "now if the sheriff does not liberate you at my request," he said, "i will never let him hear the end of this story. he was right; you are a witch. you deceived the sheriff; yes, undoubtedly you are a witch." he looked at her with fun in his face, but the fun disappeared, and a wondering admiration took its place. "by jove!" he said, "i don't wonder you bewitched the sheriff. i must take care or you will bewitch the captain, too." at this notion he smiled, but he also ceased looking at her. suddenly the egyptian again began to cry. "you're angry wi' me," she sobbed. "i wish i had never set een on you." "why do you wish that?" halliwell asked. "fine you ken," she answered, and again covered her face with her hands. he looked at her undecidedly. "i am not angry with you," he said, gently. "you are an extraordinary girl." had he really made a conquest of this beautiful creature? her words said so, but had he? the captain could not make up his mind. he gnawed his moustache in doubt. there was silence, save for the egyptian's sobs. halliwell's heart was touched, and he drew nearer her, "my poor girl--" he stopped. was she crying? was she not laughing at him rather? he became red. the gypsy peeped at him between her fingers, and saw that he was of two minds. she let her hands fall from her face, and undoubtedly there were tears on her cheeks. "if you're no angry wi' me," she said, sadly, "how will you no look at me?" "i am looking at you now." he was very close to her, and staring into her wonderful eyes. i am older than the captain, and those eyes have dazzled me. "captain dear." she put her hand in his. his chest rose. he knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. he was in a worse plight than a woman listening to the first whisper of love. now she was further from him, but the spell held. she reached the door, without taking her eyes from his face. for several seconds he had been as a man mesmerised. just in time he came to. it was when she turned from him to find the handle of the door. she was turning it when his hand fell on hers so suddenly that she screamed. he twisted her round. "sit down there," he said hoarsely, pointing to the chair upon which he had flung his cloak. she dared not disobey. then he leant against the door, his back to her, for just then he wanted no one to see his face. the gypsy sat very still and a little frightened. halliwell opened the door presently, and called to the soldier on duty below. "davidson, see if you can find the sheriff. i want him. and davidson--" the captain paused. "yes," he muttered, and the old soldier marvelled at his words, "it is better. davidson, lock this door on the outside." davidson did as he was ordered, and again the egyptian was left alone with halliwell. "afraid of a woman!" she said, contemptuously, though her heart sank when she heard the key turn in the lock. "i admit it," he answered, calmly. he walked up and down the room, and she sat silently watching him. "that story of yours about the sheriff was not true," he said at last. "i suspect it wasna," answered the egyptian coolly, "hae you been thinking about it a' this time? captains i could tell you what you're thinking now. you're wishing it had been true, so that the ane o' you couldna lauch at the other." "silence!" said the captain, and not another word would he speak until he heard the sheriff coming up the stair. the egyptian trembled at his step, and rose in desperation. "why is the door locked?" cried the sheriff, shaking it. "all right," answered halliwell; "the key is on your side." at that moment the egyptian knocked the lamp off the table, and the room was at once in darkness. the officer sprang at her, and, catching her by the skirt, held on. "why are you in darkness?" asked the sheriff, as he entered. "shut the door," cried halliwell. "put your back to it." "don't tell me the woman has escaped?" "i have her, i have her! she capsized the lamp, the little jade. shut the door." still keeping firm hold of her, as he thought, the captain relit the lamp with his other hand. it showed an extraordinary scene. the door was shut, and the sheriff was guarding it. halliwell was clutching the cloth of the bailie's seat. there was no egyptian. a moment passed before either man found his tongue. "open the door. after her!" cried halliwell. but the door would not open. the egyptian had fled and locked it behind her. what the two men said to each other, it would not be fitting to tell. when davidson, who had been gossiping at the corner of the town-house, released his captain and the sheriff, the gypsy had been gone for some minutes. "but she shan't escape us," riach cried, and hastened out to assist in the pursuit. halliwell was in such a furious temper that he called up davidson and admonished him for neglect of duty. chapter viii. a.m.--monstrous audacity of the woman. not till the stroke of three did gavin turn homeward, with the legs of a ploughman, and eyes rebelling against over-work. seeking to comfort his dejected people, whose courage lay spilt on the brae, he had been in as many houses as the policemen. the soldiers marching through the wynds came frequently upon him, and found it hard to believe that he was always the same one. they told afterwards that thrums was remarkable for the ferocity of its women, and the number of its little ministers. the morning was nipping cold, and the streets were deserted, for the people had been ordered within doors. as he crossed the roods, gavin saw a gleam of red-coats. in the back wynd he heard a bugle blown. a stir in the banker's close spoke of another seizure. at the top of the school wynd two policeman, of whom one was wearyworld, stopped the minister with the flash of a lantern. "we dauredna let you pass, sir," the tilliedrum man said, "without a good look at you. that's the orders." "i hereby swear," said wearyworld, authoritatively, "that this is no the egyptian. signed, peter spens, policeman, called by the vulgar, wearyworld. mr. dishart, you can pass, unless you'll bide a wee and gie us your crack." "you have not found the gypsy, then?" gavin asked. "no," the other policeman said, "but we ken she's within cry o' this very spot, and escape she canna." "what mortal man can do," wearyworld said, "we're doing: ay, and mair, but she's auld wecht, and may find bilbie in queer places. mr. dishart, my official opinion is that this egyptian is fearsomely like my snuff-spoon. i've kent me drap that spoon on the fender, and be beat to find it in an hour. and yet, a' the time i was sure it was there. this is a gey mysterious world, and women's the uncanniest things in't. it's hardly mous to think how uncanny they are." "this one deserves to be punished," gavin said, firmly; "she incited the people to riot." "she did," agreed weary world, who was supping ravenously on sociability; "ay, she even tried her tricks on me, so that them that kens no better thinks she fooled me. but she's cracky. to gie her her due, she's cracky, and as for her being a cuttie, you've said yoursel, mr. dishart, that we're all desperately wicked, but we're sair tried. has it ever struck you that the trouts bites best on the sabbath? god's critturs tempting decent men." "come alang," cried the tilliedrum man, impatiently. "i'm coming, but i maun give mr. dishart permission to pass first. hae you heard, mr. dishart," wearyworld whispered, "that the egyptian diddled baith the captain and the shirra? it's my official opinion that she's no better than a roasted onion, the which, if you grip it firm, jumps out o' sicht, leaving its coat in your fingers. mr. dishart, you can pass." the policeman turned down the school wynd, and gavin, who had already heard exaggerated accounts of the strange woman's escape from the town-house, proceeded along the tenements. he walked in the black shadows of the houses, though across the way there was the morning light. in talking of the gypsy, the little minister had, as it were, put on the black cap; but now, even though he shook his head angrily with every thought of her, the scene in windyghoul glimmered before his eyes. sometimes when he meant to frown he only sighed, and then having sighed he shook himself. he was unpleasantly conscious of his right hand, which had flung the divit. ah, she was shameless, and it would be a bright day for thrums that saw the last of her. he hoped the policemen would succeed in--. it was the gladsomeness of innocence that he had seen dancing in the moonlight. a mere woman could not be like that. how soft--. and she had derided him; he, the auld licht minister of thrums, had been flouted before his people by a hussy. she was without reverence, she knew no difference between an auld licht minister, whose duty it was to speak and hers to listen, and herself. this woman deserved to be--. and the look she cast behind her as she danced and sang! it was sweet, so wistful; the presence of purity had silenced him. purity! who had made him fling that divit? he would think no more of her. let it suffice that he knew what she was. he would put her from his thoughts. was it a ring on her finger? fifty yards in front of him gavin saw the road end in a wall of soldiers. they were between him and the manse, and he was still in darkness. no sound reached him, save the echo of his own feet. but was it an echo? he stopped, and turned round sharply. now he heard nothing, he saw nothing. yet was not that a human figure standing motionless in the shadow behind? he walked on, and again heard the sound. again he looked behind, but this time without stopping. the figure was following him. he stopped. so did it. he turned back, but it did not move. it was the egyptian! gavin knew her, despite the lane of darkness, despite the long cloak that now concealed even her feet, despite the hood over her head. she was looking quite respectable, but he knew her. he neither advanced to her nor retreated. could the unhappy girl not see that she was walking into the arms of the soldiers? but doubtless she had been driven from all her hiding-places. for a moment gavin had it in his heart to warn her. but it was only for a moment. the nest a sudden horror shot through him. she was stealing toward him, so softly that he had not seen her start. the woman had designs on him! gavin turned from her. he walked so quickly that judges would have said he ran. the soldiers, i have said, stood in the dim light. gavin had almost reached them, when a little hand touched his arm. "stop," cried the sergeant, hearing some one approaching, and then gavin stepped out of the darkness with the gypsy on his arm. "it is you, mr. dishart," said the sergeant, "and your lady?" "i--." said gavin. his lady pinched his arm. "yes," she answered, in an elegant english voice that made gavin stare at her, "but, indeed, i am sorry i ventured into the streets to-night. i thought i might be able to comfort some of these unhappy people, captain, but i could do little, sadly little." "it is no scene for a lady, ma'am, but your husband has--. did you speak, mr. dishart?" "yes, i must inf--" "my dear," said the egyptian, "i quite agree witfe you, so we need not detain the captain." "i'm only a sergeant, ma'am." "indeed!" said the egyptian, raising her pretty eyebrows, "and how long are you to remain in thrums, sergeant?" "only for a few hours, mrs. dishart. if this gypsy lassie had not given us so much trouble, we might have been gone by now." "ah, yes, i hope you will catch her, sergeant." "sergeant," said gavin, firmly, "i must--" "you must, indeed, dear," said the egyptian, "for you are sadly tired. good-night, sergeant." "your servant, mrs. dishart. your servant, sir." "but--," cried gavin. "come, love," said the egyptian, and she walked the distracted minister through the soldiers and up the manse road. the soldiers left behind, gavin flung her arm from him, and, standing still, shook his fist in her face. "you--you--woman!" he said. this, i think, was the last time he called her a woman. but she was clapping her hands merrily. "it was beautiful!" she exclaimed. "it was iniquitous!" he answered. "and i a minister!" "you can't help that," said the egyptian, who pitied all ministers heartily. "no," gavin said, misunderstanding her, "i could not help it. no blame attaches to me." "i meant that you could not help being a minister, you could have helped saving me, and i thank you so much." "do not dare to thank me. i forbid you to say that i saved you. i did my best to hand you over to the authorities." "then why did you not hand me over?" gavin groaned. "all you had to say," continued the merciless egyptian, "was, 'this is the person you are in search of.' i did not have my hand over your mouth. why did you not say it?" "forbear!" said gavin, woefully. "it must have been," the gypsy said, "because you really wanted to help me." "then it was against my better judgment," said gavin. "i am glad of that," said the gypsy. "mr. dishart, i do believe you like me all the time." "can a man like a woman against his will?" gavin blurted out. "of course he can," said the egyptian, speaking as one who knew. "that is the very nicest way to be liked." seeing how agitated gavin was, remorse filled her, and she said in a wheedling voice-- "it is all over, and no one will know." passion sat on the minister's brow, but he said nothing, for the gypsy's face had changed with her voice, and the audacious woman was become a child. "i am very sorry," she said, as if he had caught her stealing jam. the hood had fallen back, and she looked pleadingly at him. she had the appearance of one who was entirely in his hands. there was a torrent of words in gavin, but only these trickled forth-- "i don't understand you." "you are not angry any more?" pleaded the egyptian. "angry!" he cried, with the righteous rage of one who when his leg is being sawn off is asked gently if it hurts him. "i know you are,' she sighed, and the sigh meant that men are strange. "have you no respect for law and order?" demanded gavin. "not much," she answered, honestly. he looked down the road to where the red-coats were still visible, and his face became hard. she read his thoughts. "no," she said, becoming a woman again, "it is not yet too late. why don't you shout to them?" she was holding herself like a queen, but there was no stiffness in her. they might have been a pair of lovers, and she the wronged one. again she looked timidly at him, and became beautiful in a new way. her eyes said that lie was very cruel, and she was only keeping back her tears till he had gone. more dangerous than her face was her manner, which gave gavin the privilege of making her unhappy; it permitted him to argue with her; it never implied that though he raged at her he must stand afar off; it called him a bully, but did not end the conversation. now (but perhaps i should not tell this) unless she is his wife a man is shot with a thrill of exultation every time a pretty woman allows him to upbraid her. "i do not understand you," gavin repeated weakly, and the gypsy bent her head under this terrible charge. "only a few hours ago," he continued, "you were a gypsy girl in a fantastic dress, barefooted--" the egyptian's bare foot at once peeped out mischievously from beneath the cloak, then again retired into hiding. "you spoke as broadly," complained the minister, somewhat taken aback by this apparition, "as any woman in thrums, and now you fling a cloak over your shoulders, and immediately become a fine lady. who are you?" "perhaps," answered the egyptian, "it is the cloak that has bewitched me." she slipped out of it. "ay, ay, ou losh?" she said, as if surprised, "it was just the cloak that did it, for now i'm a puir ignorant bit lassie again. my, certie, but claithes does make a differ to a woman?" this was sheer levity, and gavin walked scornfully away from it. "yet, if you will not tell me who you are," he said, looking over his shoulder, "tell me where you got the cloak." "na faags," replied the gypsy out of the cloak. "really, mr. dishart, you had better not ask," she added, replacing it over her. she followed him, meaning to gain the open by the fields to the north of the manse. "good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, "if you are not to give me up." "i am not a policeman," replied gavin, but he would not take her hand. "surely, we part friends, then?" said the egyptian, sweetly. "no," gavin answered. "i hope never to see your face again." "i cannot help," the egyptian said, with dignity, "your not liking my face." then, with less dignity, she added, "there is a splotch of mud on your own, little minister; it came off the divit you flung at the captain." with this parting shot she tripped past him, and gavin would not let his eyes follow her. it was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit. it was the word "little." though, even margaret was not aware of it, gavin's shortness had grieved him all his life. there had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself. in his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him. in the company of tall men he was always self- conscious. in the pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation when he asked them who, by taking thought, could add a cubit to his stature. when standing on a hearthrug his heels were frequently on the fender. in his bedroom he has stood on a footstool and surveyed himself in the mirror. once he fastened high heels to his boots, being ashamed to ask hendry munn to do it for him; but this dishonesty shamed him, and he tore them off. so the egyptian had put a needle into his pride, and he walked to the manse gloomily. margaret was at her window, looking for him, and he saw her though she did not see him. he was stepping into the middle of the road to wave his hand to her, when some sudden weakness made him look towards the fields instead. the egyptian saw him and nodded thanks for his interest in her, but he scowled and pretended to be studying the sky. next moment he saw her running back to him. "there are soldiers at the top of the field," she cried. "i cannot escape that way." "there is no other way," gavin answered. "will you not help me again?" she entreated. she should not have said "again." gavin shook his head, but pulled her closer to the manse dyke, for his mother was still in sight. "why do you do that?" the girl asked, quickly, looking round to see if she were pursued. "oh, i see," she said, as her eyes fell on the figure at the window. "it is my mother," gavin said, though he need not have explained, unless he wanted the gypsy to know that he was a bachelor. "only your mother?" "only! let me tell you she may suffer more than you for your behaviour to-night!" "how can she?" "if you are caught, will it not be discovered that i helped you to escape?" "but you said you did not." "yes, i helped you," gavin admitted. "my god! what would my congregation say if they knew i had let you pass yourself off as-- as my wife?" he struck his brow, and the egyptian had the propriety to blush. "it is not the punishment from men i am afraid of," gavin said, bitterly, "but from my conscience. no, that is not true. i do fear exposure, but for my mother's sake. look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last i seemed able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness. you have her life in your hands." the egyptian turned her back upon him, and one of her feet tapped angrily on the dry ground. then, child of impulse as she always was, she flashed an indignant glance at him, and walked quickly down the road. "where are you going?" he cried. "to give myself up. you need not be alarmed; i will clear you." there was not a shake in her voice, and she spoke without looking back. "stop!" gavin called, but she would not, until his hand touched her shoulder. "what do you want?" she asked. "why--" whispered gavin, giddily, "why--why do you not hide in the manse garden?--no one will look for you there." there were genuine tears in the gypsy's eyes now. "you are a good man," she said; "i like you." "don't say that," gavin cried in horror. "there is a summer-seat in the garden." then he hurried from her, and without looking to see if she took his advice, hastened to the manse. once inside, he snibbed the door. chapter ix. the woman considered in absence--adventures of a military cloak. about six o'clock margaret sat up suddenly in bed, with the conviction that she had slept in. to her this was to ravel the day: a dire thing. the last time it happened gavin, softened by her distress, had condensed morning worship into a sentence that she might make up on the clock. her part on waking was merely to ring her bell, and so rouse jean, for margaret had given gavin a promise to breakfast in bed, and remain there till her fire was lit. accustomed all her life, however, to early rising, her feet were usually on the floor before she remembered her vow, and then it was but a step to the window to survey the morning. to margaret, who seldom went out, the weather was not of great moment, while it mattered much to gavin, yet she always thought of it the first thing, and he not at all until he had to decide whether his companion should be an umbrella or a staff. on this morning margaret only noticed that there had been rain since gavin came in. forgetting that the water obscuring the outlook was on the other side of the panes, she tried to brush it away with her fist. it was of the soldiers she was thinking. they might have been awaiting her appearance at the window as their signal to depart, for hardly had she raised the blind when they began their march out of thrums. from the manse she could not see them, but she heard them, and she saw some people at the tenements run to their houses at sound of the drum. other persons, less timid, followed the enemy with execrations halfway to tilliedrum. margaret, the only person, as it happened, then awake in the manse, stood listening for some time. in the summer-seat of the garden, however, there was another listener protected from her sight by thin spars. despite the lateness of the hour margaret was too soft-hearted to rouse jean, who had lain down in her clothes, trembling for her father. she went instead into gavin's room to look admiringly at him as he slept. often gavin woke to find that his mother had slipped in to save him the enormous trouble of opening a drawer for a clean collar, or of pouring the water into the basin with his own hand. sometimes he caught her in the act of putting thick socks in the place of thin ones, and, it must be admitted that her passion for keeping his belongings in boxes, and the boxes in secret places, and the secret places at the back of drawers, occasionally led to their being lost when wanted. "they are safe, at any rate, for i put them away some gait," was then magaret's comfort, but less soothing to gavin. yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next instant, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade. when he awoke and saw her in his room he would pretend, unless he felt called upon to rage at her for self- neglect, to be still asleep, and then be filled with tenderness for her. a great writer has spoken sadly of the shock it would be to a mother to know her boy as he really is, but i think she often knows him better than he is known to cynical friends. we should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours. on this morning margaret only opened gavin's door to stand and look, for she was fearful of awakening him after his heavy night. even before she saw that he still slept she noticed with surprise that, for the first time since he came to thrums, he had put on his shutters. she concluded that he had done this lest the light should rouse him. he was not sleeping pleasantly, for now he put his open hand before his face, as if to guard himself, and again he frowned and seemed to draw back from something. he pointed his finger sternly to the north, ordering the weavers, his mother thought, to return to their homes, and then he muttered to himself so that she heard the words, "and if thy right hand offend thee cut it off, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." then suddenly he bent forward, his eyes open and fixed on the window. thus he sat, for the space of half a minute, like one listening with painful intentness. when he lay back margaret slipped away. she knew he was living the night over again, but not of the divit his right hand had cast, nor of the woman in the garden. gavin was roused presently by the sound of voices from margaret's room, where jean, who had now gathered much news, was giving it to her mistress. jean's cheerfulness would have told him that her father was safe had he not wakened to thoughts of the egyptian. i suppose he was at the window in an instant, unsnibbing the shutters and looking out as cautiously as a burglar might have looked in. the egyptian was gone from the summer-seat. he drew a great breath. but his troubles were not over. he had just lifted his ewer of water when these words from the kitchen capsized it:-- "ay, an egyptian. that's what the auld folk call a gypsy. weel, mrs. dishart, she led police and sojers sic a dance through thrums as would baffle description, though i kent the fits and fors o't as i dinna. ay, but they gripped her in the end, and the queer thing is--" gavin listened to no more. he suddenly sat down. the queer thing, of course, was that she had been caught in his garden. yes, and doubtless queerer things about this hussy and her "husband" were being bawled from door to door. to the girl's probable sufferings he gave no heed. what kind of man had he been a few hours ago to yield to the machinations of a woman who was so obviously the devil? now he saw his folly in the face. the tray in jean's hands clattered against the dresser, and gavin sprang from his chair. he thought it was his elders at the front door. in the parlour he found margaret sorrowing for those whose mates had been torn from them, and jean with a face flushed by talk. on ordinary occasions the majesty of the minister still cowed jean, so that she could only gaze at him without shaking when in church, and then because she wore a veil. in the manse he was for taking a glance at sideways and then going away comforted, as a respectable woman may once or twice in a day look at her brooch in the pasteboard box as a means of helping her with her work. but with such a to-do in thrums, and she the possessor of exclusive information, jean's reverence for gavin only took her to-day as far as the door, where she lingered half in the parlour and half in the lobby, her eyes turned politely from the minister, but her ears his entirely. "i thought i heard jean telling you about the capture of the--of an egyptian woman," gavin said to his mother, nervously. "did you cry to me?" jean asked, turning round longingly. "but maybe the mistress will tell you about the egyptian hersel." "has she been taken to tilliedrum?" gavin asked in a hollow voice. "sup up your porridge, gavin," margaret said. "i'll have no speaking about this terrible night till you've eaten something." "i have no appetite," the minister replied, pushing his plate from him. "jean, answer me." "'deed, then," said jean willingly, "they hinna ta'en her to tilliedrum." "for what reason?" asked gavin, his dread increasing. "for the reason that they couldna catch her," jean answered. "she spirited hersel awa', the magerful crittur." "what! but i heard you say----" "ay, they had her aince, but they couldna keep her. it's like a witch story. they had her safe in the townhouse, and baith shirra and captain guarding her, and syne in a clink she wasna there. a' nicht they looked for her, but she hadna left so muckle as a foot- print ahint her, and in the tail of the day they had to up wi' their tap in their lap and march awa without her." gavin's appetite returned. "has she been seen since the soldiers went away?" he asked, laying down his spoon with a new fear. "where is she now?" "no human eye has seen her," jean answered impressively. "whaur is she now? whaur does the flies vanish to in winter? we ken they're some gait, but whaur?" "but what are the people saying about her?" "daft things," said jean. "old charles yuill gangs the length o' hinting that she's dead and buried." "she could not have buried herself, jean," margaret said, mildly. "i dinna ken. charles says she's even capable o' that." then jean retired reluctantly (but leaving the door ajar) and gavin fell to on his porridge. he was now so cheerful that margaret wondered. "if half the stories about this gypsy be true," she said, "she must be more than a mere woman." "less, you mean, mother," gavin said, with conviction. "she is a woman, and a sinful one." "did you see her, gavin?" "i saw her. mother, she flouted me!" "the daring tawpie!" exclaimed margaret. "she is all that," said the minister. "was she dressed just like an ordinary gypsy body? but you don't notice clothes much, gavin." "i noticed hers," gavin said, slowly, "she was in a green and red, i think, and barefooted." "ay," shouted jean from the kitchen, startling both of them; "but she had a lang grey-like cloak too. she was seen jouking up closes in't." gavin rose, considerably annoyed, and shut the parlour door. "was she as bonny as folks say?" asked margaret. "jean says they speak of her beauty as unearthly." "beauty of her kind," gavin explained learnedly, "is neither earthly nor heavenly." he was seeing things as they are very clearly now. "what," he said, "is mere physical beauty? pooh!" "and yet," said margaret, "the soul surely does speak through the face to some extent." "do you really think so, mother?" gavin asked, a little uneasily. "i have always noticed it," margaret said, and then her son sighed. "but i would let no face influence me a jot," he said, recovering. "ah, gavin, i'm thinking i'm the reason you pay so little regard to women's faces. it's no natural." "you've spoilt me, you see, mother, for ever caring for another woman. i would compare her to you, and then where would she be?" "sometime," margaret said, "you'll think differently." "never," answered gavin, with a violence that ended the conversation. soon afterwards he set off for the town, and in passing down the garden walk cast a guilty glance at the summer-seat. something black was lying in one corner of it. he stopped irresolutely, for his mother was nodding to him from her window. then he disappeared into the little arbour. what had caught his eye was a bible. on the previous day, as he now remembered, he had been called away while studying in the garden, and had left his bible on the summer-seat, a pencil between its pages. not often probably had the egyptian passed a night in such company. but what was this? gavin had not to ask himself the question. the gypsy's cloak was lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat. why had the woman not taken it with her? hardly had he put this question when another stood in front of it. what was to be done with the cloak? he dared not leave it there for jean to discover. he could not take it into the manse in daylight. beneath the seat was a tool-chest without a lid, and into this he crammed the cloak. then, having turned the box face downwards, he went about his duties. but many a time during the day he shivered to the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this very moment jean might be carrying the accursed thing (at arms' length, like a dog in disgrace) to his mother. now let those who think that gavin has not yet paid toll for taking the road with the egyptian, follow the adventures of the cloak. shortly after gloaming fell that night jean encountered her master in the lobby of the manse. he was carrying something, and when he saw her he slipped it behind his back. had he passed her openly she would have suspected nothing, but this made her look at him. "why do you stare so, jean?" gavin asked, conscience-stricken, and he stood with his back to the wall until she had retired in bewilderment. "i have noticed her watching me sharply all day," he said to himself, though it was only he who had been watching her. gavin carried the cloak to his bed-room, thinking to lock it away in his chest, but it looked so wicked lying there that he seemed to see it after the lid was shut. the garret was the best place for it. he took it out of the chest and was opening his door gently, when there was jean again. she had been employed very innocently in his mother's room, but he said tartly-- "jean, i really cannot have this," which sent jean to the kitchen with her apron at her eyes. gavin stowed the cloak beneath the garret bed, and an hour afterwards was engaged on his sermon, when he distinctly heard some one in the garret. he ran up the ladder with a terrible brow for jean, but it was not jean; it was margaret. "mother," he said in alarm, "what are you doing here?" "i am only tidying up the garret, gavin." "yes, but--it is too cold for you. did jean--did jean ask you to come up here?" "jean? she knows her place better." gavin took margaret down to the parlour, but his confidence in the garret had gone. he stole up the ladder again, dragged the cloak from its lurking place, and took it into the garden. he very nearly met jean in the lobby again, but hearing him coming she fled precipitately, which he thought very suspicious. in the garden he dug a hole, and there buried the cloak, but even now he was not done with it. he was wakened early by a noise of scraping in the garden, and his first thought was "jean!" but peering from the window, he saw that the resurrectionist was a dog which already had its teeth in the cloak. that forenoon gavin left the manse unostentatiously carrying a brown-paper parcel. he proceeded to the hill, and having dropped the parcel there, retired hurriedly. on his way home, nevertheless, he was overtaken by d. fittis, who had been cutting down whins. fittis had seen the parcel fall, and running after gavin, returned it to him. gavin thanked d. fittis, and then sat down gloomily on the cemetery dyke. half an hour afterwards he flung the parcel into a tillyloss garden. in the evening margaret had news for him, got from jean. "do you remember, gavin, that the egyptian every one is still speaking of, wore a long cloak? well, would you believe it, the cloak was captain halliwell's, and she took it from the town-house when she escaped. she is supposed to have worn it inside out. he did not discover that it was gone until he was leaving thrums." "mother, is this possible?" gavin said. "the policeman, wearyworld, has told it. he was ordered, it seems, to look for the cloak quietly, and to take any one into custody in whose possession it was found." "has it been found?" "no." the minister walked out of the parlour, for he could not trust his face. what was to be done now? the cloak was lying in mason baxter's garden, and baxter was therefore, in all probability, within four-and-twenty hours of the tilliedrum gaol. "does mr. dishart ever wear a cap at nichts?" femie wilkie asked sam'l fairweather three hours later. "na, na, he has ower muckle respect for his lum hat," answered sam'l; "and richtly, for it's the crowning stone o' the edifice." "then it couldna hae been him i met at the back o' tillyloss the now," said femie, "though like him it was. he joukit back when he saw me." while femie was telling her story in the tenements, mason baxter, standing at the window which looked into his garden, was shouting, "wha's that in my yard?" there was no answer, and baxter closed his window, under the impression that he had been speaking to a cat. the man in the cap then emerged from the corner where he had been crouching, and stealthily felt for something among the cabbages and pea sticks. it was no longer there, however, and by- and-by he retired empty-handed. "the egyptian's cloak has been found," margaret was able to tell gavin next day. "mason baxter found it yesterday afternoon." "in his garden?" gavin asked hurriedly. "no; in the quarry, he says, but according to jean he is known not to have been at the quarry to-day. some seem to think that the gypsy gave him the cloak for helping her to escape, and that he has delivered it up lest he should get into difficulties." "whom has he given it to, mother?" gavin asked. "to the policeman." "and has wearyworld sent it back to halliwell?" "yes. he told jean he sent it off at once, with the information that the masons had found it in the quarry." the next day was sabbath, when a new trial, now to be told, awaited gavin in the pulpit; but it had nothing to do with the cloak, of which i may here record the end. wearyworld had not forwarded it to its owner; meggy, his wife, took care of that. it made its reappearance in thrums, several months after the riot, as two pairs of sabbath breeks for her sons, james and andrew. chapter x. first sermon against women. on the afternoon of the following sabbath, as i have said, something strange happened in the auld licht pulpit. the congregation, despite their troubles, turned it over and peered at it for days, but had they seen into the inside of it they would have weaved few webs until the session had sat on the minister. the affair baffled me at the time, and for the egyptian's sake i would avoid mentioning it now, were it not one of gavin's milestones. it includes the first of his memorable sermons against woman. i was not in the auld licht church that day, but i heard of the sermon before night, and this, i think, is as good an opportunity as another for showing how the gossip about gavin reached me up here in the glen school-house. since margaret and her son came to the manse i had kept the vow made to myself and avoided thrums. only once had i ventured to the kirk, and then, instead of taking my old seat, the fourth from the pulpit, i sat down near the plate, where i could look at margaret without her seeing me. to spare her that agony i even stole away as the last word of the benediction was pronounced, and my haste scandalised many, for with auld lichts it is not customary to retire quickly from the church after the manner of the godless u. p.'s (and the free kirk is little better), who have their hats in their hand when they rise for the benediction, so that they may at once pour out like a burst dam. we resume our seats, look straight before us, clear our throats and stretch out our hands for our womenfolk to put our hats into them. in time we do get out, but i am never sure how. one may gossip in a glen on sabbaths, though not in a town, without losing his character, and i used to await the return of my neighbour, the farmer of waster lunny, and of silva birse, the glen quharity post, at the end of the school-house path. waster lunny was a man whose care in his leisure hours was to keep from his wife his great pride in her. his horse, catlaw, on the other hand, he told outright what he thought of it, praising it to its face and blackguarding it as it deserved, and i have seen him when completely baffled by the brute, sit down before it on a stone and thus harangue: "you think you're clever, catlaw, my lass, but you're mista'en. you're a thrawn limmer, that's what you are. you think you have blood in you. you hae blood! gae away, and dinna blether. i tell you what, catlaw, i met a man yestreen that kent your mither, and he says she was a feikie fushionless besom. what do you say to that?" as for the post, i will say no more of him than that his bitter topic was the unreasonableness of humanity, which treated him graciously when he had a letter for it, but scowled at him when he had none. "aye implying that i hae a letter, but keep it back." on the sabbath evening after the riot, i stood at the usual place awaiting my friends, and saw before they reached me that they had something untoward to tell. the farmer, his wife and three children, holding each other's hands, stretched across the road. birse was a little behind, but a conversation was being kept up by shouting. all were walking the sabbath pace, and the family having started half a minute in advance, the post had not yet made up on them. "it's sitting to snaw," waster lunny said, drawing near, and just as i was to reply, "it is so," silva slipped in the words before me. "you wasna at the kirk," was elspeth's salutation. i had been at the glen church, but did not contradict her, for it is established, and so neither here nor there. i was anxious, too, to know what their long faces meant, and so asked at once-- "was mr. dishart on the riot?" "forenoon, ay; afternoon, no," replied waster lunny, walking round his wife to get nearer me. "dominie, a queery thing happened in the kirk this day, sic as--" "waster lunny," interrupted elspeth sharply; "have you on your sabbath shoon or have you no on your sabbath shoon?" "guid care you took i should hae the dagont oncanny things on," retorted the farmer. "keep out o' the gutter, then," said elspeth, "on the lord's day." "him," said her man, "that is forced by a foolish woman to wear genteel 'lastic-sided boots canna forget them till he takes them aff. whaur's the extra reverence in wearing shoon twa sizes ower sma?" "it mayna be mair reverent," suggested birse, to whom elspeth's kitchen was a pleasant place, "but it's grand, and you canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable." i reminded them that they were speaking of mr. dishart. "we was saying," began the post briskly, "that--" "it was me that was saying it," said waster lunny. "so, dominie--" "haud your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted elspeth, "you've been roaring the story to ane another till you're hoarse." "in the forenoon," waster lunny went on determinedly, "mr. dishart preached on the riot, and fine he was. oh, dominie, you should hae heard him ladling it on to lang tammas, no by name but in sic a way that there was no mistaking wha he was preaching at, sal! oh losh! tammas got it strong." "but he's dull in the uptake," broke in the post, "by what i expected. i spoke to him after the sermon, and i says, just to see if he was properly humbled, 'ay, tammas,' i says, 'them that discourse was preached against, winna think themselves seven feet men for a while again.' 'ay, birse,' he answers, 'and glad i am to hear you admit it, for he had you in his eye.' i was fair scunnered at tammas the day." "mr. dishart was preaching at the whole clanjamfray o' you," said elspeth. "maybe he was," said her husband, leering; "but you needna cast it at us, for, my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the women got it in the afternoon." "he redd them up most michty," said the post. "thae was his very words or something like them. 'adam,' says he, 'was an erring man, but aside eve he was respectable.'" "ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," elspeth explained, "for when he said that, he pointed his finger direct at t'nowhead's lassie, and i hope it'll do her good." "but i wonder," i said, "that mr. dishart chose such a subject to- day. i thought he would be on the riot at both services." "you'll wonder mair," said elspeth, "when you hear what happened afore he began the afternoon sermon. but i canna get in a word wi' that man o' mine." "we've been speaking about it," said birse, "ever since we left the kirk door. tod, we've been sawing it like seed a' alang the glen." "and we meant to tell you about it at once," said waster lunny; "but there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. dagont, to hae ane keeps a body out o' langour. ay, but this breaks the drum. dominie, either mr. dishart wasna weel, or he was in the devil's grip." this startled me, for the farmer was looking serious. "he was weel eneuch," said birse, "for a heap o' fowk speired at jean if he had ta'en his porridge as usual, and she admitted he had. but the lassie was skeered hersel', and said it was a mercy mrs. dishart wasna in the kirk." "why was she not there?" i asked anxiously. "oh, he winna let her out in sic weather." "i wish you would tell me what happened," i said to elspeth. "so i will," she answered, "if waster lunny would haud his wheesht for a minute. you see the afternoon diet began in the ordinary way, and a' was richt until we came to the sermon. 'you will find my text,' he says, in his piercing voice, 'in the eighth chapter of ezra.'" "and at thae words," said waster lunny, "my heart gae a loup, for ezra is an unca ill book to find; ay, and so is ruth." "i kent the books o' the bible by heart," said elspeth, scornfully, "when i was a sax year auld." "so did i," said waster lunny, "and i ken them yet, except when i'm hurried. when mr. dishart gave out ezra he a sort o' keeked round the kirk to find out if he had puzzled onybody, and so there was a kind o' a competition among the congregation wha would lay hand on it first. that was what doited me. ay, there was ruth when she wasna wanted, but ezra, dagont, it looked as if ezra had jumped clean out o' the bible." "you wasna the only distressed crittur," said his wife. "i was ashamed to see eppie mclaren looking up the order o' the books at the beginning o' the bible." "tibbie birse was even mair brazen," said the post, "for the sly cuttie opened at kings and pretended it was ezra." "none o' thae things would i do," said waster lunny," and sal, i dauredna, for davit lunan was glowering over my shuther. ay, you may scrowl at me, elspeth proctor, but as far back as i can mind, ezra has done me. mony a time afore i start for the kirk i take my bible to a quiet place and look ezra up. in the very pew i says canny to mysel', 'ezra, nehemiah, esther, job,' the which should be a help, but the moment the minister gi'es out that awfu' book, away goes ezra like the egyptian." "and you after her," said elspeth, "like the weavers that wouldna fecht. you make a windmill of your bible." "oh, i winna admit i'm beat. never mind there's queer things in the world forby ezra. how is cripples aye so puffed up mair than other folk? how does flour-bread aye fall on the buttered side?" "i will mind," elspeth said, "for i was terrified the minister would admonish you frae the pulpit." "he couldna hae done that, for was he no baffled to find ezra himsel'?" "him no find ezra!" cried elspeth. "i hae telled you a dozen times he found it as easy as you could yoke a horse." "the thing can be explained in no other way," said her husband, doggedly, "if he was weel and in sound mind." "maybe the dominie can clear it up," suggested the post, "him being a scholar." "then tell me what happened," i asked. "godsake, hae we no telled you?" birse said. "i thocht we had." "it was a terrible scene," said elspeth, giving her husband a shove. "as i said, mr. dishart gave out ezra eighth. weel, i turned it up in a jiffy, and syne looked cautiously to see how eppie mclaren was getting on. just at that minute i heard a groan frae the pulpit. it didna stop short o' a groan. ay, you may be sure i looked quick at the minister, and there i saw a sicht that would hae made the grandest gape. his face was as white as a baker's, and he had a sort of fallen against the back o' the pulpit, staring demented-like at his open bible." "and i saw him," said birse, "put up his hand atween him and the book, as if he thocht it was to jump at him." "twice," said elspeth, "he tried to speak, and twice he let the words fall." "that," says waster lunny, "the whole congregation admits, but i didna see it mysel', for a' this time you may picture me hunting savage-like for ezra. i thocht the minister was waiting till i found it." "hendry munn," said birse, "stood upon one leg, wondering whether he should run to the session-house for a glass of water." "but by that time," said elspeth, "the fit had left mr. dishart, or rather it had ta'en a new turn. he grew red, and it's gospel that he stamped his foot." "he had the face of one using bad words," said the post, "he didna swear, of course, but that was the face he had on." "i missed it," said waster lunny, "for i was in full cry after ezra, with the sweat running down my face." "but the most astounding thing has yet to be telled," went on elspeth. "the minister shook himsel' like one wakening frae a nasty dream, and he cries in a voice of thunder, just as if he was shaking his fist at somebody--" "he cries," birse interposed, cleverly, "he cries, 'you will find the text in genesis, chapter three, verse six.'" "yes," said elspeth, "first he gave out one text, and then he gave out another, being the most amazing thing to my mind that ever happened in the town of thrums. what will our children's children think o't? i wouldna hae missed it for a pound note." "nor me," said waster lunny, "though i only got the tail o't. dominie, no sooner had he said genesis third and sixth, than i laid my finger on ezra. was it no provoking? onybody can turn up genesis, but it needs an able-bodied man to find ezra." "he preached on the fall," elspeth said, "for an hour and twenty- five minutes, but powerful though he was i would rather he had telled us what made him gie the go-by to ezra." "all i can say," said waster lunny, "is that i never heard him mair awe-inspiring. whaur has he got sic a knowledge of women? he riddled them, he fair riddled them, till i was ashamed o' being married." "it's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge of women," birse explained, "it's a' in the original hebrew. you can howk ony mortal thing out o' the original hebrew, the which all ministers hae at their finger ends. what else makes them ken to jump a verse now and then when giving out a psalm?" "it wasna women like me he denounced," elspeth insisted, "but young lassies that leads men astray wi' their abominable wheedling ways." "tod," said her husband, "if they try their hands on mr. dishart they'll meet their match." "they will," chuckled the post. "the hebrew's a grand thing, though teuch, i'm telled, michty teuch." "his sublimest burst," waster lunny came back to tell me, "was about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth a snuff. what a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! i dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but mr. dishart wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't. ay, and i used to think that in their foolishness about women there was dagont little differ atween the unlearned and the highly edicated." the gossip about gavin brought hitherto to the schoolhouse had been as bread to me, but this i did not like. for a minister to behave thus was as unsettling to us as a change of government to londoners, and i decided to give my scholars a holiday on the morrow and tramp into the town for fuller news. but all through the night it snowed, and next day, and then intermittingly for many days, and every fall took the school miles farther away from thrums. birse and the crows had now the glen road to themselves, and even birse had twice or thrice to bed with me. at these times had he not been so interested in describing his progress through the snow, maintaining that the crying want of our glen road was palings for postmen to kick their feet against, he must have wondered why i always turned the talk to the auld licht minister. "ony explanation o' his sudden change o' texts?' birse said, repeating my question. "tod, and there is and to spare, for i hear tell there's saxteen explanations in the tenements alone. as tammas haggart says, that's a blessing, for if there had just been twa explanations the kirk micht hae split on them." "ay," he said at another time, "twa or three even dared to question the minister, but i'm thinking they made nothing o't. the majority agrees that he was just inspired to change his text. but lang tammas is dour. tammas telled the session a queer thing. he says that after the diet o' worship on that eventful afternoon mr. dishart carried the bible out o' the pulpit instead o' leaving that duty as usual to the kirk-officer. weel, tammas, being precentor, has a richt, as you ken, to leave the kirk by the session-house door, just like the minister himsel'. he did so that afternoon, and what, think you, did he see? he saw mr. dishart tearing a page out o' the bible, and flinging it savagely into the session-house fire. you dinna credit it? weel, it's staggering, but there's hendry munn's evidence too. hendry took his first chance o' looking up ezra in the minister's bible, and, behold, the page wi' the eighth chapter was gone. them that thinks tammas wasna blind wi' excitement hauds it had been ezra eighth that gaed into the fire. onyway, there's no doubt about the page's being missing, for whatever excitement tammas was in, hendry was as cool as ever." a week later birse told me that the congregation had decided to regard the incident as adding lustre to their kirk. this was largely, i fear, because it could then be used to belittle the established minister. that fervent auld licht, snecky hobart, feeling that gavin's action was unsound, had gone on the following sabbath to the parish kirk and sat under mr. duthie. but mr. duthie was a close reader, so that snecky flung himself about in his pew in misery. the minister concluded his sermon with these words: "but on this subject i will say no more at present." "because you canna," snecky roared, and strutted out of the church. comparing the two scenes, it is obvious that the auld lichts had won a victory. after preaching impromptu for an hour and twenty-five minutes, it could never be said of gavin that he needed to read. he became more popular than ever. yet the change of texts was not forgotten. if in the future any other indictments were brought against him, it would certainly be pinned to them. i marvelled long over gavin's jump from ezra to genesis, and at this his first philippic against woman, but i have known the cause for many a year. the bible was the one that had lain on the summer-seat while the egyptian hid there. it was the great pulpit bible which remains in the church as a rule, but gavin had taken it home the previous day to make some of its loose pages secure with paste. he had studied from it on the day preceding the riot, but had used a small bible during the rest of the week. when he turned in the pulpit to ezra, where he had left the large bible open in the summer-seat, he found this scrawled across chapter eight:-- "i will never tell who flung the clod at captain halliwell. but why did you fling it? i will never tell that you allowed me to be called mrs. dishart before witnesses. but is not this a scotch marriage? signed, babbie the egyptian." chapter xi. tells in a whisper of man's fall during the curling season. no snow could be seen in thrums by the beginning of the year, though clods of it lay in waster lunny's fields, where his hens wandered all day as if looking for something they had dropped. a black frost had set in, and one walking on the glen road could imagine that through the cracks in it he saw a loch glistening. from my door i could hear the roar of curling stones at rashie- bog, which is almost four miles nearer thrums. on the day i am recalling, i see that i only made one entry in my diary, "at last bought waster lunny's bantams." well do i remember the transaction, and no wonder, for i had all but bought the bantams every day for a six months. about noon the doctor's dog-cart was observed by all the tenements standing at the auld licht manse. the various surmises were wrong. margaret had not been suddenly taken ill; jean had not swallowed a darning-needle; the minister had not walked out at his study window in a moment of sublime thought. gavin stepped into the dog- cart, which at once drove off in the direction of rashie-bog, but equally in error were those who said that the doctor was making a curler of him. there was, however, ground for gossip; for thrums folk seldom called in a doctor until it was too late to cure them, and mcqueen was not the man to pay social visits. of his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at archie allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung archie fell from. when he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. he was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a blessing of an affliction. "a pity i don't hear better?" i have heard him say. "not at all. if my misfortune, as you call it, were to be removed, you can't conceive how i should miss my deaf ear." he was a fine fellow, though brusque, and i never saw him without his pipe until two days before we buried him, which was five-and-twenty years ago come martinmas. "we're all quite weel," jean said apprehensively as she answered his knock on the manse door, and she tried to be pleasant, too, for well she knew that, if a doctor willed it, she could have fever in five minutes. "ay, jean, i'll soon alter that," he replied ferociously. "is the master in?" "he's at his sermon," jean said with importance. to interrupt the minister at such a moment seemed sacrilege to her, for her up-bringing had been good. her mother had once fainted in the church, but though the family's distress was great, they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk-officer to bring water. they propped her up in the pew in a respectful attitude, joining in the singing meanwhile, and she recovered in time to look up nd chronicles, st and th. "tell him i want to speak to him at the door," said the doctor fiercely, "or i'll bleed you this minute." mcqueen would not enter, because his horse might have seized the opportunity to return stablewards. at the houses where it was accustomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord, knowing where the doctor's "cases" were as well as himself, but it resented new patients. "you like misery, i think, mr. dishart," mcqueen said when gavin came to him, "at least i am always finding you in the thick of it, and that is why i am here now. i have a rare job for you if you will jump into the machine. you know nanny webster, who lives on the edge of windyghoul? no, you don't, for she belongs to the other kirk. well, at all events, you knew her brother, sanders, the mole-catcher?" "i remember him. you mean the man who boasted so much about seeing a ball at lord rintoul's place?" "'the same, and, as you may know, his boasting about maltreating policemen whom he never saw led to his being sentenced to nine months in gaol lately." "that is the man," said gavin. "i never liked him." "no, but his sister did," mcqueen answered, drily, "and with reason, for he was her breadwinner, and now she is starving." "anything i can give her--" "would be too little, sir." "but the neighbours--" "she has few near her, and though the thrums poor help each other bravely, they are at present nigh as needy as herself. nanny is coming to the poorhouse, mr. dishart." "god help her!" exclaimed gavin. "nonsense," said the doctor, trying to make himself a hard man. "she will be properly looked after there, and--and in time she will like it." "don't let my mother hear you speaking of taking an old woman to that place," gavin said, looking anxiously up the stair. i cannot pretend that margaret never listened. "you all speak as if the poorhouse was a gaol," the doctor said testily. "but so far as nanny is concerned, everything is arranged. i promised to drive her to the poorhouse to-day, and she is waiting for me now. don't look at me as if i was a brute. she is to take some of her things with her to the poorhouse, and the rest is to be left until sanders's return, when she may rejoin him. at least we said that to her to comfort her." "you want me to go with you?" "yes, though i warn you it may be a distressing scene; indeed, the truth is that i am loth to face nanny alone to-day. mr. duthie should have accompanied me, for the websters are established kirk; ay, and so he would if rashie-bog had not been bearing. a terrible snare this curling, mr. dishart"--here the doctor sighed--"i have known mr. duthie wait until midnight struck on sabbath and then be off to rashie-bog with a torch." "i will go with you," gavin said, putting on his coat. "jump in then. you won't smoke? i never see a respectable man not smoking, sir, but i feel indignant with him for such sheer waste of time." gavin smiled at this, and snecky hobart, who happened to be keeking over the manse dyke, bore the news to the tenements. "i'll no sleep the nicht," snecky said, "for wondering what made the minister lauch. ay, it would be no trifle." a minister, it is certain, who wore a smile on his face would never have been called to the auld licht kirk, for life is a wrestle with the devil, and only the frivolous think to throw him without taking off their coats. yet, though gavin's zeal was what the congregation reverenced, many loved him privately for his boyishness. he could unbend at marriages, of which he had six on the last day of the year, and at every one of them he joked (the same joke) like a layman. some did not approve of his playing at the teetotum for ten minutes with kitty dundas's invalid son, but the way kitty boasted about it would have disgusted anybody. at the present day there are probably a score of gavins in thrums, all called after the little minister, and there is one gavinia, whom he hesitated to christen. he made humorous remarks (the same remark) about all these children, and his smile as he patted their heads was for thinking over when one's work was done for the day. the doctor's horse clattered up the backwynd noisily, as if a minister behind made no difference to it. instead of climbing the roods, however, the nearest way to nanny's, it went westward, which gavin, in a reverie, did not notice. the truth must be told. the egyptian was again in his head. "have i fallen deaf in the left ear, too?" said the doctor. "i see your lips moving, but i don't catch a syllable." gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy out of the trap. "why are we not going up the roods?" he asked. "well," said the doctor slowly, "at the top of the roods there is a stance for circuses, and this old beast of mine won't pass it. you know, unless you are behind in the clashes and clavers of thrums, that i bought her from the manager of a travelling show. she was the horse ('lightning' they called her) that galloped round the ring at a mile an hour, and so at the top of the roods she is still unmanageable. she once dragged me to the scene of her former triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging the machine after her." "if you had not explained that," said gavin, "i might have thought that you wanted to pass by rashie-bog." the doctor, indeed, was already standing up to catch a first glimpse of the curlers. "well," he admitted, "i might have managed to pass the circus ring, though what i have told you is true. however, i have not come this way merely to see how the match is going. i want to shame mr. duthie for neglecting his duty. it will help me to do mine, for the lord knows i am finding it hard, with the music of these stones in my ears." "i never saw it played before," gavin said, standing up in his turn. "what a din they make! mcqueen, i believe they are fighting!" "no, no," said the excited doctor, "they are just a bit daft. that's the proper spirit for the game. look, that's the baron- bailie near standing on his head, and there's mr. duthie off his head a' thegither. yon's twa weavers and a mason cursing the laird, and the man wi' the besom is the master of crumnathie." "a democracy, at all events," said gavin. "by no means," said the doctor, "it's an aristocracy of intellect. gee up, lightning, or the frost will be gone before we are there." "it is my opinion, doctor," said gavin, "that you will have bones to set before that game is finished. i can see nothing but legs now." "don't say a word against curling, sir, to me," said mcqueen, whom the sight of a game in which he must not play had turned crusty. "dangerous! it's the best medicine i know of. look at that man coming across the field. it is jo strachan. well, sir, curling saved jo's life after i had given him up. you don't believe me? hie, jo, jo strachan, come here and tell the minister how curling put you on your legs again." strachan came forward, a tough, little, wizened man, with red flannel round his ears to keep out the cold. "it's gospel what the doctor says, mr. dishart," he declared. "me and my brither sandy was baith ill, and in the same bed, and the doctor had hopes o' sandy, but nane o' me. ay, weel, when i heard that, i thocht i micht as weel die on the ice as in my bed, so i up and on wi' my claethes. sandy was mad at me, for he was no curler, and he says, 'jo strachan, if you gang to rashie-bog you'll assuredly be brocht hame a corp.' i didna heed him, though, and off i gaed." "and i see you did not die," said gavin. "not me," answered the fish cadger, with a grin. "na, but the joke o't is, it was sandy that died." "not the joke, jo," corrected the doctor, "the moral." "ay, the moral; i'm aye forgetting the word." mcqueen, enjoying gavin's discomfiture, turned lightning down the rashie-bog road, which would be impassable as soon as the thaw came. in summer rashie-bog is several fields in which a cart does not sink unless it stands still, but in winter it is a loch with here and there a spring where dead men are said to lie, there are no rushes at its east end, and here the dog-cart drew up near the curlers, a crowd of men dancing, screaming, shaking their fists and sweeping, while half a hundred onlookers got in their way, gesticulating and advising. "hold me tight," the doctor whispered to gavin, "or i'll be leaving you to drive nanny to the poorhouse by yourself." he had no sooner said this than he tried to jump out of the trap. "you donnert fule, john robbie," he shouted to a player, "soop her up, man, soop her up; no, no, dinna, dinna; leave her alane. bailie, leave her alane, you blazing idiot. mr. dishart, let me go; what do you mean, sir, by hanging on to my coat tails? dang it all, duthie's winning. he has it, he has it!" "you're to play, doctor?" some cried, running to the dog-cart. "we hae missed you sair." "jeames, i--i--. no, i daurna." "then we get our licks. i never saw the minister in sic form. we can do nothing against him." "then," cried mcqueen, "i'll play. come what will, i'll play. let go my tails, mr. dishart, or i'll cut them off. duty? fiddlesticks!" "shame on you, sir," said gavin; "yes, and on you others who would entice him from his duty." "shame!" the doctor cried. "look at mr. duthie. is he ashamed? and yet that man has been reproving me for a twelvemonths because i've refused to become one of his elders. duthie," he shouted," think shame of yourself for curling this day." mr. duthie had carefully turned his back to the trap, for gavin's presence in it annoyed him. we seldom care to be reminded of our duty by seeing another do it. now, however, he advanced to the dog-cart, taking the far side of gavin. "put on your coat, mr. duthie," said the doctor, "and come with me to nanny webster's. you promised." mr. duthie looked quizzically at gavin, and then at the sky. "the thaw may come at any moment," he said. "i think the frost is to hold," said gavin. "it may hold over to-morrow," mr. duthie admitted; "but to- morrow's the sabbath, and so a lost day." "a what?" exclaimed gavin, horrified. "i only mean," mr. duthie answered, colouring, "that we can't curl on the lord's day. as for what it may be like on monday, no one can say. no, doctor, i won't risk it. we're in the middle of a game, man." gavin looked very grave. "i see what you are thinking, mr. dishart," the old minister said doggedly; "but then, you don't curl. you are very wise. i have forbidden my sons to curl." "then you openly snap your fingers at your duty, mr. duthie?" said the doctor, loftily. ("you can let go my tails now, mr. dishart, for the madness has passed.") "none of your virtuous airs, mcqueen," said mr. duthie, hotly. "what was the name of the doctor that warned women never to have bairns while it was hauding?" "and what," retorted mcqueen, "was the name of the minister that told his session he would neither preach nor pray while the black frost lasted?" "hoots, doctor," said duthie, "don't lose your temper because i'm in such form." "don't lose yours, duthie, because i aye beat you." "you beat me, mcqueen! go home, sir, and don't talk havers. who beat you at--" "who made you sing small at--" "who won--" "who--" "who--" "i'll play you on monday for whatever you like!" shrieked the doctor. "if it holds," cried the minister, "i'll be here the whole day. name the stakes yourself. a stone?" "no," the doctor said, "but i'll tell you what we'll play for. you've been dinging me doited about that eldership, and we'll play for't. if you win i accept office." "done," said the minister, recklessly. the dog-cart was now turned toward windyghoul, its driver once more good-humoured, but gavin silent. "you would have been the better of my deaf ear just now, mr. dishart," mcqueen said after the loch had been left behind. "aye, and i'm thinking my pipe would soothe you. but don't take it so much to heart, man. i'll lick him easily. he's a decent man, the minister, but vain of his play, ridiculously vain. however, i think the sight of you, in the place that should have been his, has broken his nerve for this day, and our side may win yet." "i believe," gavin said, with sudden enlightenment, "that you brought me here for that purpose." "maybe," chuckled the doctor; "maybe." then he changed the subject suddenly. "mr. dishart," he asked, "were you ever in love?" "never!" answered gavin violently. "well, well," said the doctor, "don't terrify the horse. i have been in love myself. it's bad, but it's nothing to curling." chapter xii. tragedy of a mud house. the dog-cart bumped between the trees of caddam, flinging gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. i suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the water as black as tar. but it matters little what the wood was like. within a squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the poorhouse. can you think of the beauty of the day now? nanny was not crying. she had redd up her house for the last time and put on her black merino. her mouth was wide open while she listened. if yon had, addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid. look at her. a flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen body, and no one has heeded her much these thirty years. i can tell you something; it is almost droll. nanny webster was once a gay flirt, and in airlie square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. his loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are nanny's raven locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. down in airlie square he is weaving for his life, and here is nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. that is all the story save that when nanny heard the dog-cart she screamed. no neighbour was with her. if you think this hard, it is because you do not understand. perhaps nanny had never been very lovable except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but there was much in her to like. the neighbours, of whom there were two not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared to hurt her feelings. no heart opens to sympathy without letting in delicacy, and these poor people knew that nanny would not like them to see her being taken away. for a week they had been aware of what was coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous word, the poorhouse, they had not uttered. poorhouse is not to be spoken in thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his face. did nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. so now that the hour had come they called their children into their houses and pulled down their blinds. "if you would like to see her by yourself," the doctor said eagerly to gavin, as the horse drew up at nanny's gate, "i'll wait with the horse. not," he added, hastily, "that i feel sorry for her. we are doing her a kindness." they dismounted together, however, and nanny, who had run from the trap into the house, watched them from her window. mcqueen saw her and said glumly, "i should have come alone, for if you pray she is sure to break down. mr. dishart, could you not pray cheerfully?" "you don't look very cheerful yourself," gavin said sadly. "nonsense," answered the doctor. "i have no patience with this false sentiment. stand still, lightning, and be thankful you are not your master today." the door stood open, and nanny was crouching against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it. the blanket and the piece of old carpet that was nanny's coverlet were already packed in her box. the plate rack was empty. only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind. "well, nanny," the doctor said, trying to bluster, "i have come, and you see mr. dishart is with me." nanny rose bravely. she knew the doctor was good to her, and she wanted to thank him. i have not seen a great deal of the world myself, but often the sweet politeness of the aged poor has struck me as beautiful. nanny dropped a curtesy, an ungainly one maybe, but it was an old woman giving the best she had. "thank you kindly, sirs," she said; and then two pairs of eyes dropped before hers. "please to take a chair," she added timidly. it is strange to know that at that awful moment, for let none tell me it was less than awful, the old woman was the one who could speak. both men sat down, for they would have hurt nanny by remaining standing. some ministers would have known the right thing to say to her, but gavin dared not let himself speak. i have again to remind you that he was only one-and-twenty. "i'm drouthy, nanny," the doctor said, to give her something to do, "and i would be obliged for a drink of water." nanny hastened to the pan that stood behind her door, but stopped before she reached it. "it's toom," she said. "i--i didna think i needed to fill it this morning." she caught the doctor's eye, and could only half restrain a sob._ "i couldna help that," she said, apologetically. "i'm richt angry at myself for being so ungrateful like." the doctor thought it best that they should depart at once. he rose. "oh, no, doctor," cried nanny in alarm. "but you are ready?" "ay," she said, "i have been ready this twa hours, but you micht wait a minute. hendry munn and andrew allardyce is coming yont the road, and they would see me." "wait, doctor," gavin said. "thank you kindly, sir," answered nanny. "but nanny," the doctor said, "you must remember what i told you about the poo--, about the place you are going to. it is a fine house, and you will be very happy in it." "ay, i'll be happy in't," nanny faltered, "but, doctor, if i could just hae bidden on here though i wasna happy!" "think of the food you will get: broth nearly every day." "it--it'll be terrible enjoyable," nanny said. "and there will be pleasant company for you always," continued the doctor, "and a nice room to sit in. why, after you have been there a week, you won't be the same woman." "that's it!" cried nanny with sudden passion. "na, na; i'll be a woman on the poor's rates. oh, mither, mither, you little thocht when you bore me that i would come to this!" "nanny," the doctor said, rising again, "i am ashamed of you." "i humbly speir your forgiveness, sir," she said, "and you micht bide just a wee yet. i've been ready to gang these twa hours, but now that the machine is at the gate, i dinna ken how it is, but i'm terrible sweer to come awa'. oh, mr. dishart, it's richt true what the doctor says about the--the place, but i canna just take it in. i'm--i'm gey auld." "you will often get out to see your friends," was all gavin could say. "na, na, na," she cried, "dinna say that; i'll gang, but you mauna bid me ever come out, except in a hearse. dinna let onybody in thrums look on my face again." "we must go," said the doctor firmly. "put on your mutch, nanny." "i dinna need to put on a mutch," she answered, with a faint flush of pride. "i have a bonnet." she took the bonnet from her bed, and put it on slowly. "are you sure there's naebody looking?" she asked. the doctor glanced at the minister, and gavin rose. "let us pray," he said, and the three went down on their knees. it was not the custom of auld licht ministers to leave any house without offering up a prayer in it, and to us it always seemed that when gavin prayed, he was at the knees of god. the little minister pouring himself out in prayer in a humble room, with awed people around him who knew much more of the world than he, his voice at times thick and again a squeal, and his hands clasped not gracefully, may have been only a comic figure, but we were old- fashioned, and he seemed to make us better men. if i only knew the way, i would draw him as he was, and not fear to make him too mean a man for you to read about. he had not been long in thrums before he knew that we talked much of his prayers, and that doubtless puffed him up a little. sometimes, i daresay, he rose from his knees feeling that he had prayed well to-day, which is a dreadful charge to bring against anyone. but it was not always so, nor was it so now. i am not speaking harshly of this man, whom i have loved beyond all others, when i say that nanny came between him and his prayer. had he been of god's own image, unstained, he would have forgotten all else in his maker's presence, but nanny was speaking too, and her words choked his. at first she only whispered, but soon what was eating her heart burst out painfully, and she did not know that the minister had stopped. they were such moans as these that brought him back to earth:-- "i'll hae to gang... i'm a base woman no' to be mair thankfu' to them that is so good to me... i dinna like to prig wi' them to take a roundabout road, and i'm sair fleid a' the roods will see me... if it could just be said to poor sanders when he comes back that i died hurriedly, syne he would be able to haud up his head ... oh, mither! ... i wish terrible they had come and ta'en me at nicht... it's a dog-cart, and i was praying it micht be a cart, so that they could cover me wi' straw." "this is more than i can stand," the doctor cried. nanny rose frightened. "i've tried you, sair," she said, "but, oh, i'm grateful, and i'm ready now." they all advanced toward the door without another word, and nanny even tried to smile. but in the middle of the floor something came over her, and she stood there. gavin took her hand, and it was cold. she looked from one to the other, her mouth opening and shutting. "i canna help it," she said. "it's cruel hard," muttered the doctor. "i knew this woman when she was a lassie." the little minister stretched out his hands. "have pity on her, o god!" he prayed, with the presumptuousness of youth. nanny heard the words. "oh, god," she cried, "you micht!" god needs no minister to tell him what to do, but it was his will that the poorhouse should not have this woman. he made use of a strange instrument, no other than the egyptian, who now opened the mud-house door. chapter xiii. second coming of the egyptian woman. the gypsy had been passing the house, perhaps on her way to thrums for gossip, and it was only curiosity, born suddenly of gavin's cry, that made her enter. on finding herself in unexpected company she retained hold of the door, and to the amazed minister she seemed for a moment to have stepped into the mud house from his garden. her eyes danced, however, as they recognised him, and then he hardened. "this is no place for you," he was saying fiercely, when nanny, too distraught to think, fell crying at the egyptian's feet. "they are taking me to the poorhouse," she sobbed; "dinna let them, dinna let them." the egyptian's arms clasped her, and the egyptian kissed a sallow cheek that had once been as fair as yours, madam, who may read this story. no one had caressed nanny for many years, but do you think she was too poor and old to care for these young arms around her neck? there are those who say that women cannot love each other, but it is not true. woman is not undeveloped man, but something better, and gavin and the doctor knew it as they saw nanny clinging to her protector. when the gypsy turned with flashing eyes to the two men she might have been a mother guarding her child. "how dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot; and they quaked like malefactors. "you don't see--" gavin began, but her indignation stopped him. "you coward!" she said. even the doctor had been impressed, so that he now addressed the gypsy respectfully. "this is all very well," he said, "but a woman's sympathy--" "a woman!--ah, if i could be a man for only five minutes!" she clenched her little fists, and again turned to nanny. "you poor dear," she said tenderly, "i won't let them take you away." she looked triumphantly at both minister and doctor, as one who had foiled them in their cruel designs. "go!" she said, pointing grandly to the door. "is this the egyptian of the riots," the doctor said in a low voice to gavin, "or is she a queen? hoots, man, don't look so shamefaced. we are not criminals. say something." then to the egyptian gavin said firmly-- "you mean well, but you are doing this poor woman a cruelty in holding out hopes to her that cannot be realised. sympathy is not meal and bedclothes, and these are what she needs." "and you who live in luxury," retorted the girl, "would send her to the poorhouse for them. i thought better of you!" "tuts!" said the doctor, losing patience, "mr. dishart gives more than any other man in thrums to the poor, and he is not to be preached to by a gypsy. we are waiting for you, nanny." "ay, i'm coming," said nanny, leaving the egyptian. "i'll hae to gang, lassie. dinna greet for me." but the egyptian said, "no, you are not going. it is these men who are going. go, sirs, and leave us." "and you will provide for nanny?" asked the doctor contemptuously. "yes." "and where is the siller to come from?" "that is my affair, and nanny's. begone, both of you. she shall never want again. see how the very mention of your going brings back life to her face." "i won't begone," the doctor said roughly, "till i see the colour of your siller." "oh, the money," said the egyptian scornfully. she put her hand into her pocket confidently, as if used to well-filled purses, but could only draw out two silver pieces. "i had forgotten," she said aloud, though speaking to herself. "i thought so," said the cynical doctor. "come, nanny." "you presume to doubt me!" the egyptian said, blocking his way to the door. "how could i presume to believe you?" he answered. "you are a beggar by profession, and yet talk as if--pooh, nonsense." "i would live on terrible little," nanny whispered, "and sanders will be out again in august month." "seven shillings a week," rapped out the doctor. "is that all?" the egyptian asked. "she shall have it." "when?" "at once. no, it is not possible to-night, but to-morrow i will bring five pounds; no, i will send it; no, you must come for it." "and where, o daughter of dives, do you reside?" the doctor asked. no doubt the egyptian could have found a ready answer had her pity for nanny been less sincere; as it was, she hesitated, wanting to propitiate the doctor, while holding her secret fast. "i only asked," mcqueen said, eyeing her curiously, "because when i make an appointment i like to know where it is to be held. but i suppose you are suddenly to rise out of the ground as you have done to-day, and did six weeks ago." "whether i rise out of the ground or not," the gypsy said, keeping her temper with an effort, "there will be a five-pound note in my hand. you will meet me tomorrow about this hour at--say the kaims of cushie?" "no," said the doctor after a moment's pause; "i won't. even if i went to the kaims i should not find you there. why can you not come to me?" "why do you carry a woman's hair," replied the egyptian, "in that locket on your chain?" whether she was speaking of what she knew, or this was only a chance shot, i cannot tell, but the doctor stepped back from her hastily, and could not help looking down at the locket. "yes," said the egyptian calmly, "it is still shut; but why do you sometimes open it at nights?" "lassie," the old doctor cried, "are you a witch?" "perhaps," she said; "but i ask for no answer to my questions. if you have your secrets, why may i not have mine? now will you meet me at the kaims?" "no; i distrust you more than ever. even if you came, it would be to play with me as you have done already. how can a vagrant have five pounds in her pocket when she does not have five shillings on her back?" "you are a cruel, hard man," the egyptian said, beginning to lose hope. "but, see," she cried, brightening, "look at this ring. do you know its value?" she held up her finger, but the stone would not live in the dull light. "i see it is gold," the doctor said cautiously, and she smiled at the ignorance that made him look only at the frame. "certainly, it is gold," said gavin, equally stupid. "mercy on us!" nanny cried; "i believe it's what they call a diamond." "how did you come by it?" the doctor asked suspiciously. "i thought we had agreed not to ask each other questions," the egyptian answered drily. "but, see, i will give it to you to hold in hostage. if i am not at the kaims to get it back you can keep it." the doctor took the ring in his hand and examined it curiously. "there is a quirk in this," he said at last, "that i don't like. take back your ring, lassie. mr. dishart, give nanny your arm, and i'll carry her box to the machine." now all this time gavin had been in the dire distress of a man possessed of two minds, of which one said, "this is a true woman," and the other, "remember the seventeenth of october." they were at war within him, and he knew that he must take a side, yet no sooner had he cast one out than he invited it back. he did not answer the doctor. "unless," mcqueen said, nettled by his hesitation, "you trust this woman's word." gavin tried honestly to weigh those two minds against each other, but could not prevent impulse jumping into one of the scales. "you do trust me," the egyptian said, with wet eyes; and now that he looked on her again-- "yes," he said firmly, "i trust you," and the words that had been so difficult to say were the right words. he had no more doubt of it. "just think a moment first," the doctor warned him. "i decline to have anything to do with this matter. you will go to the kaims for the siller?" "if it is necessary," said gavin. "it is necessary," the egyptian said. "then i will go." nanny took his hand timidly, and would have kissed it had he been less than a minister. "you dare not, man," the doctor said gruffly, "make an appointment with this gypsy. think of what will be said in thrums." i honour gavin for the way in which he took this warning. for him, who was watched from the rising of his congregation to their lying down, whose every movement was expected to be a text to thrums, it was no small thing that he had promised. this he knew, but he only reddened because the doctor had implied an offensive thing in a woman's presence, "you forget yourself, doctor," he said sharply. "send some one in your place," advised the doctor, who liked the little minister. "he must come himself and alone," said the egyptian. "you must both give me your promise not to mention who is nanny's friend, and she must promise too." "well," said the doctor, buttoning up his coat, "i cannot keep my horse freezing any longer. remember, mr. dishart, you take the sole responsibility of this." "i do," said gavin, "and with the utmost confidence." "give him the ring then, lassie," said mcqueen. she handed the minister the ring, but he would not take it. "i have your word," he said; "that is sufficient." then the egyptian gave him the first look that he could think of afterwards without misgivings. "so be it," said the doctor. "get the money, and i will say nothing about it, unless i have reason to think that it has been dishonestly come by. don't look so frightened at me, nanny. i hope for your sake that her stocking-foot is full of gold." "surely it's worth risking," nanny said, not very brightly, "when the minister's on her side." "ay, but on whose side, nanny?" asked the doctor. "lassie, i bear you no grudge; will you not tell me who you are?" "only a puir gypsy, your honour," said the girl, becoming mischievous now that she had gained her point; "only a wandering hallen-shaker, and will i tell you your fortune, my pretty gentleman?" "no, you shan't," replied the doctor, plunging his hands so hastily into his pockets that gavin laughed. "i don't need to look at your hand," said the gypsy, "i can read your fortune in your face." she looked at him fixedly, so that he fidgeted. "i see you," said the egyptian in a sepulchral voice, and speaking slowly, "become very frail. your eyesight has almost gone. you are sitting alone in a cauld room, cooking your ain dinner ower a feeble fire. the soot is falling down the lum. your bearish manners towards women have driven the servant lassie frae your house, and your wife beats you." "ay, you spoil your prophecy there," the doctor said, considerably relieved, "for i'm not married; my pipe's the only wife i ever had." "you will be married by that time," continued the egyptian, frowning at this interruption, "for i see your wife. she is a shrew. she marries you in your dotage. she lauchs at you in company. she doesna allow you to smoke." "away with you, you jade," cried the doctor in a fury, and feeling nervously for his pipe, "mr. dishart, you had better stay and arrange this matter as you choose, but i want a word with you outside." "and you're no angry wi' me, doctor, are you?" asked nanny wistfully. "you've been richt good to me, but i canna thole the thocht o' that place. and, oh, doctor, you winna tell naebody that i was so near taen to it?" in the garden mcqueen said to gavin:-- "you may be right, mr. dishart, in this matter, for there is this in our favour, that the woman can gain nothing by tricking us. she did seem to feel for nanny. but who can she be? you saw she could put on and off the scotch tongue as easily as if it were a cap." "she is as much a mystery to me as to you," gavin answered, "but she will give me the money, and that is all i ask of her." "ay, that remains to be seen. but take care of yourself; a man's second childhood begins when a woman gets hold of him." "don't alarm yourself about me, doctor. i daresay she is only one of those gypsies from the south. they are said to be wealthy, many of them, and even, when they like, to have a grand manner. the thrums people had no doubt but that she was what she seemed to be." "ay, but what does she seem to be? even that puzzles me. and then there is this mystery about her which she admits herself, though perhaps only to play with us." "perhaps," said gavin, "she is only taking precautions against her discovery by the police. you must remember her part in the riots." "yes, but we never learned how she was able to play that part. besides, there is no fear in her, or she would not have ventured back to thrums. however, good luck attend you. but be wary. you saw how she kept her feet among her shalls and wills? never trust a scotch man or woman who does not come to grief among them." the doctor took his seat in the dog-cart. "and, mr. dishart," he called out, "that was all nonsense about the locket." chapter xiv. the minister dances to the woman's piping. gavin let the doctor's warnings fall in the grass. in his joy over nanny's deliverance he jumped the garden gate, whose hinges were of yarn, and cleverly caught his hat as it was leaving his head in protest. he then re-entered the mud house staidly. pleasant was the change. nanny's home was as a clock that had been run out, and is set going again. already the old woman was unpacking her box, to increase the distance between herself and the poorhouse. but gavin only saw her in the background, for the egyptian, singing at her work, had become the heart of the house. she had flung her shawl over nanny's shoulders, and was at the fireplace breaking peats with the leg of a stool. she turned merrily to the minister to ask him to chop up his staff for firewood, and he would have answered wittily but could not. then, as often, the beauty of the egyptian surprised him into silence. i could never get used to her face myself in the after-days. it has always held me wondering, like my own glen quharity on a summer day, when the sun is lingering and the clouds are on the march, and the glen is never the same for two minutes, but always so beautiful as to make me sad. never will i attempt to picture the egyptian as she seemed to gavin while she bent over nanny's fire, never will i describe my glen. yet a hundred times have i hankered after trying to picture both. an older minister, believing that nanny's anguish was ended, might have gone on his knees and finished the interrupted prayer, but now gavin was only doing this girl's bidding. "nanny and i are to have a dish of tea, as soon as we have set things to rights," she told him, "do you think we should invite the minister, nanny?" "we couldna dare," nanny answered quickly, "you'll excuse her, mr. dishart, for the presumption?" "presumption!" said the egyptian, making a face. "lassie," nanny said, fearful to offend her new friend, yet horrified at this affront to the minister, "i ken you mean weel, but mr. dishart'll think you're putting yoursel' on an equality wi' him." she added in a whisper, "dinna be so free; he's the auld licht minister." the gypsy bowed with mock awe, but gavin let it pass. he had, indeed, forgotten that he was anybody in particular, and was anxious to stay to tea. "but there is no water," he remembered, "and is there any tea?" "i am going out for them and for some other things," the egyptian explained. "but no," she continued, reflectively, "if i go for the tea, you must go for the water." "lassie," cried nanny, "mind wha you're speaking to. to send a minister to the well!" "i will go," said gavin, recklessly lifting the pitcher. "the well is in the wood, i think?" "gie me the pitcher, mr. dishart," said nanny, in distress. "what a town there would be if you was seen wi't!" "then he must remain here and keep the house till we come back," said the egyptian, and thereupon departed, with a friendly wave of her hand to the minister. "she's an awfu' lassie," nanny said, apologetically, "but it'll just be the way she has been brought up." "she has been very good to you, nanny." "she has; leastwise, she promises to be. mr. dishart, she's awa'; what if she doesna come back?" nanny spoke nervously, and gavin drew a long face. "i think she will," he said faintly. "i am confident of it," he added in the same voice. "and has she the siller?" "i believe in her," said gavin, so doggedly that his own words reassured him. "she has an excellent heart." "ay," said nanny, to whom the minister's faith was more than the egyptian's promise, "and that's hardly natural in a gaen-aboot body. yet a gypsy she maun be, for naebody would pretend to be ane that wasna. tod, she proved she was an egyptian by dauring to send you to the well." this conclusive argument brought her prospective dower so close to nanny's eyes that it hid the poorhouse. "i suppose she'll gie you the money," she said, "and syne you'll gie me the seven shillings a week?" "that seems the best plan," gavin answered. "and what will you gie it me in?" nanny asked, with something on her mind. "i would be terrible obliged if you gae it to me in saxpences." "do the smaller coins go farther?" gavin asked, curiously. "na, it's no that. but i've heard tell o' folk giving away half- crowns by mistake for twa-shilling bits; ay, and there's something dizzying in ha'en fower-and-twenty pennies in one piece; it has sic terrible little bulk. sanders had aince a gold sovereign, and he looked at it so often that it seemed to grow smaller and smaller in his hand till he was feared it micht just be a half after all." her mind relieved on this matter, the old woman set off for the well. a minute afterwards gavin went to the door to look for the gypsy, and, behold, nanny was no further than the gate. have you who read ever been sick near to death, and then so far recovered that you could once again stand at your window? if so, you have not forgotten how the beauty of the world struck you afresh, so that you looked long and said many times, "how fair a world it is!" like one who had made a discovery. it was such a look that nanny gave to the hill and caddam while she stood at her garden gate. gavin returned to the fire and watched a girl in it in an officer's cloak playing at hide and seek with soldiers. after a time he sighed, then looked round sharply to see who had sighed, then, absent-mindedly, lifted the empty kettle and placed it on the glowing peats. he was standing glaring at the kettle, his arms folded, when nanny returned from the well. "i've been thinking," she said, "o' something that proves the lassie to be just an egyptian. ay, i noticed she wasna nane awed when i said you was the auld licht minister. weel, i'se uphaud that came frae her living ower muckle in the open air. is there no' a smell o' burning in the house?" "i have noticed it," gavin answered, sniffing, "since you came in. i was busy until then, putting on the kettle. the smell is becoming worse." nanny had seen the empty kettle on the fire as he began to speak, and so solved the mystery. her first thought was to snatch the kettle out of the blaze, but remembering who had put it there, she dared not. she sidled toward the hearth instead, and saying craftily, "ay, here it is; it's a clout among the peats," softly laid the kettle on the earthen floor. it was still red with sparks, however, when the gypsy reappeared. "who burned the kettle?" she asked, ignoring nanny's signs. "lassie," nanny said, "it was me;" but gavin, flushing, confessed his guilt. "oh, you stupid!" exclaimed the egyptian, shaking her two ounces of tea (which then cost six shillings the pound) in his face. at this nanny wrung her hands, crying, "that's waur than swearing." "if men," said the gypsy, severely, "would keep their hands in their pockets all day, the world's affairs would be more easily managed." "wheesht!" cried nanny, "if mr. dishart cared to set his mind to it, he could make the kettle boil quicker than you or me. but his thochts is on higher things." "no higher than this," retorted the gypsy, holding her hand level with her brow. "confess, mr. dishart, that this is the exact height of what you were thinking about. see, nanny, he is blushing as if i meant that he had been thinking about me. he cannot answer, nanny: we have found him out." "and kindly of him it is no to answer," said nanny, who had been examining the gypsy's various purchases; "for what could he answer, except that he would need to be sure o' living a thousand years afore he could spare five minutes on you or me? of course it would be different if we sat under him." "and yet," said the egyptian, with great solemnity, "he is to drink tea at that very table. i hope you are sensible of the honour, nanny." "am i no?" said nanny, whose education had not included sarcasm. "i'm trying to keep frae thinking o't till he's gone, in case i should let the teapot fall." "you have nothing to thank me for, nanny," said gavin, "but much for which to thank this--this--" "this haggarty-taggarty egyptian," suggested the girl. then, looking at gavin curiously, she said, "but my name is babbie." "that's short for barbara," said nanny; "but babbie what?" "yes, babbie watt," replied the gypsy, as if one name were as good as another. "weel, men, lift the lid off the kettle, babbie," said nanny, "for it's boiling ower." gavin looked at nanny with admiration and envy, for she had said babbie as coolly as if it was the name of a pepper-box. babbie tucked up her sleeves to wash nanny's cups and saucers, which even in the most prosperous days of the mud house had only been in use once a week, and gavin was so eager to help that he bumped his head on the plate-rack. "sit there," said babbie, authoritatively, pointing, with a cup in her hand, to a stool, "and don't rise till i give you permission. " to nanny's amazement, he did as he was bid. "i got the things in the little shop you told me of," the egyptian continued, addressing the mistress of the house, "but the horrid man would not give them to me until he had seen my money." "enoch would be suspicious o' you," nanny explained, "you being an egyptian." "ah," said babbie, with a side-glance at the minister, "i am only an egyptian. is that why you dislike me, mr. dishart?" gavin hesitated foolishly over his answer, and the egyptian, with a towel round her waist, made a pretty gesture of despair. "he neither likes you nor dislikes you," nanny explained; "you forget he's a minister." "that is what i cannot endure," said babbie, putting the towel to her eyes, "to be neither liked nor disliked. please hate me, mr. dishart, if you cannot lo--ove me." her face was behind the towel, and gavin could not decide whether it was the face or the towel that shook with agitation. he gave nanny a look that asked, "is she really crying?" and nanny telegraphed back, "i question it." "come, come," said the minister, gallantly, "i did not say that i disliked you." even this desperate compliment had not the desired effect, for the gypsy continued to sob behind her screen. "i can honestly say," went on gavin, as solemnly as if he were making a statement in a court of justice, "that i like you." then the egyptian let drop her towel, and replied with equal solemnity: "oh, tank oo! nanny, the minister says me is a dood 'ittle dirl." "he didna gang that length," said nanny, sharply, to cover gavin's confusion. "set the things, babbie, and i'll make the tea." the egyptian obeyed demurely, pretending to wipe her eyes every time gavin looked at her. he frowned at this, and then she affected to be too overcome to go on with her work. "tell me, nanny," she asked presently, "what sort of man this enoch is, from whom i bought the things?" "he is not very regular, i fear," answered gavin, who felt that he had sat silent and self-conscious on his stool too long. "do you mean that he drinks?" asked babbie. "no, i mean regular in his attendance." the egyptian's face showed no enlightenment. "his attendance at church," gavin explained. "he's far frae it," said nanny, "and as a body kens, joe cruickshanks, the atheist, has the wite o' that. the scoundrel telled enoch that the great ministers in edinbury and london believed in no hell except sic as your ain conscience made for you, and ever since syne enoch has been careless about the future state." "ah," said babbie, waving the church aside, "what i want to know is whether he is a single man." "he is not," gavin replied; "but why do you want to know that?" "because single men are such gossips. i am sorry he is not single, as i want him to repeat to everybody what i told him." "trust him to tell susy," said nanny, "and susy to tell the town." "his wife is a gossip?" "ay, she's aye tonguing, especially about her teeth. they're folk wi' siller, and she has a set o' false teeth. it's fair scumfishing to hear her blawing about thae teeth, she's so fleid we dinna ken that they're false." nanny had spoken jealously, but suddenly she trembled with apprehension. "babbie," she cried, "you didna speak about the poorhouse to enoch?" the egyptian shook her head, though of the poorhouse she had been forced to speak, for enoch, having seen the doctor going home alone, insisted on knowing why. "but i knew," the gypsy said, "that the thrums people would be very unhappy until they discovered where you get the money i am to give you, and as that is a secret, i hinted to enoch that your benefactor is mr. dishart." "you should not have said that," interposed gavin. "i cannot foster such a deception." "they will foster it without your help," the egyptian said. "besides, if you choose, you can say you get the money from a friend." "ay, you can say that," nanny entreated with such eagerness that babbie remarked a little bitterly: "there is no fear of nanny's telling any one that the friend is a gypsy girl." "na, na," agreed nanny, again losing babbie's sarcasm. "i winna let on. it's so queer to be befriended by an egyptian." "it is scarcely respectable," babbie said. "it's no," answered simple nanny. i suppose nanny's unintentional cruelty did hurt babbie as much as gavin thought. she winced, and her face had two expressions, the one cynical, the other pained. her mouth curled as if to tell the minister that gratitude was nothing to her, but her eyes had to struggle to keep back a tear. gavin was touched, and she saw it, and for a moment they were two people who understood each other. "i, at least," gavin said in a low voice, "will know who is the benefactress, and think none the worse of her because she is a gypsy." at this babbie smiled gratefully to him, and then both laughed, for they had heard nanny remarking to the kettle, "but i wouldna hae been nane angry if she had telled enoch that the minister was to take his tea here. susy'll no believe't though i tell her, as tell her i will." to nanny the table now presented a rich appearance, for besides the teapot there were butter and loaf-bread and cheesies: a biscuit of which only thrums knows the secret. "draw in your chair, mr. dishart," she said, in suppressed excitement. "yes," said babbie, "you take this chair, mr. dishart, and nanny will have that one, and i can sit humbly on the stool." but nanny held up her hands in horror. "keep us a'!" she exclaimed; "the lassie thinks her and me is to sit down wi' the minister! we're no to gang that length, babbie; we're just to stand and serve him, and syne we'll sit down when he has risen." "delightful!" said babbie, clapping her hands. "nanny, you kneel on that side of him, and i will kneel on this. you will hold the butter and i the biscuits." but gavin, as this girl was always forgetting, was a lord of creation. "sit down both of you at once!" he thundered, "i command you." then the two women fell into their seats; nanny in terror, babbie affecting it. chapter xv. the minister bewitched--second sermon against women. to nanny it was a dizzying experience to sit at the head of her own table, and, with assumed calmness, invite the minister not to spare the loaf-bread. babbie's prattle, and even gavin's answers, were but an indistinct noise to her, to be as little regarded, in the excitement of watching whether mr. dishart noticed that there was a knife for the butter, as the music of the river by a man who is catching trout. every time gavin's cup went to his lips nanny calculated (correctly) how much he had drunk, and yet, when the right moment arrived, she asked in the english voice that is fashionable at ceremonies, "if his cup was toom." perhaps it was well that nanny had these matters to engross her, for though gavin spoke freely, he was saying nothing of lasting value, and some of his remarks to the egyptian, if preserved for the calmer contemplation of the morrow, might have seemed frivolous to himself. usually his observations were scrambled for, like ha'pence at a wedding, but to-day they were only for one person. infected by the egyptian's high spirits, gavin had laid aside the minister with his hat, and what was left was only a young man. he who had stamped his feet at thought of a soldier's cloak now wanted to be reminded of it. the little minister, who used to address himself in terms of scorn every time he wasted an hour, was at present dallying with a teaspoon. he even laughed boisterously, flinging back his head, and little knew that behind nanny's smiling face was a terrible dread, because his chair had once given way before. even though our thoughts are not with our company, the mention of our name is a bell to which we usually answer. hearing hers nanny started. "you can tell me, nanny," the egyptian had said, with an arch look at the minister. "oh, nanny, for shame! how can you expect to follow our conversation when you only listen to mr. dishart?" "she is saying, nanny," gavin broke in, almost gaily for a minister, "that she saw me recently wearing a cloak. you know i have no such thing." "na," nanny answered artlessly, "you have just the thin brown coat wi' the braid round it, forby the ane you have on the now." "you see," gavin said to babbie, "i could not have a new neckcloth, not to speak of a cloak, without everybody in thrums knowing about it. i dare say nanny knows all about the braid, and even what it cost." "three bawbees the yard at kyowowy's shop," replied nanny, promptly, "and your mother sewed it on. sam'l fairweather has the marrows o't on his top coat. no that it has the same look on him." "nevertheless," babbie persisted, "i am sure the minister has a cloak; but perhaps he is ashamed of it. no doubt it is hidden away in the garret." "na, we would hae kent o't if it was there," said nanny. "but it may be in a chest, and the chest may be locked," the egyptian suggested. "ay, but the kist in the garret isna locked," nanny answered. "how do you get to know all these things, nanny?" asked gavin, sighing. "your congregation tells me. naebody would lay by news about a minister." "but how do they know?" "i dinna ken. they just find out, because they're so fond o' you." "i hope they will never become so fond of me as that," said babbie. "still, nanny, the minister's cloak is hidden somewhere." "losh, what would make him hod it?" demanded the old woman. "folk that has cloaks doesna bury them in boxes." at the word "bury" gavin's hand fell on the table, and he returned to nanny apprehensively. "that would depend on how the cloak was got," said the cruel egyptian. "if it was not his own--" "lassie," cried nanny, "behave yoursel'." "or if he found it in his possession against his will?" suggested gavin, slyly. "he might have got it from some one who picked it up cheap." "from his wife, for instance," said babbie, whereupon gavin suddenly became interested in the floor. "ay, ay, the minister was hitting at you there, babbie," nanny explained, "for the way you made off wi' the captain's cloak. the thrums folk wondered less at your taking it than at your no keeping it. it's said to be michty grand." "it was rather like the one the minister's wife gave him," said babbie. "the minister has neither a wife nor a cloak," retorted nanny. "he isn't married?" asked babbie, the picture of incredulity. nanny gathered from the minister's face that he deputed to her the task of enlightening this ignorant girl, so she replied with emphasis, "na, they hinna got him yet, and i'm cheated if it doesna tak them all their time." thus do the best of women sell their sex for nothing. "i did wonder," said the egyptian, gravely, "at any mere woman's daring to marry such a minister." "ay," replied nanny, spiritedly, "but there's dauring limmers wherever there's a single man." "so i have often suspected," said babbie, duly shocked. "but, nanny, i was told the minister had a wife, by one who said he saw her." "he lied, then," answered nanny turning to gavin for further instructions. "but, see, the minister does not deny the horrid charge himself." "no, and for the reason he didna deny the cloak: because it's no worth his while. i'll tell you wha your friend had seen. it would be somebody that would like to be mrs. dishart. there's a hantle o' that kind. ay, lassie, but wishing winna land a woman in a manse." "it was one of the soldiers," babbie said, "who told me about her. he said mr. dishart introduced her to him." "sojers!" cried nanny. "i could never thole the name o' them. sanders in his young days hankered after joining them, and so he would, if it hadna been for the fechting. ay, and now they've ta'en him awa to the gaol, and sworn lies about him. dinna put any faith in sojers, lassie." "i was told," babbie went on, "that the minister's wife was rather like me." "heaven forbid!" ejaculated nanny, so fervently that all three suddenly sat back from the table. "i'm no meaning," nanny continued hurriedly, fearing to offend her benefactress, "but what you're the bonniest tid i ever saw out o' an almanack. but you would ken mr. dishart's contempt for bonny faces if you had heard his sermon against them. i didna hear it mysel', for i'm no auld licht, but it did the work o' the town for an aucht days." if nanny had not taken her eyes off gavin for the moment she would have known that he was now anxious to change the topic. babbie saw it, and became suspicious. "when did he preach against the wiles of women, nanny?" "it was long ago," said gavin, hastily. "no so very lang syne," corrected nanny. "it was the sabbath after the sojers was in thrums; the day you changed your text so hurriedly. some thocht you wasna weel, but lang tammas--" "thomas whamond is too officious," gavin said with dignity. "i forbid you, nanny, to repeat his story." "but what made you change your text?" asked babbie. "you see he winna tell," nanny said, wistfully. "ay, i dinna deny but what i would like richt to ken. but the session's as puzzled as yoursel', babbie." "perhaps more puzzled," answered the egyptian, with a smile that challenged gavin's frowns to combat and overthrow them. "what surprises me, mr. dishart, is that such a great man can stoop to see whether women are pretty or not. it was very good of you to remember me to-day. i suppose you recognized me by my frock?" "by your face," he replied, boldly; "by your eyes." "nanny," exclaimed the egyptian, "did you hear what the minister said?" "woe is me," answered nanny, "i missed it." "he says he would know me anywhere by my eyes." "so would i mysel'," said nanny. "then what colour are they, mr. dishart?" demanded babbie. "don't speak, nanny, for i want to expose him." she closed her eyes tightly. gavin was in a quandary. i suppose he had looked at her eyes too long to know much about them. "blue," he guessed at last. "na, they're black," said nanny, who had doubtless known this for an hour. i am always marvelling over the cleverness of women, as every one must see who reads this story. "no but what they micht be blue in some lichts," nanny added, out of respect to the minister. "oh, don't defend him, nanny," said babbie, looking reproachfully at gavin. "i don't see that any minister has a right to denounce women when he is so ignorant of his subject. i will say it, nanny, and you need not kick me beneath the table." was not all this intoxicating to the little minister, who had never till now met a girl on equal terms? at twenty-one a man is a musical instrument given to the other sex, but it is not as instruments learned at school, for when she sits down to it she cannot tell what tune she is about to play. that is because she has no notion of what the instrument is capable. babbie's kind- heartedness, her gaiety, her coquetry, her moments of sadness, had been a witch's fingers, and gavin was still trembling under their touch. even in being taken to task by her there was a charm, for every pout of her mouth, every shake of her head, said, "you like me, and therefore you have given me the right to tease you." men sign these agreements without reading them. but, indeed, man is a stupid animal at the best, and thinks all his life that he did not propose until he blurted out, "i love you." it was later than it should have been when the minister left the mud house, and even then he only put on his hat because babbie said that she must go. "but not your way," she added. "i go into the wood and vanish. you know, nanny, i live up a tree." "dinna say that," said nanny, anxiously, "or i'll be fleid about the siller." "don't fear about it. mr. dishart will get some of it to-morrow at the kaims. i would bring it here, but i cannot come so far to- morrow." "then i'll hae peace to the end o' my days," said the old woman, "and, babbie, i wish the same to you wi' all my heart." "ah," babbie replied, mournfully, "i have read my fortune, nanny, and there is not much happiness in it."" "i hope that is not true," gavin said, simply. they were standing at the door, and she was looking toward the hill, perhaps without seeing it. all at once it came to gavin that this fragile girl might have a history far sadder and more turbulent than his. "do you really care?" she asked, without looking at him. "yes," he said stoutly, "i care." "because you do not know me," she said. "because i do know you," he answered. now she did look at him. "i believe," she said, making a discovery, "that you misunderstand me less than those who have known me longer." this was a perilous confidence, for it at once made gavin say "babbie." "ah," she answered, frankly, "i am glad to hear that. i thought you did not really like me, because you never called me by my name." gavin drew a great breath. "that was not the reason," he said. the reason was now unmistakable. "i was wrong," said the egyptian, a little alarmed; "you do not understand me at all." she returned to nanny, and gavin set off, holding his head high, his brain in a whirl. five minutes afterwards, when nanny was at the fire, the diamond ring on her little finger, he came back, looking like one who had just seen sudden death. "i had forgotten," he said, with a fierceness aimed at himself, "that to-morrow is the sabbath." "need that make any difference?" asked the gypsy. "at this hour on monday," said gavin, hoarsely, "i will be at the kaims." he went away without another word, and babbie watched him from the window. nanny had not looked up from the ring. "what a pity he is a minister!" the girl said, reflectively. "nanny, you are not listening." the old woman was making the ring flash by the light of the fire. "nanny, do you hear me? did you see mr. dishart come back?" "i heard the door open," nanny answered, without taking her greedy eyes off the ring. "was it him? whaur did you get this, lassie?" "give it me back, nanny, i am going now." but nanny did not give it back; she put her other hand over it to guard it, and there she crouched, warming herself not at the fire, but at the ring. "give it me, nanny." "it winna come off my finger." she gloated over it, nursed it, kissed it. "i must have it, nanny." the egyptian put her hand lightly on the old woman's shoulder, and nanny jumped up, pressing the ring to her bosom. her face had become cunning and ugly; she retreated into a corner. "nanny, give me back my ring or i will take it from you." the cruel light of the diamond was in nanny's eyes for a moment, and then, shuddering, she said, "tak your ring awa, tak it out o' my sicht." in the meantime gavin was trudging home gloomily composing his second sermon against women. i have already given the entry in my own diary for that day: this is his:--"notes on jonah. exchanged vol. xliii., 'european magazine,' for owen's 'justification' (per flying stationer). began second samuel. visited nanny webster." there is no mention of the egyptian. chapter xvi. continued misbehaviour of the egyptian woman. by the following monday it was known at many looms that something sat heavily on the auld licht minister's mind. on the previous day he had preached his second sermon of warning to susceptible young men, and his first mention of the word "woman" had blown even the sleepy heads upright. now he had salt fish for breakfast, and on clearing the table jean noticed that his knife and fork were uncrossed. he was observed walking into a gooseberry bush by susy linn, who possessed the pioneer spring-bed of thrums, and always knew when her man jumped into it by suddenly finding herself shot to the ceiling. lunan, the tinsmith, and two women, who had the luck to be in the street at the time, saw him stopping at dr. mcqueen's door, as if about to knock, and then turning smartly away. his hat blew off in the school wynd, where a wind wanders ever, looking for hats, and he chased it so passionately that lang tammas went into allardyce's smiddy to say-- "i dinna like it. of course he couldna afford to lose his hat, but he should hae run after it mair reverently." gavin, indeed, was troubled. he had avoided speaking of the egyptian to his mother. he had gone to mcqueen's house to ask the doctor to accompany him to the kaims, but with the knocker in his hand he changed his mind, and now he was at the place of meeting alone. it was a day of thaw, nothing to be heard from a distance but the swish of curling-stones through water on rashie-bog, where the match for the eldership was going on. around him. gavin saw only dejected firs with drops of water falling listlessly from them, clods of snow, and grass that rustled as if animals were crawling through it. all the roads were slack. i suppose no young man to whom society has not become a cheap thing can be in gavin's position, awaiting the coming of an attractive girl, without giving thought to what he should say to her. when in the pulpit or visiting the sick, words came in a rush to the little minister, but he had to set his teeth to determine what to say to the egyptian. this was because he had not yet decided which of two women she was. hardly had he started on one line of thought when she crossed his vision in a new light, and drew him after her. her "need that make any difference?" sang in his ear like another divit, cast this time at religion itself, and now he spoke aloud, pointing his finger at a fir: "i said at the mud house that i believed you because i knew you. to my shame be it said that i spoke falsely. how dared you bewitch me? in your presence i flung away the precious hours in frivolity; i even forgot the sabbath. for this i have myself to blame. i am an unworthy preacher of the word. i sinned far more than you who have been brought up godlessly from your cradle. nevertheless, whoever you are, i call upon you, before we part never to meet again, to repent of your--" and then it was no mocker of the sabbath he was addressing, but a woman with a child's face, and there were tears in her eyes. "do you care?" she was saying, and again he answered, "yes, i care." this girl's name was not woman, but babbie. now gavin made an heroic attempt to look upon both these women at once. "yes, i believe in you," he said to them, "but henceforth you must send your money to nanny by another messenger. you are a gypsy and i am a minister; and that must part us. i refuse to see you again. i am not angry with you, but as a minister--" it was not the disappearance of one of the women that clipped this argument short; it was babbie singing-- "it fell on a day, on a bonny summer day, when the corn grew green and yellow, that there fell out a great dispute between argyle and airly. "the duke of montrose has written to argyle to come in the morning early, an' lead in his men by the back o' dunkeld to plunder the bonny house o' airly." "where are you?" cried gavin in bewilderment. "i am watching you from my window so high," answered the egyptian; and then the minister, looking up, saw her peering at him from a fir. "how did you get up there?" he asked in amazement. "on my broomstick," babbie replied, and sang on-- "the lady looked o'er her window sae high, and oh! but she looked weary, and there she espied the great argyle come to plunder the bonny house o' airly." "what are you doing there?" gavin said, wrathfully. "this is my home," she answered. "i told you i lived in a tree." "come down at once," ordered gavin. to which the singer responded- - "'come down, come down, lady margaret,' he says; 'come down and kiss me fairly or before the morning clear day light i'll no leave a standing stane in airly.'" "if you do not come down this instant," gavin said in a rage, "and give me what i was so foolish as to come for, i--" the egyptian broke in-- "'i wouldna kiss thee, great argyle, i wouldna kiss thee fairly; i wouldna kiss thee, great argyle, gin you shouldna leave a standing stane in airly.'" "you have deceived nanny," gavin cried, hotly, "and you have brought me here to deride me. i will have no more to do with you." he walked away quickly, but she called after him, "i am coming down. i have the money," and next moment a snowball hit his hat. "that is for being cross," she explained, appearing so unexpectedly at his elbow that he was taken aback. "i had to come close up to you before i flung it, or it would have fallen over my shoulder. why are you so nasty to-day? and, oh, do you know you were speaking to yourself?" "you are mistaken," said gavin, severely. "i was speaking to you." "you didn't see me till i began to sing, did you?" "nevertheless i was speaking to you, or rather, i was saying to myself what--" "what you had decided to say to me?" said the delighted gypsy. "do you prepare your talk like sermons? i hope you have prepared something nice for me. if it is very nice i may give you this bunch of holly." she was dressed as he had seen her previously, but for a cluster of holly berries at her breast. "i don't know that you will think it nice," the minister answered, slowly, "but my duty--" "if it is about duty," entreated babbie, "don't say it. don't, and i will give you the berries." she took the berries from her dress, smiling triumphantly the while like one who had discovered a cure for duty; and instead of pointing the finger of wrath at her, gavin stood expectant. "but no," he said, remembering who he was, and pushing the gift from him, "i will not be bribed. i must tell you--" "now," said the egyptian, sadly, "i see you are angry with me. is it because i said i lived in a tree? do forgive me for that dreadful lie." she had gone on her knees before he could stop her, and was gazing imploringly at him, with her hands clasped. "you are mocking me again," said gavin, "but i am not angry with you. only you must understand--" she jumped up and put her fingers to her ears. "you see i can hear nothing," she said. "listen while i tell you--" "i don't hear a word. why do you scold me when i have kept my promise? if i dared to take my fingers from my ears i would give you the money for nanny. and, mr. dishart, i must be gone in five minutes." "in five minutes!" echoed gavin, with such a dismal face that babbie heard the words with her eyes, and dropped her hands. "why are you in such haste?" he asked, taking the five pounds mechanically, and forgetting all that he had meant to say. "because they require me at home," she answered, with a sly glance at her fir. "and, remember, when i run away you must not follow me." "i won't," said gavin, so promptly that she was piqued. "why not?" she asked. "but of course you only came here for the money. well, you have got it. good-bye." "you know that was not what i meant," said gavin, stepping after her. "i have told you already that whatever other people say, i trust you. i believe in you, babbie." "was that what you were saying to the tree?" asked the egyptian, demurely. then, perhaps thinking it wisest not to press this point, she continued irrelevantly, "it seems such a pity that you are a minister." "a pity to be a minister!" exclaimed gavin, indignantly. "why, why, you--why, babbie, how have you been brought up?" "in a curious way," babbie answered, shortly, "but i can't tell you about that just now. would you like to hear all about me?" suddenly she seemed to have become confidential. "do you really think me a gypsy?" she asked. "i have tried not to ask myself that question." "why?" "because it seems like doubting your word." "i don't see how you can think of me at all without wondering who i am." "no, and so i try not to think of you at all." "oh, i don't know that you need do that." "i have not quite succeeded." the egyptian's pique had vanished, but she may have thought that the conversation was becoming dangerous, for she said abruptly-- "well, i sometimes think about you." "do you?" said gavin, absurdly gratified. "what do you think about me?" "i wonder," answered the egyptian, pleasantly, "which of us is the taller." gavin's fingers twitched with mortification, and not only his fingers but his toes. "let us measure," she said, sweetly, putting her back to his. "you are not stretching your neck, are you?" but the minister broke away from her. "there is one subject," he said, with great dignity, "that i allow no one to speak of in my presence, and that is my--my height." his face was as white as his cravat when the surprised egyptian next looked at him, and he was panting like one who has run a mile. she was ashamed of herself, and said so. "it is a topic i would rather not speak about," gavin answered, dejectedly, "especially to you." he meant that he would rather be a tall man in her company than in any other, and possibly she knew this, though all she answered was-- "you wanted to know if i am really a gypsy. well, i am." "an ordinary gypsy?" "do you think me ordinary?" "i wish i knew what to think of you." "ah, well, that is my forbidden topic. but we have a good many ideas in common after all, have we not, though you are only a minis--i mean, though i am only a gypsy?" there fell between them a silence that gave babbie time to remember she must go. "i have already stayed too long," she said. "give my love to nanny, and say that i am coming to see her soon, perhaps on monday. i don't suppose you will be there on monday, mr. dishart?" "i--i cannot say." "no, you will be too busy. are you to take the holly berries?" "i had better not," said gavin, dolefully. "oh, if you don't want them--" "give them to me," he said, and as he took them his hand shook. "i know why you are looking so troubled," said the egyptian, archly. "you think i am to ask you the colour of my eyes, and you have forgotten again." he would have answered, but she checked him. "make no pretence," she said, severely; "i know you think they are blue." she came close to him until her face almost touched his. "look hard at them," she said, solemnly, "and after this you may remember that they are black, black, black!" at each repetition of the word she shook her head in his face. she was adorable. gavin's arms--but they met on nothing. she had run away. when the little minister had gone, a man came from behind a tree and shook his fist in the direction taken by the gypsy. it was rob dow, black with passion. "it's the egyptian!" he cried. "you limmer, wha are you that hae got haud o' the minister?" he pursued her, but she vanished as from gavin is windyghoul. "a common egyptian!" he muttered when he had to give up the search. "but take care, you little devil," he called aloud; "take care; if i catch you playing pranks wi' that man again i'll wring your neck like a hen's!" chapter xvii. intrusion of haggart into these pages against the author's wish. margaret having heard the doctor say that one may catch cold in the back, had decided instantly to line gavin's waistcoat with flannel. she was thus engaged, with pins in her mouth and the scissors hiding from her every time she wanted them, when jean, red and flurried, abruptly entered the room. "there! i forgot to knock at the door again," jean exclaimed, pausing contritely. "never mind. is it rob dow wanting the minister?" asked margaret, who had seen rob pass the manse dyke. "na, he wasna wanting to see the minister." "ah, then, he came to see you, jean," said margaret, archly. "a widow man!" cried jean, tossing her head. "but rob dow was in no condition to be friendly wi' onybody the now." "jean, you don't mean that he has been drinking again?" "i canna say he was drunk." "then what condition was he in?" "he was in a--a swearing condition," jean answered, guardedly. "but what i want to speir at you is, can i gang down to the tenements for a minute? i'll run there and back." "certainly you can go, jean, but you must not run. you are always running. did dow bring you word that you were wanted in the tenements?" "no exactly, but i--i want to consult tammas haggart about--about something." "about dow, i believe, jean?" "na, but about something he has done. oh, ma'am, you surely dinna think i would take a widow man?" it was the day after gavin's meeting with the egyptian at the kaims, and here is jean's real reason for wishing to consult haggart. half an hour before she hurried to the parlour she had been at the kitchen door wondering whether she should spread out her washing in the garret or risk hanging it in the courtyard. she had just decided on the garret when she saw rob dow morosely regarding her from the gateway. "whaur is he?" growled rob. "he's out, but it's no for me to say whaur he is," replied jean, whose weakness was to be considered a church official. "no that i ken," truthfulness compelled her to add, for she had an ambition to be everything she thought gavin would like a woman to be. rob seized her wrists viciously and glowered into her face. "you're ane o' them," he said. "let me go. ane o' what?" "ane o' thae limmers called women." "sal," retorted jean with spirit, "you're ane o' thae brutes called men. you're drunk, rob dow." "in the legs maybe, but no higher. i haud a heap." "drunk again, after all your promises to the minister! and you said yoursel' that he had pulled you out o' hell by the root." "it's himsel' that has flung me back again," rob said, wildly. "jean baxter, what does it mean when a minister carries flowers in his pouch; ay, and takes them out to look at them ilka minute?" "how do you ken about the holly?" asked jean, off her guard. "you limmer," said dow, "you've been in his pouches." "it's a lie!" cried the outraged jean. "i just saw the holly this morning in a jug on his chimley." "carefully put by? is it hod on the chimley? does he stand looking at it? do you tell me he's fond-like o't?" "mercy me!" jean exclaimed, beginning to shake; "wha is she, rob dow?" "let me see it first in its jug," rob answered, slyly, "and syne i may tell you." this was not the only time jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. snecky hobart, among others, had tried on gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. but rob had not come to admire. he snatched the holly from jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "greet as you like, jean. that's the end o' his flowers, and if i had the tawpie he got them frae i would serve her in the same way." "i'll tell him what you've done," said terrified jean, who had tried to save the berries at the expense of her fingers. "tell him," dow roared; "and tell him what i said too. ay, and tell him i was at the kaims yestreen. tell him i'm hunting high and low for an egyptian woman." he flung recklessly out of the courtyard, leaving jean looking blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. not his act of sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. were these berries a love token? had god let rob dow say they were a gypsy's love token, and not slain him? that rob spoke of the egyptian of the riots jean never doubted. it was known that the minister had met this woman in nanny webster's house, but was it not also known that he had given her such a talking-to as she could never come above? many could repeat the words in which he had announced to nanny that his wealthy friends in glasgow were to give her all she needed. they could also tell how majestic he looked when he turned the egyptian out of the house. in short, nanny having kept her promise of secrecy, the people had been forced to construct the scene in the mud house for themselves, and it was only their story that was known to jean. she decided that, so far as the gypsy was concerned, rob had talked trash. he had seen the holly in the minister's hand, and, being in drink, had mixed it up with the gossip about the egyptian. but that gavin had preserved the holly because of the donor was as obvious to jean as that the vase in her hand was empty. who could she be? no doubt all the single ladies in thrums were in love with him, but that, jean was sure, had not helped them a step forward. to think was to jean a waste of time. discovering that she had been thinking, she was dismayed. there were the wet clothes in the basket looking reproachfully at her. she hastened back to gavin's room with the vase, but it too had eyes, and they said, "when the minister misses his holly he will question you." now gavin had already smiled several times to jean, and once he had marked passages for her in her "pilgrim's progress," with the result that she prized the marks more even than the passages. to lose his good opinion was terrible to her. in her perplexity she decided to consult wise tammas haggart, and hence her appeal to margaret. to avoid chirsty, the humourist's wife, jean sought haggart at his workshop window, which was so small that an old book sufficed for its shutter. haggart, whom she could see distinctly at his loom, soon guessed from her knocks and signs (for he was strangely quick in the uptake) that she wanted him to open the window. "i want to speak to you confidentially," jean said in a low voice. "if you saw a grand man gey fond o' a flower, what would you think?" "i would think, jean," haggart answered, reflectively, "that he had gien siller for't; ay, i would wonder--" "what would you wonder?" "i would wonder how muckle he paid." "but if he was a--a minister, and keepit the flower--say it was a common rose--fond-like on his chimley, what would you think?" "i would think it was a black-burning disgrace for a minister to be fond o' flowers." "i dinna haud wi' that." "jean," said haggart, "i allow no one to contradict me." "it wasna my design. but, tammas, if a--a minister was fond o' a particular flower--say a rose--and you destroyed it by an accident, when he wasna looking, what would you do?" "i would gie him another rose for't." "but if you didna want him to ken you had meddled wi't on his chimley, what would you do?" "i would put the new rose on the chimley, and he would never ken the differ." "that's what i'll do." muttered jean, but she said aloud-- "but it micht be that particular rose he liked?" "havers, jean. to a thinking man one rose is identical wi' another rose. but how are you speiring?" "just out o' curiosity, and i maun be stepping now. thank you kindly, tammas, for your humour." "you're welcome," haggart answered, and closed his window. that day rob dow spent in misery, but so little were his fears selfish that he scarcely gave a thought to his conduct at the manse. for an hour he sat at his loom with his arms folded. then he slouched out of the house, cursing little micah, so that a neighbour cried "you drunken scoundrel!" after him. "he may be a wee drunk," said micah in his father's defense, "but he's no mortal." rob wandered to the kaims in search of the egyptian, and returned home no happier. he flung himself upon his bed and dared micah to light the lamp. about gloaming he rose, unable to keep his mouth shut on his thoughts any longer, and staggered to the tenements to consult haggart. he found the humourist's door ajar, and wearyworld listening at it. "out o' the road!" cried rob, savagely, and flung the policeman into the gutter. "that was ill-dune, rob dow," wearyworld said, picking himself up leisurely. "i'm thinking it was weel-dune," snarled rob. "ay," said weary world, "we needna quarrel about a difference o' opeenion; but, rob--" dow, however, had already entered the house and slammed the door. "ay, ay," muttered wearyworld, departing, "you micht hae stood still, rob, and argued it out wi' me." in less than an hour after his conversation with jean at the window it had suddenly struck haggart that the minister she spoke of must be mr. dishart. in two hours he had confided his suspicions to chirsty. in ten minutes she had filled the house with gossips. rob arrived to find them in full cry. "ay, rob," said chirsty, genially, for gossip levels ranks, "you're just in time to hear a query about the minister." "rob," said the glen quharity post, from whom i subsequently got the story, "mr. dishart has fallen in--in--what do you call the thing, chirsty?" birse knew well what the thing was called, but the word is a staggerer to say in company. "in love," answered chirsty, boldly. "now we ken what he was doing in the country yestreen," said snecky hobart, "the which has been, bothering us sair." "the manse is fu' o' the flowers she sends him," said tibbie craik. "jean's at her wits'-end to ken whaur to put them a'." "wha is she?" it was rob dow who spoke. all saw he had been drinking, or they might have wondered at his vehemence. as it was, everybody looked at every other body, and then everybody sighed. "ay, wha is she?" repeated several. "i see you ken nothing about her," said rob, much relieved; and he then lapsed into silence. "we ken a' about her," said snecky, "except just wha she is. ay, that's what we canna bottom. maybe you could guess, tammas?" "maybe i could, sneck," haggart replied, cautiously; "but on that point i offer no opinion." "if she bides on the kaims road," said tibbie craik, "she maun be a farmer's dochter. what say you to bell finlay?" "na; she's u. p. but it micht be loups o' malcolm's sister. she's promised to muckle haws; but no doubt she would gie him the go-by at a word frae the minister." "it's mair likely," said chirsty, "to be the factor at the spittal's lassie. the factor has a grand garden, and that would account for such basketfuls o' flowers." "whaever she is," said birse, "i'm thinking he could hae done better." "i'll be fine pleased wi' ony o' them," said tibbie, who had a magenta silk, and so was jealous of no one. "it hasna been proved," haggart pointed out, "that the flowers came frae thae parts. she may be sending them frae glasgow." "i aye understood it was a glasgow lady," said snecky. "he'll be like the tilliedrum minister that got a lady to send him to the college on the promise that he would marry her as soon as he got a kirk. she made him sign a paper." "the far-seeing limmer," exclaimed chirsty. "but if that's what mr. dishart has done, how has he kept it so secret?" "he wouldna want the women o' the congregation to ken he was promised till after they had voted for him." "i dinna haud wi' that explanation o't," said haggart, "but i may tell you that i ken for sure she's a glasgow leddy. lads, ministers is near aye bespoke afore they're licensed. there's a michty competition for them in the big toons. ay, the leddies just stand at the college gates, as you may say, and snap them up as they come out." "and just as well for the ministers, i'se uphaud," said tibbie, "for it saves them a heap o' persecution when they come to the like o' thrums. there was mr. meiklejohn, the u. p. minister: he was no sooner placed than every genteel woman in the town was persecuting him. the miss dobies was the maist shameless; they fair hunted him." "ay," said snecky; "and in the tail o' the day ane o' them snacked him up. billies, did you ever hear o' a minister being refused?" "never." "weel, then, i have; and by a widow woman too. his name was samson, and if it had been tamson she would hae ta'en him. ay, you may look, but it's true. her name was turnbull, and she had another gent after her, name o' tibbets. she couldna make up her mind atween them, and for a while she just keeped them dangling on. ay, but in the end she took tibbets. and what, think you, was her reason? as you ken, thae grand folk has their initials on their spoons and nichtgowns. ay, weel, she thocht it would be mair handy to take tibbets, because if she had ta'en the minister the t's would have had to be changed to s's. it was thoctfu' o' her." "is tibbets living?" asked haggart sharply. "no; he's dead." "what," asked haggart, "was the corp to trade?" "i dinna ken." "i thocht no," said haggart, triumphantly. "weel, i warrant he was a minister too. ay, catch a woman giving up a minister, except for another minister." all were looking on haggart with admiration, when a voice from the door cried-- "listen, and i'll tell you a queerer ane than that." "dagont," cried birse, "it's wearywarld, and he has been hearkening. leave him to me." when the post returned, the conversation was back at mr. dishart. "yes, lathies," haggart was saying, "daftness about women comes to all, gentle and simple, common and colleged, humourists and no humourists. you say mr. dishart has preached ower muckle at women to stoop to marriage, but that makes no differ. mony a humorous thing hae i said about women, and yet chirsty has me. it's the same wi' ministers. a' at aince they see a lassie no' unlike ither lassies, away goes their learning, and they skirl out, 'you dawtie!' that's what comes to all." "but it hasna come to mr. dishart," cried rob dow, jumping to his feet. he had sought haggart to tell him all, but now he saw the wisdom of telling nothing. "i'm sick o' your blathers. instead o' the minister's being sweethearting yesterday, he was just at the kaims visiting the gamekeeper. i met him in the wast town-end, and gaed there and back wi' him." "that's proof it's a glasgow leddy," said snecky. "i tell you there's no leddy ava!" swore rob. "yea, and wha sends the baskets o' flowers, then?" "there was only one flower," said rob, turning to his host. "i aye understood," said haggart heavily, "that there was only one flower." "but though there was just ane," persisted chirsty, "what we want to ken is wha gae him it." "it was me that gae him it," said rob; "it was growing on the roadside, and i plucked it and gae it to him." the company dwindled away shamefacedly, yet unconvinced; but haggart had courage to say slowly-- "yes, rob, i had aye a notion that he got it frae you." meanwhile, gavin, unaware that talk about him and a woman unknown had broken out in thrums, was gazing, sometimes lovingly and again with scorn, at a little bunch of holly-berries which jean had gathered from her father's garden. once she saw him fling them out of his window, and then she rejoiced. but an hour afterwards she saw him pick them up, and then she mourned. nevertheless, to her great delight, he preached his third sermon against woman on the following sabbath. it was universally acknowledged to be the best of the series. it was also the last. chapter xviii. caddam--love leading to a rupture. gavin told himself not to go near the mud house on the following monday; but he went. the distance is half a mile, and the time he took was two hours. this was owing to his setting out due west to reach a point due north; yet with the intention of deceiving none save himself. his reason had warned him to avoid the egyptian, and his desires had consented to be dragged westward because they knew he had started too soon. when the proper time came they knocked reason on the head and carried him straight to caddam. here reason came to, and again began to state its case. desires permitted him to halt, as if to argue the matter out, but were thus tolerant merely because from where he stood he could see nanny's doorway. when babbie emerged from it reason seems to have made one final effort, for gavin quickly took that side of a tree which is loved of squirrels at the approach of an enemy. he looked round the tree-trunk at her, and then reason discarded him. the gypsy had two empty pans in her hands, for a second she gazed in the minister's direction, then demurely leaped the ditch of leaves that separated nanny's yard from caddam, and strolled into the wood. discovering with indignation that he had been skulking behind the tree, gavin came into the open. how good of the egyptian, he reflected, to go to the well for water, and thus save the old woman's arms! reason shouted from near the manse (he only heard the echo) that he could still make up on it. "come along." said his desires, and marched him prisoner to the well. the path which babbie took that day is lost in blaeberry leaves now, and my little maid and i lately searched for an hour before we found the well. it was dry, choked with broom and stones, and broken rusty pans, but we sat down where babbie and gavin had talked, and i stirred up many memories. probably two of those pans, that could be broken in the hands to-day like shortbread, were nanny's, and almost certainly the stones are fragments from the great slab that used to cover the well. children like to peer into wells to see what the world is like at the other side, and so this covering was necessary. rob angus was the strong man who bore the stone to caddam, flinging it a yard before him at a time. the well had also a wooden lid with leather hinges, and over this the stone was dragged. gavin arrived at the well in time to offer babbie the loan of his arms. in her struggle she had taken her lips into her mouth, but in vain did she tug at the stone, which refused to do more than turn round on the wood. but for her presence, the minister's efforts would have been equally futile. though not strong, however, he had the national horror of being beaten before a spectator, and once at school he had won a fight by telling his big antagonist to come on until the boy was tired of pummelling him. as he fought with the stone now, pains shot through his head, and his arms threatened to come away at the shoulders; but remove it he did. "how strong you are!" babbie said with open admiration. i am sure no words of mine could tell how pleased the minister was; yet he knew he was not strong, and might have known that she had seen him do many things far more worthy of admiration without admiring them. this, indeed, is a sad truth, that we seldom give our love to what is worthiest in its object. "how curious that we should have met here," babbie said, in her dangerously friendly way, as they filled the pans. "do you know i quite started when your shadow fell suddenly on the stone. did you happen to be passing through the wood?" "no," answered truthful gavin, "i was looking for you. i thought you saw me from nanny's door." "did you? i only saw a man hiding behind a tree, and of course i knew it could not be you." gavin looked at her sharply, but she was not laughing at him. "it was i," he admitted; "but i was not exactly hiding behind the tree." "you had only stepped behind it for a moment," suggested the egyptian. her gravity gave way to laughter under gavin's suspicious looks, but the laughing ended abruptly. she had heard a noise in the wood, gavin heard it too, and they both turned round in time to see two ragged boys running from them. when boys are very happy they think they must be doing wrong, and in a wood, of which they are among the natural inhabitants, they always take flight from the enemy, adults, if given time. for my own part, when i see a boy drop from a tree i am as little surprised as if he were an apple or a nut. but gavin was startled, picturing these spies handing in the new sensation about him at every door, as a district visitor distributes tracts. the gypsy noted his uneasiness and resented it. "what does it feel like to be afraid?" she asked, eyeing him. "i am afraid of nothing," gavin answered, offended in turn. "yes, you are. when you saw me come out of nanny's you crept behind a tree; when these boys showed themselves you shook. you are afraid of being seen with me. go away, then; i don't want you." "fear," said gavin, "is one thing, and prudence is another." "another name for it," babbie interposed. "not at all; but i owe it to my position to be careful. unhappily, you do not seem to feel--to recognise--to know--" "to know what?" "let us avoid the subject." "no," the egyptian said, petulantly. "i hate not to be told things. why must you be 'prudent?'" "you should see," gavin replied, awkwardly, "that there is a--a difference between a minister and a gypsy." "but if i am willing to overlook it?" asked babbie, impertinently. gavin beat the brushwood mournfully with his staff. "i cannot allow you," he said, "to talk disrespectfully of my calling. it is the highest a man can follow. i wish--" he checked himself; but he was wishing she could see him in his pulpit. "i suppose," said the gypsy, reflectively, "one must be very clever to be a minister." "as for that--" answered gavin, waving his hand grandly. "and it must be nice, too," continued babbie, "to be able to speak for a whole hour to people who can neither answer nor go away. is it true that before you begin to preach you lock the door to keep the congregation in?" "i must leave you if you talk in that way." "i only wanted to know." "oh, babbie, i am afraid you have little acquaintance with the inside of churches. do you sit under anybody?" "do i sit under anybody?" repeated babbie, blankly. is it any wonder that the minister sighed? "whom do you sit under?" was his form of salutation to strangers. "i mean, where do you belong?" he said. "wanderers," babbie answered, still misunderstanding him, "belong to nowhere in particular." "i am only asking you if you ever go to church?" "oh, that is what you mean. yes, i go often." "what church?" "you promised not to ask questions." "i only mean what denomination do you belong to?" "oh, the--the--is there an english church denomination?" gavin groaned. "well, that is my denomination," said babbie, cheerfully. "some day, though, i am coming to hear you preach. i should like to see how you look in your gown." "we don't wear gowns." "what a shame! but i am coming, nevertheless. i used to like going to church in edinburgh." "you have lived in edinburgh?" "we gypsies have lived everywhere," babbie said, lightly, though she was annoyed at having mentioned edinburgh. "but all gypsies don't speak as you do," said gavin, puzzled again. "i don't understand you." "of course you dinna," replied babbie, in broad scotch. "maybe, if you did, you would think that it's mair imprudent in me to stand here cracking clavers wi' the minister than for the minister to waste his time cracking wi' me." "then why do it?" "because--oh, because prudence and i always take different roads." "tell me who you are, babbie," the minister entreated; "at least, tell me where your encampment is." "you have warned me against imprudence," she said. "i want," gavin continued, earnestly, "to know your people, your father and mother." "why?" "because," he answered, stoutly, "i like their daughter." at that babbie's fingers played on one of the pans, and, for the moment, there was no more badinage in her. "you are a good man," she said, abruptly; "but you will never know my parents." "are they dead?" "they may be; i cannot tell." "this is all incomprehensible to me." "i suppose it is. i never asked any one to understand me." "perhaps not," said gavin, excitedly; "but the time has come when i must know everything of you that is to be known." babbie receded from him in quick fear. "you must never speak to me in that way again," she said, in a warning voice. "in what way?" gavin knew what way very well, but he thirsted to hear in her words what his own had implied. she did not choose to oblige him, however. "you never will understand me," she said. "i daresay i might be more like other people now, if--if i had been brought up differently. not," she added, passionately, "that i want to be like others. do you never feel, when you have been living a humdrum life for months, that you must break out of it, or go crazy?" her vehemence alarmed gavin, who hastened to reply-- "my life is not humdrum. it is full of excitement, anxieties, pleasures, and i am too fond of the pleasures. perhaps it is because i have more of the luxuries of life than you that i am so content with my lot." "why, what can you know of luxuries?" "i have eighty pounds a year." babble laughed. "are ministers so poor?" she asked, calling back her gravity. "it is a considerable sum," said gavin, a little hurt, for it was the first time he had ever heard any one speak disrespectfully of eighty pounds. the egyptian looked down at her ring, and smiled. "i shall always remember your saying that," she told him, "after we have quarrelled." "we shall not quarrel," said gavin, decidedly. "oh, yes, we shall." "we might have done so once, but we know each other too well now." "that is why we are to quarrel." "about what?" said the minister. "i have not blamed you for deriding my stipend, though how it can seem small in the eyes of a gypsy--" "who can afford," broke in babbie, "to give nanny seven shillings a week?" "true," gavin said, uncomfortably, while the egyptian again toyed with her ring. she was too impulsive to be reticent except now and then, and suddenly she said, "you have looked at this ring before now. do you know that if you had it on your finger you would be more worth robbing than with eighty pounds in each of your pockets?" "where did you get it?" demanded gavin, fiercely. "i am sorry i told you that," the gypsy said, regretfully. "tell me how you got it," gavin insisted, his face now hard. "now, you see, we are quarrelling." "i must know." "must know! you forget yourself," she said haughtily. "no, but i have forgotten myself too long. where did you get that ring?" "good afternoon to you," said the egyptian, lifting her pans. "it is not good afternoon," he cried, detaining her. "it is good- bye for ever, unless you answer me." "as you please," she said. "i will not tell you where i got my ring. it is no affair of yours." "yes, babbie, it is." she was not, perhaps, greatly grieved to hear him say so, for she made no answer. "you are no gypsy," he continued, suspiciously. "perhaps not," she answered, again taking the pans. "this dress is but a disguise." "it may be. why don't you go away and leave me?" "i am going," he replied, wildly. "i will have no more to do with you. formerly i pitied you, but--" he could not have used a word more calculated to rouse the egyptian's ire, and she walked away with her head erect. only once did she look back, and it was to say-- "this is prudence--now." chapter xix. circumstances leading to the first sermon in approval of women. a young man thinks that he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own mechanism. it is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. did gavin make this discovery when the egyptian left him? apparently he only came to the brink of it and stood blind. he had driven her from him for ever, and his sense of loss was so acute that his soul cried out for the cure rather than for the name of the malady. in time he would have realised what had happened, but time was denied him, for just as he was starting for the mud house babbie saved his dignity by returning to him. it was not her custom to fix her eyes on the ground as she walked, but she was doing so now, and at the same time swinging the empty pans. doubtless she had come back for more water, in the belief that gavin had gone. he pronounced her name with a sense of guilt, and she looked up surprised, or seemingly surprised, to find him still there. "i thought you had gone away long ago," she said stiffly. "otherwise," asked gavin the dejected, "you would not have come back to the well?" "certainly not." "i am very sorry. had you waited another moment i should have been gone." this was said in apology, but the wilful egyptian chose to change its meaning. "you have no right to blame me for disturbing you," she declared with warmth. "i did not. i only--" "you could have been a mile away by this time. nanny wanted more water." babbie scrutinised the minister sharply as she made this statement. surely her conscience troubled her, for on his not answering immediately she said, "do you presume to disbelieve me? what could have made me return except to fill the pans again?" "nothing," gavin admitted eagerly, "and i assure you--" babbie should have been grateful to his denseness, but it merely set her mind at rest. "say anything against me you choose," she told him. "say it as brutally as you like, for i won't listen." she stopped to hear his response to that, and she looked so cold that it almost froze on gavin's lips. "i had no right," he said, dolefully, "to speak to you as i did." "you had not," answered the proud egyptian. she was looking away from him to show that his repentance was not even interesting to her. however, she had forgotten already not to listen. "what business is it of mine?" asked gavin, amazed at his late presumption, "whether you are a gypsy or no?" "none whatever." "and as for the ring--" here he gave her an opportunity of allowing that his curiosity about the ring was warranted. she declined to help him, however, and so he had to go on. "the ring is yours," he said, "and why should you not wear it?" "why, indeed?" "i am afraid i have a very bad temper." he paused for a contradiction, but she nodded her head in agreement. "and it is no wonder," he continued, "that you think me a--a brute." "i'm sure it is not." "but, babbie, i want you to know that i despise myself for my base suspicions. no sooner did i see them than i loathed them and myself for harbouring them. despite this mystery, i look upon you as a noble-hearted girl. i shall always think of you so." this time babbie did not reply. "that was all i had to say," concluded gavin, "except that i hope you will not punish nanny for my sins. good-bye." "good-bye," said the egyptian, who was looking at the well. the minister's legs could not have heard him give the order to march, for they stood waiting. "i thought," said the egyptian, after a moment, "that you said you were going." "i was only--brushing my hat," gavin answered with dignity. "you want me to go?" she bowed, and this time he did set off. "you can go if you like," she remarked now. he turned at this. "but you said--" he began, diffidently. "no, i did not," she answered, with indignation. he could see her face at last. "you--you are crying!" he exclaimed, in bewilderment. "because you are so unfeeling," sobbed babbie. "what have i said, what have i done?" cried gavin, in an agony of self-contempt "oh, that i had gone away at once!" "that is cruel." "what is?" "to say that." "what did i say?" "that you wished you had gone away." "but surely," the minister faltered, "you asked me to go." "how can you say so?" asked the gypsy, reproachfully. gavin was distracted. "on my word," he said, earnestly, "i thought you did. and now i have made you unhappy. babbie, i wish i were anybody but myself; i am a hopeless lout." "now you are unjust," said babbie, hiding her face. "again? to you?" "no, you stupid," she said, beaming on him in her most delightful manner, "to yourself!" she gave him both her hands impetuously, and he did not let them go until she added: "i am so glad that you are reasonable at last. men are so much more unreasonable than women, don't you think?" "perhaps we are," gavin said, diplomatically. "of course you are. why, every one knows that. well, i forgive you; only remember, you have admitted that it was all your fault?" she was pointing her finger at him like a schoolmistress, and gavin hastened to answer-- "you were not to blame at all." "i like to hear you say that," explained the representative of the more reasonable sex, "because it was really all my fault." "no, no." "yes, it was; but of course i could not say so until you had asked my pardon. you must understand that?" the representative of the less reasonable sex could not understand it, but he agreed recklessly, and it seemed so plain to the woman that she continued confidentially-- "i pretended that i did not want to make it up, but i did." "did you?" asked gavin, elated. "yes, but nothing could have induced me to make the first advance. you see why?" "because i was so unreasonable?" asked gavin, doubtfully. "yes, and nasty. you admit you were nasty?" "undoubtedly, i have an evil temper. it has brought me to shame many times." "oh, i don't know," said the egyptian, charitably. "i like it. i believe i admire bullies." "did i bully you?" "i never knew such a bully. you quite frightened me." gavin began to be less displeased with himself. "you are sure," inquired babbie, "that you had no right to question me about the ring?" "certain," answered gavin. "then i will tell you all about it," said babbie, "for it is natural that you should want to know." he looked eagerly at her, and she had become serious and sad. "i must tell you at the same time," she said, "who i am, and then- -then we shall never see each other any more." "why should you tell me?" cried gavin, his hand rising to stop her. "because you have a right to know," she replied, now too much in earnest to see that she was yielding a point. "i should prefer not to tell you; yet there is nothing wrong in my secret, and it may make you think of me kindly when i have gone away." "don't speak in that way, babbie, after you have forgiven me." "did i hurt you? it was only because i know that you cannot trust me while i remain a mystery. i know you would try to trust me, but doubts would cross your mind. yes, they would; they are the shadows that mysteries cast. who can believe a gypsy if the odds are against her?" "i can," said gavin; but she shook her head, and so would he had he remembered three recent sermons of his own preaching. "i had better tell you all," she said, with an effort. "it is my turn now to refuse to listen to you," exclaimed gavin, who was only a chivalrous boy. "babbie, i should like to hear your story, but until you want to tell it to me i will not listen to it. i have faith in your honour, and that is sufficient." it was boyish, but i am glad gavin said it; and now babbie admired something in him that deserved admiration. his faith, no doubt, made her a better woman. "i admit that i would rather tell you nothing just now," she said, gratefully. "you are sure you will never say again that you don't understand me?" "quite sure," said gavin, bravely. "and by-and-by you will offer to tell me of your free will?" "oh, don't let us think of the future," answered babbie. "let us be happy for the moment." this had been the egyptian's philosophy always, but it was ill- suited for auld licht ministers, as one of them was presently to discover. "i want to make one confession, though," babbie continued, almost reluctantly. "when you were so nasty a little while ago, i didn't go back to nanny's. i stood watching you from behind a tree, and then, for an excuse to come back, i--i poured out the water. yes, and i told you another lie. i really came back to admit that it was all my fault, if i could not get you to say that it was yours. i am so glad you gave in first." she was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes. they were laughing eyes, eyes in distress, imploring eyes. her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled, yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. he wanted to kiss her. he would have done it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him-- "how mean that sounds! oh, if i were a man i should wish to be everything that i am not, and nothing that i am. i should scorn to be a liar, i should choose to be open in all things, i should try to fight the world honestly. but i am only a woman, and so--well, that is the kind of man i should like to marry." "a minister may be all these things," said gavin, breathlessly. "the man i could love," babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, "must not spend his days in idleness as the men i know do." "i do not." "he must be brave, no mere worker among others, but a leader of men." "all ministers are." "who makes his influence felt." "assuredly." "and takes the side of the weak against the strong, even though the strong be in the right." "always my tendency." "a man who has a mind of his own, and having once made it up stands to it in defiance even of--" "of his session." "of the world. he must understand me." "i do." "and be my master." "it is his lawful position in the house." "he must not yield to my coaxing or tempers." "it would be weakness." "but compel me to do his bidding; yes, even thrash if--" "if you won't listen to reason. babbie," cried gavin, "i am that man!" here the inventory abruptly ended, and these two people found themselves staring at each other, as if of a sudden they had heard something dreadful. i do not know how long they stood thus, motionless and horrified. i cannot tell even which stirred first. all i know is that almost simultaneously they turned from each other and hurried out of the wood in opposite directions. chapter xx. end of the state of indecision. long before i had any thought of writing this story, i had told it so often to my little maid that she now knows some of it better than i. if you saw me looking up from my paper to ask her, "what was it that birse said to jean about the minister's flowers?" or, "where was hendry munn hidden on the night of the riots?" and heard her confident answers, you would conclude that she had been in the thick of these events, instead of born many years after them. i mention this now because i have reached a point where her memory contradicts mine. she maintains that rob dow was told of the meeting in the wood by the two boys whom it disturbed, while my own impression is that he was a witness of it. if she is right, rob must have succeeded in frightening the boys into telling no other person, for certainly the scandal did not spread in thrums. after all, however, it is only important to know that rob did learn of the meeting. its first effect was to send him sullenly to the drink. many a time since these events have i pictured what might have been their upshot had dow confided their discovery to me. had i suspected why rob was grown so dour again, gavin's future might have been very different. i was meeting rob now and again in the glen, asking, with an affected carelessness he did not bottom, for news of the little minister, but what he told me was only the gossip of the town; and what i should have known, that thrums might never know it, he kept to himself. i suppose he feared to speak to gavin, who made several efforts to reclaim him, but without avail. yet rob's heart opened for a moment to one man, or rather was forced open by that man. a few days after the meeting at the well, rob was bringing the smell of whisky with him down banker's close when he ran against a famous staff, with which the doctor pinned him to the wall. "ay," said the outspoken doctor, looking contemptuously into rob's bleary eyes, "so this is what your conversion amounts to? faugh! rob dow, if you, were half a man the very thought of what mr. dishart has done for you would make you run past the public houses." "it's the thocht o' him that sends me running to them," growled rob, knocking down the staff. "let me alane." "what do you mean by that?" demanded mcqueen, hooking him this time. "speir at himsel'; speir at the woman." "what woman?" "take your staff out o' my neck." "not till you tell me why you, of all people, are speaking against the minister." torn by a desire for a confidant and loyalty to gavin, rob was already in a fury. "say again," he burst forth, "that i was speaking agin the minister and i'll practise on you what i'm awid to do to her." "who is she?" "wha's wha?" "the woman whom the minister--" "i said nothing about a woman," said poor rob, alarmed for gavin. "doctor, i'm ready to swear afore a bailie that i never saw them thegither at the kaims." "the kaims!" exclaimed the doctor suddenly enlightened. "pooh! you only mean the egyptian. rob, make your mind easy about this. i know why he met her there." "do you ken that she has bewitched him; do you ken i saw him trying to put his arms round her; do you ken they have a trysting- place in caddam wood?" this came from rob in a rush, and he would fain have called it all back. "i'm drunk, doctor, roaring drunk," he said, hastily, "and it wasna the minister i saw ava; it was another man." nothing more could the doctor draw from rob, but he had heard sufficient to smoke some pipes on. like many who pride themselves on being recluses, mcqueen loved the gossip that came to him uninvited; indeed, he opened his mouth to it as greedily as any man in thrums. he respected gavin, however, too much to find this new dish palatable, and so his researches to discover whether other auld lichts shared rob's fears were conducted with caution. "is there no word of your minister's getting a wife yet?" he asked several, but only got for answers, "there's word o' a glasgow leddy's sending him baskets o' flowers," or "he has his een open, but he's taking his time; ay, he's looking for the blade o' corn in the stack o' chaff." this convinced mcqueen that the congregation knew nothing of the egyptian, but it did not satisfy him, and he made an opportunity of inviting gavin into the surgery. it was, to the doctor, the cosiest nook in his house, but to me and many others a room that smelled of hearses. on the top of the pipes and tobacco tins that littered the table there usually lay a death certificate, placed there deliberately by the doctor to scare his sister, who had a passion for putting the surgery to rights. "by the way," mcqueen said, after he and gavin had talked a little while, "did i ever advise you to smoke?" "it is your usual form of salutation," gavin answered, laughing. "but i don't think you ever supplied me with a reason." "i daresay not. i am too experienced a doctor to cheapen my prescriptions in that way. however, here is one good reason. i have noticed, sir, that at your age a man is either a slave to a pipe or to a woman. do you want me to lend you a pipe now?" "then i am to understand," asked gavin, slyly, "that your locket came into your possession in your pre-smoking days, and that you merely wear it from habit?" "tuts!" answered the doctor, buttoning his coat. "i told you there was nothing in the locket. if there is, i have forgotten what it is." "you are a hopeless old bachelor, i see," said gavin, unaware that the doctor was probing him. he was surprised next moment to find mcqueen in the ecstasies of one who has won a rubber. "now, then," cried the jubilant doctor, "as you have confessed so much, tell me all about her. name and address, please." "confess! what have i confessed?" "it won't do, mr. dishart, for even your face betrays you. no, no, i am an old bird, but i have not forgotten the ways of the fledgelings. 'hopeless bachelor,' sir, is a sweetmeat in every young man's mouth until of a sudden he finds it sour, and that means the banns. when is it to be?" "we must find the lady first," said the minister, uncomfortably. "you tell me, in spite of that face, that you have not fixed on her?" "the difficulty, i suppose, would be to persuade her to fix on me." "not a bit of it. but you admit there is some one?" "who would have me?" "you are wriggling out of it. is it the banker's daughter?" "no," gavin cried. "i hear you have walked up the back wynd with her three times this week. the town is in a ferment about it." "she is a great deal in the back wynd." "fiddle-de-dee! i am oftener in the back wynd than you, and i never meet her there." "that is curious." "no, it isn't, but never mind. perhaps you have fallen to miss pennycuick's piano? did you hear it going as we passed the house?" "she seems always to be playing on her piano." "not she; but you are supposed to be musical, and so when she sees you from her window she begins to thump. if i am in the school wynd and hear the piano going, i know you will turn the corner immediately. however, i am glad to hear it is not miss pennycuick. then it is the factor at the spittal's lassie? well done, sir. you should arrange to have the wedding at the same time as the old earl's, which comes off in summer, i believe." "one foolish marriage is enough in a day, doctor." "eh? you call him a fool far marrying a young wife? well, no doubt he is, but he would have been a bigger fool to marry an old one. however, it is not lord rintoul we are discussing, but gavin dishart. i suppose you know that the factor's lassie is an heiress?" "and, therefore, would scorn me." "try her," said the doctor, drily. "her father and mother, as i know, married on a ten-pound note. but if i am wrong again, i must adopt the popular view in thrums. it is a glasgow lady after all? man, you needn't look indignant at hearing that the people are discussing your intended. you can no more stop it than a doctor's orders could keep lang tammas out of church. they have discovered that she sends you flowers twice every week." "they never reach me," answered gavin, then remembered the holly and winced. "some," persisted the relentless doctor, "even speak of your having been seen together; but of course, if she is a glasgow lady, that is a mistake." "where did they see us?" asked gavin, with a sudden trouble in his throat. "you are shaking," said the doctor, keenly, "like a medical student at his first operation. but as for the story that you and the lady have been seen together, i can guess how it arose. do you remember that gypsy girl?" the doctor had begun by addressing the fire, but he suddenly wheeled round and fired his question in the minister's face. gavin, however, did not even blink. "why should i have forgotten her?" he replied, coolly. "oh, in the stress of other occupations. but it was your getting the money from her at the kaims for nanny that i was to speak of. absurd though it seems, i think some dotard must have seen you and her at the kaims, and mistaken her for the lady." mcqueen flung himself back in his chair to enjoy this joke. "fancy mistaking that woman for a lady!" he said to gavin, who had not laughed with him. "i think nanny has some justification for considering her a lady," the minister said, firmly. "well, i grant that. but what made me guffaw was a vision of the harum-scarum, devil-may-care little egyptian mistress of an auld licht manse!" "she is neither harum-scarum nor devil-may-care," gavin answered, without heat, for he was no longer a distracted minister. "you don't understand her as i do." "no, i seem to understand her differently. "what do you know of her?" "that is just it," said the doctor, irritated by gavin's coolness. "i know she saved nanny from the poor-house, but i don't know where she got the money. i know she can talk fine english when she chooses, but i don't know where she learned it. i know she heard that the soldiers were coming to thrums before they knew of their destination themselves, but i don't know who told her. you who understand her can doubtless explain these matters?" "she offered to explain them to me," gavin answered, still unmoved, "but i forbade her." "why?" "it is no business of yours, doctor. forgive me for saying so." "in thrums," replied mcqueen, "a minister's business is everybody's business. i have often wondered who helped her to escape from the soldiers that night. did she offer to explain that to you?" "she did not." "perhaps," said the doctor, sharply, "because it was unnecessary?" "that was the reason." "you helped her to escape?" "i did." "and you are not ashamed of it?" "i am not." "why were you so anxious to screen her?" "she saved some of my people from gaol." "which was more than they deserved." "i have always understood that you concealed two of them in your own stable." "maybe i did," the doctor had to allow. "but i took my stick to them next morning. besides, they were thrums folk, while you had never set eyes on that imp of mischief before." "i cannot sit here, doctor, and hear her called names," gavin said, rising, but mcqueen gripped him by the shoulder. "for pity's sake, sir, don't let us wrangle like a pair of women. i brought you here to speak my mind to you, and speak it i will. i warn you, mr. dishart, that you are being watched. you have been seen meeting this lassie in caddam as well as at the kaims." "let the whole town watch, doctor. i have met her openly." "and why? oh, don't make nanny your excuse." "i won't. i met her because i love her." "are you mad?" cried mcqueen. "you speak as if you would marry her." "yes," replied gavin, determinedly, "and i mean to do it." the doctor flung up his hands. "i give you up," he said, raging. "i give you up. think of your congregation, man." "i have been thinking of them, and as soon as i have a right to do so i shall tell them what i have told you." "and until you tell them i will keep your madness to myself, for i warn you that, as soon as they do know, there will be a vacancy in the auld licht kirk of thrums." "she is a woman," said gavin, hesitating, though preparing to go, "of whom any minister might be proud." "she is a woman," the doctor roared, "that no congregation would stand. oh, if you will go, there is your hat." perhaps gavin's face was whiter as he left the house than when he entered it, but there was no other change. those who were watching him decided that he was looking much as usual, except that his mouth was shut very firm, from which they concluded that he had been taking the doctor to task for smoking. they also noted that he returned to mcqueen's house within half a hour after leaving it, but remained no time. some explained this second visit by saying that the minister had forgotten his cravat, and had gone back for it. what really sent him back, however, was his conscience. he had said to mcqueen that he helped babbie to escape from the soldiers because of her kindness to his people, and he returned to own that it was a lie. gavin knocked at the door of the surgery, but entered without waiting for a response. mcqueen was no longer stamping through the room, red and furious. he had even laid aside his pipe. he was sitting back in his chair, looking half-mournfully, half- contemptuously, at something in his palm. his hand closed instinctively when he heard the door open, but gavin had seen that the object was an open locket. "it was only your reference to the thing," the detected doctor said, with a grim laugh, "that made me open it. forty fears ago, sir, i--phew! it is forty-two years, and i have not got over it yet." he closed the locket with a snap. "i hope you have come back, dishart, to speak more rationally?" gavin told him why he had come back, and the doctor said he was a fool for his pains. "is it useless, dishart, to make another appeal to you?" "quite useless, doctor," gavin answered, promptly. "my mind is made up at last." chapter xxi. night--margaret--flashing of a lantern. that evening the little minister sat silently in his parlour. darkness came, and with it weavers rose heavy-eyed from their looms, sleepy children sought their mothers, and the gate of the field above the manse fell forward to let cows pass to their byre; the great bible was produced in many homes, and the ten o'clock bell clanged its last word to the night. margaret had allowed the lamp to burn low. thinking that her boy slept, she moved softly to his side and spread her shawl over his knees. he had forgotten her. the doctor's warnings scarcely troubled him. he was babbie's lover. the mystery of her was only a veil hiding her from other men, and he was looking through it upon the face of his beloved. it was a night of long ago, but can you not see my dear margaret still as she bends over her son? not twice in many days dared the minister snatch a moment's sleep from grey morning to midnight, and, when this did happen, he jumped up by-and-by in shame, to revile himself for an idler and ask his mother wrathfully why she had not tumbled him out of his chair? tonight margaret was divided between a desire to let him sleep and a fear of his self-reproach when he awoke; and so, perhaps, the tear fell that roused him. "i did not like to waken you," margaret said, apprehensively. "you must have been very tired, gavin?" "i was not sleeping, mother," he said, slowly. "i was only thinking." "ah, gavin, you never rise from your loom. it is hardly fair that your hands should be so full of other people's troubles." "they only fill one hand, mother; i carry the people's joys in the other hand, and that keeps me erect, like a woman between her pan and pitcher. i think the joys have outweighed the sorrows since we came here." "it has been all joy to me, gavin, for you never tell me of the sorrows. an old woman has no right to be so happy." "old woman, mother!" said gavin. but his indignation was vain. margaret was an old woman. i made her old before her time. "as for these terrible troubles," he went on, "i forget them the moment i enter the garden and see you at your window. and, maybe, i keep some of the joys from you as well as the troubles." words about babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he restrained them. he must not tell his mother of her until babbie of her free will had told him all there was to tell. "i have been a selfish woman, gavin." "you selfish, mother!" gavin said, smiling. "tell me when you did not think of others before yourself?" "always, gavin. has it not been selfishness to hope that you would never want to bring another mistress to the manse? do you remember how angry you used to be in glasgow when i said that you would marry some day?" "i remember," gavin said, sadly. "yes; you used to say, 'don't speak of such a thing, mother, for the horrid thought of it is enough to drive all the hebrew out of my head.' was not that lightning just now?" "i did not see it. what a memory you have, mother, for all the boyish things i said." "i can't deny," margaret admitted with a sigh, "that i liked to hear you speak in that way, though i knew you would go back on your word. you see, you have changed already." "how, mother?" asked gavin, surprised. "you said just now that those were boyish speeches. gavin, i can't understand the mothers who are glad to see their sons married; though i had a dozen i believe it would be a wrench to lose one of them. it would be different with daughters. you are laughing, gavin!" "yes, at your reference to daughters. would you not have preferred me to be a girl?" "'deed i would not," answered margaret, with tremendous conviction. "gavin, every woman on earth, be she rich or poor, good or bad, offers up one prayer about her firstborn, and that is, 'may he be a boy!'" "i think you are wrong, mother. the banker's wife told me that there is nothing for which she thanks the lord so much as that all her children are girls." "may she be forgiven for that, gavin!" exclaimed margaret; "though she maybe did right to put the best face on her humiliation. no, no, there are many kinds of women in the world, but there never was one yet that didn't want to begin with a laddie. you can speculate about a boy so much more than about a girl. gavin, what is it a woman thinks about the day her son is born? yes, and the day before too? she is picturing him a grown man, and a slip of a lassie taking him from her. ay, that is where the lassies have their revenge on the mothers. i remember as if it were this morning a harvie fishwife patting your head and asking who was your sweetheart, and i could never thole the woman again. we were at the door of the cottage, and i mind i gripped you up in my arms. you had on a tartan frock with a sash and diamond socks. when i look back, gavin, it seems to me that you have shot up from that frock to manhood in a single hour." "there are not many mothers like you," gavin said, laying his hand fondly on margaret's shoulder. "there are many better mothers, but few such sons. it is easily seen why god could not afford me another. gavin, i am sure that was lightning." "i think it was; but don't be alarmed, mother." "i am never frightened when you are with me." "and i always will be with you." "ah, if you were married--" "do you think," asked gavin, indignantly, "that it would make any difference to you?" margaret did not answer. she knew what a difference it would make. "except," continued gavin, with a man's obtuseness, "that you would have a daughter as well as a son to love you and take care of you." margaret could have told him that men give themselves away needlessly who marry for the sake of their mother, but all she said was-- "gavin, i see you can speak more composedly of marrying now than you spoke a year ago. if i did not know better, i should think a thrums young lady had got hold of you." it was a moment before gavin replied: then he said, gaily-- "really, mother, the way the best of women speak of each other is lamentable. you say i should be better married, and then you take for granted that every marriageable woman in the neighbourhood is trying to kidnap me. i am sure you did not take my father by force in that way." he did not see that margaret trembled at the mention of his father. he never knew that she was many times pining to lay her head upon his breast and tell him of me. yet i cannot but believe that she always shook when adam dishart was spoken of between them. i cannot think that the long-cherishing of the secret which was hers and mine kept her face steady when that horror suddenly confronted her as now. gavin would have suspected much had, he ever suspected anything. "i know," margaret said, courageously, "that you would be better married; but when it comes to selecting the woman i grow fearful. o gavin!" she said, earnestly, "it is an awful thing to marry the wrong man!" here in a moment had she revealed much, though far from all, and there must have been many such moments between them. but gavin was thinking of his own affairs. "you mean the wrong woman, don't you, mother?" he said, and she hastened to agree. but it was the wrong man she meant. "the difficulty, i suppose, is to hit upon the right one?" gavin said, blithely. "to know which is the right one in time," answered margaret, solemnly. "but i am saying nothing against the young ladies of thrums, gavin. though i have scarcely seen them, i know there are good women among them. jean says---" "i believe, mother," gavin interposed, reproachfully, "that you have been questioning jean about them?" "just because i was afraid--i mean because i fancied--you might be taking a liking to one of them." "and what is jean's verdict?" "she says every one of them would jump at you, like a bird at a berry." "but the berry cannot be divided. how would miss pennycuick please you, mother?" "gavin!" cried margaret, in consternation, "you don't mean to--but you are laughing at me again." "then there is the banker's daughter?" "i can't thole her." "why, i question if you ever set eyes on her, mother." "perhaps not, gavin; but i have suspected her ever since she offered to become one of your tract distributors." "the doctor," said gavin, not ill-pleased, "was saying that either of these ladies would suit me." "what business has he," asked margaret, vindictively, "to put such thoughts into your head?" "but he only did as you are doing. mother, i see you will never be satisfied without selecting the woman for me yourself." "ay, gavin," said margaret, earnestly; "and i question if i should be satisfied even then. but i am sure i should be a better guide to you than dr. mcqueen is." "i am convinced of that. but i wonder what sort of woman would content you?" "whoever pleased you, gavin, would content me," margaret ventured to maintain. "you would only take to a clever woman." "she must be nearly as clever as you, mother." "hoots, gavin," said margaret, smiling, "i'm not to be caught with chaff. i am a stupid, ignorant woman." "then i must look out for a stupid, ignorant woman, for that seems to be the kind i like," answered gavin, of whom i may confess here something that has to be told sooner or later. it is this: he never realised that babbie was a great deal cleverer than himself. forgive him, you who read, if you have any tolerance for the creature, man. "she will be terribly learned in languages," pursued margaret, "so that she may follow you in your studies, as i have never been able to do." "your face has helped me more than hebrew, mother," replied gavin. "i will give her no marks for languages." "at any rate," margaret insisted, "she must be a grand housekeeper, and very thrifty." "as for that," gavin said, faltering a little, "one can't expect it of a mere girl." "i should expect it," maintained his mother. "no, no; but she would have you," said gavin, happily, "to teach her housekeeping." "it would be a pleasant occupation to me, that," margaret admitted. "and she would soon learn; she would be so proud of her position as mistress of a manse." "perhaps," gavin said, doubtfully. he had no doubt on the subject in his college days. "and we can take for granted," continued his mother, "that she is a lassie of fine character." "of course," said gavin, holding his head high, as if he thought the doctor might be watching him. "i have thought," margaret went on, "that there was a great deal of wisdom in what you said at that last marriage in the manse, the one where, you remember, the best man and the bridesmaid joined hands instead of the bride and bridegroom." "what did i say?" asked the little minister, with misgivings. "that there was great danger when people married out of their own rank of life." "oh--ah--well, of course, that would depend on circumstances." "they were wise words, gavin. there was the sermon, too, that you preached a month or two ago against marrying into other denominations. jean told me that it greatly impressed the congregation. it is a sad sight, as you said, to see an auld licht lassie changing her faith because her man belongs to the u. p.'s." "did i say that?" "you did, and it so struck jean that she told me she would rather be an old maid for life, 'the which,' she said, 'is a dismal prospect,' than marry out of the auld licht kirk." "it is harmless," gavin answered, going to the window. he started back next moment, and crying, "don't look out, mother," hastily pulled down the blind. "why, gavin," margaret said in fear, "you look as if it had struck you." "oh, no," gavin answered, with a forced laugh, and he lit her lamp for her. but it had struck him, though it was not lightning. it was the flashing of a lantern against the window to attract his attention, and the holder of the lantern was babbie. "good-night, mother." "good-night, gavin. don't sit up any later." tammas, though he is so obstinate, has a love for you passing the love of woman. these were her words. jean is more sentimental than you might think." "i wish he would show his love," said gavin, "by contradicting me less frequently." "you have rob dow to weigh against him." "no; i cannot make out what has come over rob lately. he is drinking heavily again, and avoiding me. the lightning is becoming very vivid." "yes, and i hear no thunder. there is another thing, gavin. i am one of those that like to sit at home, but if you had a wife she would visit the congregation. a truly religious wife would be a great help to you." "religious," gavin repeated slowly. "yes, but some people are religious without speaking of it. if a woman is good she is religious. a good woman who has been, let us say, foolishly brought up, only needs to be shown the right way to tread it. mother, i question if any man, minister or layman, ever yet fell in love because the woman was thrifty, or clever, or went to church twice on sabbath." "i believe that is true," margaret said, "and i would not have it otherwise. but it is an awful thing, gavin, as you said from the pulpit two weeks ago, to worship only at a beautiful face." "you think too much about what i say in the pulpit, mother," gavin said, with a sigh, "though of course a man who fell in love merely with a face would be a contemptible creature. yet i see that women do not understand how beauty affects a man." "yes, yes, my boy--oh, indeed, they do," said margaret, who on some matters knew far more than her son. twelve o'clock struck, and she rose to go to bed, alarmed lest she should not waken early in the morning. "but i am afraid i shan't sleep," she said, "if that lightning continues." "it is harmless," gavin answered, going to the window. he started back next moment, and crying, "don't look out, mother," hastily pulled down the blind. "why, gavin," margaret said in fear, "you look as if it had struck you." "oh, no," gavin answered, with a forced laugh, and he lit her lamp for her. but it had struck him, though it was not lightning. it was the flashing of a lantern against the window to attract his attention, and the holder of the lantern was babbie. "good-night, mother." "good-night, gavin. don't sit up any later." chapter xxii. lovers. only something terrible, gavin thought, could have brought babbie to him at such an hour; yet when he left his mother's room it was to stand motionless on the stair, waiting for a silence in the manse that would not come. a house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night. now margaret slept. two hours earlier, jean, sitting on the salt- bucket, had read the chapter with which she always sent herself to bed. in honour of the little minister she had begun her bible afresh when he came to thrums, and was progressing through it, a chapter at night, sighing, perhaps, on washing days at a long chapter, such as exodus twelfth, but never making two of it. the kitchen wag-at-the-wall clock was telling every room in the house that she had neglected to shut her door. as gavin felt his way down the dark stair, awakening it into protest at every step, he had a glimpse of the pendulum's shadow running back and forward on the hearth; he started back from another shadow on the lobby wall, and then seeing it start too, knew it for his own. he opened the door and passed out unobserved; it was as if the sounds and shadows that filled the manse were too occupied with their game to mind an interloper. "is that you?" he said to a bush, for the garden was in semi- darkness. then the lantern's flash met him, and he saw the egyptian in the summer-seat. "at last!" she said, reproachfully. "evidently a lantern is a poor door-bell." "what is it?" gavin asked, in suppressed excitement, for the least he expected to hear was that she was again being pursued for her share in the riot. the tremor in his voice surprised her into silence, and he thought she faltered because what she had to tell him was so woeful. so, in the darkness of the summer-seat, he kissed her, and she might have known that with that kiss the little minister was hers forever. now babbie had been kissed before, but never thus, and she turned from gavin, and would have liked to be alone, for she had begun to know what love was, and the flash that revealed it to her laid bare her own shame, so that her impulse was to hide herself from her lover. but of all this gavin was unconscious, and he repeated his question. the lantern was swaying in her hand, and when she turned fearfully to him its light fell on his face, and she saw how alarmed he was. "i am going away back to nanny's," she said suddenly, and rose cowed, but he took her hand and held her. "babbie," he said, huskily, "tell me what has happened to bring you here at this hour." she sought to pull her hand from him, but could not. "how you are trembling!" he whispered. "babbie," he cried, "something terrible has happened to you, but do not fear. tell me what it is, and then--then i will take you to my mother: yes, i will take you now." the egyptian would have given all she had in the world to be able to fly from him then, that he might never know her as she was, but it could not be, and so she spoke out remorselessly. if her voice had become hard, it was a new-born scorn of herself that made it so. "you are needlessly alarmed," she said; "i am not at all the kind of person who deserves sympathy or expects it. there is nothing wrong. i am staying with nanny over-night, and only came to thrums to amuse myself. i chased your policeman down the roods with my lantern, and then came here to amuse myself with you. that is all." "it was nothing but a love of mischief that brought you here?" gavin asked, sternly, after an unpleasant pause. "nothing," the egyptian answered, recklessly. "i could not have believed this of you," the minister said; "i am ashamed of you." "i thought," babbie retorted, trying to speak lightly until she could get away from him, "that you would be glad to see me. your last words in caddam seemed to justify that idea." "i am very sorry to see you," he answered, reproachfully. "then i will go away at one," she said, stepping out of the summer-seat. "yes," he replied, "you must go at once." "then i won't," she said, turning back defiantly. "i know what you are to say: that the thrums people would be shocked if they knew i was here; as if i cared what the thrums people think of me." "i care what they think of you," gavin said, as if that were decisive, "and i tell you i will not allow you to repeat this freak." "you 'will not allow me,'" echoed babbie, almost enjoying herself, despite her sudden loss of self-respect, "i will not," gavin said, resolutely. "henceforth you must do as i think fit." "since when have you taken command of me?" demanded babbie. "since a minute ago," gavin replied, "when you let me kiss you." "let you!" exclaimed babbie, now justly incensed. "you did it yourself. i was very angry." "no, you were not." "i am not allowed to say that even?" asked the egyptian. "tell me something i may say, then, and i will repeat it after you." "i have something to say to you," gavin told her, after a moment's reflection; "yes, and there is something i should like to hear you repeat after me, but not to-night." "i don't want to hear what it is," babbie said, quickly, but she knew what it was, and even then, despite the new pain at her heart, her bosom swelled with pride because this man still loved her. now she wanted to run away with his love for her before he could take it from her, and then realising that this parting must be forever, a great desire filled her to hear him put that kiss into words, and she said, faltering: "you can tell me what it is if you like." "not to-night," said gavin. "to-night, if at all," the gypsy almost entreated. "to-morrow, at nanny's," answered gavin, decisively: and this time he remembered without dismay that the morrow was the sabbath. in the fairy tale the beast suddenly drops his skin and is a prince, and i believed it seemed to babbie that some such change had come over this man, her plaything. "your lantern is shining on my mother's window," were the words that woke her from this discovery, and then she found herself yielding the lantern to him. she became conscious vaguely that a corresponding change was taking place in herself. "you spoke of taking me to your mother," she said, bitterly. "yes," he answered at once, "to-morrow"; but she shook her head, knowing that to-morrow he would be wiser. "give me the lantern," she said, in a low voice, "i am going back to nanny's now." "yes," he said, "we must set out now, but i can carry the lantern." "you are not coming with me!" she exclaimed, shaking herself free of his hand. "i am coming," he replied, calmly, though he was not calm. "take my arm, babbie." she made a last effort to free herself from bondage, crying passionately, "i will not let you come." "when i say i am coming," gavin answered between his teeth, "i mean that i am coming, and so let that be an end of this folly. take my arm." "i think i hate you," she said, retreating from him. "take my arm," he repeated, and, though her breast was rising rebelliously, she did as he ordered, and so he escorted her from the garden. at the foot of the field she stopped, and thought to frighten him by saying, "what would the people say if they saw you with me now?" "it does not much matter what they would say," he answered, still keeping his teeth together as if doubtful of their courage. "as for what they would do, that is certain; they would put me out of my church." "and it is dear to you?" "dearer than life." "you told me long ago that your mother's heart would break if----" "yes, i am sure it would." they had begun to climb the fields, but she stopped him with a jerk. "go back, mr. dishart," she implored, clutching his arm with both hands. "you make me very unhappy for no purpose. oh, why should you risk so much for me?" "i cannot have you wandering here alone at midnight," gavin answered, gently. "that is nothing to me," she said, eagerly, but no longer resenting his air of proprietorship. "you will never do it again if i can prevent it." "but you cannot," she said, sadly. "oh, yes, you can, mr. dishart. if you will turn back now i shall promise never to do anything again without first asking myself whether it would seem right to you. i know i acted very wrongly to-night." "only thoughtlessly," he said. "then have pity on me," she besought him, "and go back. if i have only been thoughtless, how can you punish me thus? mr. dishart," she entreated, her voice breaking, "if you were to suffer for this folly of mine, do you think i could live?" "we are in god's hands, dear," he answered, firmly, and he again drew her arm to him. so they climbed the first field, and were almost at the hill before either spoke again. "stop," babbie whispered, crouching as she spoke; "i see some one crossing the hill." "i have seen him for some time," gavin answered, quietly; "but i am doing no wrong, and i will not hide." the egyptian had to walk on with him, and i suppose she did not think the less of him for that. yet she said, warningly-- "if he sees you, all thrums will be in an uproar before morning." "i cannot help that," gavin replied. "it is the will of god." "to ruin you for my sins?" "if he thinks fit." the figure drew nearer, and with every step babbie's distress doubled. "we are walking straight to him," she whispered. "i implore you to wait here until he passes, if not for your own sake, for your mother's." at that he wavered, and she heard his teeth sliding against each other, as if he could no longer clench them. "but, no," he said moving on again, "i will not be a skulker from any man. if it be god's wish that i should suffer for this, i must suffer." "oh, why," cried babbie, beating her hands together in grief, "should you suffer for me?" "you are mine," gavin answered. babbie gasped. "and if you act foolishly," he continued, "it is right that i should bear the brunt of it. no, i will not let you go on alone; you are not fit to be alone. you need some one to watch over you and care for you and love you, and, if need be, to suffer with you." "turn back, dear, before he sees us." "he has seen us." yes, i had seen them, for the figure on the hill was no other than the dominie of glen quharity. the park gate clicked as it swung to, and i looked up and saw gavin and the egyptian. my eyes should have found them sooner, but it was to gaze upon margaret's home, while no one saw me, that i had trudged into thrums so late, and by that time, i suppose, my eyes were of little service for seeing through. yet, when i knew that of these two people suddenly beside me on the hill one was the little minister and the other a strange woman, i fell back from their side with dread before i could step forward and cry "gavin!" "i am mr. dishart," he answered, with a composure that would not have served him for another sentence. he was more excited than i, for the "gavin" fell harmlessly on him, while i had no sooner uttered it than there rushed through me the shame of being false to margaret. it was the only time in my life that i for-got her in him, though he has ever stood next to her in my regard. i looked from gavin to the gypsy woman, and again from her to him, and she began to tell a lie in his interest. but she got no farther than "i met mr. dis-bart accid--" when she stopped, ashamed. it was reverence for gavin that checked the lie. not every man has had such a compliment paid him. "it is natural," gavin said, slowly, "that you, sir, should wonder why i am here with this woman at such an hour, and you may know me so little as to think ill of me for it." i did not answer, and he misunderstood my silence. "no," he continued, in a harder voice, as if i had asked him a question, "i will explain nothing to you. you are not my judge. if you would do me harm, sir, you have it in your power." it was with these cruel words that gavin addressed me. he did not know how cruel they were. the egyptian, i think, must have seen that his suspicions hurt me, for she said, softly, with a look of appeal in her eyes-- "you are the schoolmaster in glen quharity? then you will perhaps save mr. dishart the trouble of coming farther by showing me the way to old nanny webster's house at windyghoul?" "i have to pass the house at any rate," i answered eagerly, and she came quickly to my side. i knew, though in the darkness i could see but vaguely, that gavin was holding his head high and waiting for me to say my worst. i had not told him that i dared think no evil of him, and he still suspected me. now i would not trust myself to speak lest i should betray margaret, and yet i wanted him to know that base doubts about him could never find a shelter in me. i am a timid man who long ago lost the glory of my life by it, and i was again timid when i sought to let gavin see that my faith in him was unshaken. i lifted my bonnet to the gypsy, and asked her to take my arm. it was done clumsily, i cannot doubt, but he read my meaning and held out his hand to me. i had not touched it since he was three years old, and i trembled too much to give it the grasp i owed it. he and i parted without a word, but to the egyptian he said, "to- morrow, dear, i will see you at nanny's," and he was to kiss her, but i pulled her a step farther from him, and she put her hands over her face, crying, "no, no!" if i asked her some questions between the hill and windyghoul you must not blame me, for this was my affair as well as theirs. she did not answer me; i know now that she did not hear me. but at the mud house she looked abruptly into my face, and said-- "you love him, too!" i trudged to the school-house with these words for company, and it was less her discovery than her confession that tortured me. how much i slept that night you may guess. chapter xxiii. contains a birth, which is sufficient for one chapter. "the kirk bell will soon be ringing," nanny said on the following morning, as she placed herself carefully on a stool, one hand holding her bible and the other wandering complacently over her aged merino gown. "ay, lassie, though you're only an egyptian i would hae ta'en you wi' me to hear mr. duthie, but it's speiring ower muckle o' a woman to expect her to gang to the kirk in her ilka day claethes." the babbie of yesterday would have laughed at this, but the new babbie sighed. "i wonder you don't go to mr. dishart's church now. nanny," she said, gently. "i am sure you prefer him." "babbie, babbie," exclaimed nanny, with spirit, "may i never be so far left to mysel' as to change my kirk just because i like another minister better! it's easy seen, lassie, that you ken little o' religious questions." "very little," babbie admitted, sadly. "but dinna ba so waeful about it," the old woman continued, kindly, "for that's no nane like you. ay, and if you see muckle mair o' mr. dishart he'll soon cure your ignorance." "i shall not see much more of him," babbie answered, with averted head. "the like o' you couldna expect it," nanny said, simply, whereupon babbie went to the window. "i had better be stepping," nanny said, rising, "for i am aye late unless i'm on the hill by the time the bell begins. ay, babbie, i'm doubting my merino's no sair in the fashion?" she looked down at her dress half despondently, and yet with some pride. "it was fowerpence the yard, and no less," she went on, fondling the worn merino, "when we bocht it at sam'l curr's. ay, but it has been turned sax times since syne." she sighed, and babbie came to her and put her arms round her, saying, "nanny, you are a dear." "i'm a gey auld-farrant-looking dear, i doubt," said nanny, ruefully. "now, nanny," rejoined babbie, "you are just wanting me to flatter you. you know the merino looks very nice." "it's a guid merino yet," admitted the old woman, "but, oh, babbie, what does the material matter if the cut isna fashionable? it's fine, isn't it, to be in the fashion?" she spoke so wistfully that, instead of smiling, babbie kissed her. "i am afraid to lay hand on the merino, nanny, but give me off your bonnet and i'll make it ten years younger in as many minutes." "could you?" asked nanny, eagerly, unloosening her bonnet-strings. "mercy on me!" she had to add; "to think about altering bonnets on the sabbath-day! lassie, how could you propose sic a thing?" "forgive me, nanny," babbie replied, so meekly that the old woman looked at her curiously. "i dinna understand what has come ower you," she said. "there's an unca difference in you since last nicht. i used to think you were mair like a bird than a lassie, but you've lost a' your daft capers o' singing and lauching, and i take ill wi't. twa or three times i've catched you greeting. babbie, what has come ower you?" "nothing, nanny. i think i hear the bell." down in thrums two kirk-officers had let their bells loose, waking echoes in windyghoul as one dog in country parts sets all the others barking, but nanny did not hurry off to church. such a surprising notion had filled her head suddenly that she even forgot to hold her dress off the floor. "babbie," she cried, in consternation, "dinna tell me you've gotten ower fond o' mr. dishart." "the like of me, nanny!" the gypsy answered, with affected raillery, but there was a tear in her eye. "it would be a wild, presumptious thing," nanny said, "and him a grand minister, but--" babbie tried to look her in the face, but failed, and then all at once there came back to nanny the days when she and her lover wandered the hill together. "ah, my dawtie," she cried, so tenderly, "what does it matter wha he is when you canna help it!" two frail arms went round the egyptian, and babbie rested her head on the old woman's breast. but do you think it could have happened had not nanny loved a weaver two-score years before? and now nanny has set off for church and babbie is alone in the mud house. some will pity her not at all, this girl who was a dozen women in the hour, and all made of impulses that would scarce stand still to be photographed. to attempt to picture her at any time until now would have been like chasing a spirit that changes to something else as your arms clasp it; yet she has always seemed a pathetic little figure to me. if i understand babbie at all, it is, i think, because i loved margaret, the only woman i have ever known well, and one whose nature was not, like the egyptian's, complex, but most simple, as if god had told her only to be good. throughout my life since she came into it she has been to me a glass in which many things are revealed that i could not have learned save through her, and something of all womankind, even of bewildering babbie, i seem to know because i knew margaret. no woman is so bad but we may rejoice when her heart thrills to love, for then god has her by the hand. there is no love but this. she may dream of what love is, but it is only of a sudden that she knows. babbie, who was without a guide from her baby days, had dreamed but little of it, hearing its name given to another thing. she had been born wild and known no home; no one had touched her heart except to strike it, she had been educated, but never tamed; her life had been thrown strangely among those who were great in the world's possessions, but she was not of them. her soul was in such darkness that she had never seen it; she would have danced away cynically from the belief that there is such a thing, and now all at once she had passed from disbelief to knowledge. is not love god's doing? to gavin he had given something of himself, and the moment she saw it the flash lit her own soul. it was but little of his master that was in gavin, but far smaller things have changed the current of human lives; the spider's thread that strikes our brow on a country road may do that. yet this i will say, though i have no wish to cast the little minister on my pages larger than he was, that he had some heroic hours in thrums, of which one was when babbie learned to love him. until the moment when he kissed her she had only conceived him a quaint fellow whose life was a string of sundays, but behold what she saw in him now. evidently to his noble mind her mystery was only some misfortune, not of her making, and his was to be the part of leading her away from it into the happiness of the open life. he did not doubt her, for he loved, and to doubt is to dip love in the mire. she had been given to him by god, and he was so rich in her possession that the responsibility attached to the gift was not grievous. she was his, and no mortal man could part them. those who looked askance at her were looking askance at him; in so far as she was wayward and wild, he was those things; so long as she remained strange to religion, the blame lay on him. all this babbie read in the gavin of the past night, and to her it was the book of love. what things she had known, said and done in that holy name! how shamefully have we all besmirched it! she had only known it as the most selfish of the passions, a brittle image that men consulted because it could only answer in the words they gave it to say. but here was a man to whom love was something better than his own desires leering on a pedestal. such love as babbie had seen hitherto made strong men weak, but this was a love that made a weak man strong. all her life, strength had been her idol, and the weakness that bent to her cajolery her scorn. but only now was it revealed to her that strength, instead of being the lusty child of passions, grows by grappling with and throwing them. so babbie loved the little minister for the best that she had ever seen in man. i shall be told that she thought far more of him than he deserved, forgetting the mean in the worthy: but who that has had a glimpse of heaven will care to let his mind dwell henceforth on earth? love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. it is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. to see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege. down in the auld licht kirk that forenoon gavin preached a sermon in praise of woman, and up in the mudhouse in windyghoul babbie sat alone. but it was the sabbath day to her: the first sabbath in her life. her discovery had frozen her mind for a time, so that she could only stare at it with eyes that would not shut; but that had been in the night. already her love seemed a thing of years, for it was as old as herself, as old as the new babbie. it was such a dear delight that she clasped it to her, and exulted over it because it was hers, and then she cried over it because she must give it up. for babbie must only look at this love and then turn from it. my heart aches for the little egyptian, but the promised land would have remained invisible to her had she not realized that it was only for others. that was the condition of her seeing. chapter xxiv. new world, and the woman who may not dwell therein. up here in the glen school-house after my pupils have straggled home, there comes to me at times, and so sudden that it may be while i am infusing my tea, a hot desire to write great books. perhaps an hour afterwards i rise, beaten, from my desk, flinging all i have written into the fire (yet rescuing some of it on second thought), and curse myself as an ingle-nook man, for i see that one can only paint what he himself has felt, and in my passion i wish to have all the vices, even to being an impious man, that i may describe them better. for this may i be pardoned. it comes to nothing in the end, save that my tea is brackish. yet though my solitary life in the glen is cheating me of many experiences, more helpful to a writer than to a christian, it has not been so tame but that i can understand why babbie cried when she went into nanny's garden and saw the new world. let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. even love unreturned has its rainbow, and babbie knew that gavin loved her. yet she stood in woe among the stiff berry bushes, as one who stretches forth her hands to love and sees him looking for her, and knows she must shrink from the arms she would lie in, and only call to him in a voice he cannot hear. this is not a love that is always bitter. it grows sweet with age. but could that dry the tears of the little egyptian, who had only been a woman for a day? much was still dark to her. of one obstacle that must keep her and gavin ever apart she knew, and he did not; but had it been removed she would have given herself to him humbly, not in her own longing, but because he wanted her. "behold what i am," she could have said to him then, and left the rest to him, believing that her unworthiness would not drag him down, it would lose itself so readily in his strength. that thrums could rise against such a man if he defied it, she did not believe; but she was to learn the truth presently from a child. to most of us, i suppose, has come some shock that was to make us different men from that hour, and yet, how many days elapsed before something of the man we had been leapt up in us? babbie thought she had buried her old impulsiveness, and then remembering that from the top of the field she might see gavin returning from church, she hastened to the hill to look upon him from a distance. before she reached the gate where i had met her and him, however, she stopped, distressed at her selfishness, and asked bitterly, "why am i so different from other women; why should what is so easy to them be so hard to me?" "gavin, my beloved!" the egyptian cried in her agony, and the wind caught her words and flung them in the air, making sport of her. she wandered westward over the bleak hill, and by-and-by came to a great slab called the standing stone, on which children often sit and muse until they see gay ladies riding by on palfreys--a kind of horse--and knights in glittering armour, and goblins, and fiery dragons, and other wonders now extinct, of which bare-legged laddies dream, as well as boys in socks. the standing stone is in the dyke that separates the hill from a fir wood, and it is the fairy-book of thrums. if you would be a knight yourself, you must sit on it and whisper to it your desire. babbie came to the standing stone, and there was a little boy astride it. his hair stood up through holes in his bonnet, and he was very ragged and miserable. "why are you crying, little boy?" babbie asked him, gently; but he did not look up, and the tongue was strange to him. "how are you greeting so sair?" she asked. "i'm no greeting very sair," he answered, turning his head from her that a woman might not see his tears. "i'm no greeting so sair but what i grat sairer when my mither died." "when did she die?" babbie inquired. "lang syne," he answered, still with averted face. "what is your name?" "micah is my name. rob dow's my father." "and have you no brothers nor sisters?" asked babbie, with a fellow-feeling for him. "no, juist my father," he said. "you should be the better laddie to him then. did your mither no tell you to be that afore she died?" "ay," he answered, "she telled me ay to hide the bottle frae him when i could get haed o't. she took me into the bed to make me promise that, and syne she died." "does your father drina?" "he hauds mair than ony other man in thrums," micah replied, almost proudly. "and he strikes you?" babbie asked, compassionately. "that's a lie," retorted the boy, fiercely. "leastwise, he doesna strike me except when he's mortal, and syne i can jouk him." "what are you doing there?" "i'm wishing. it's a wishing stane." "you are wishing your father wouldna drink." "no, i'm no," answered micah. "there was a lang time he didna drink, but the woman has sent him to it again. it's about her i'm wishing. i'm wishing she was in hell." "what woman is it?" asked babbie, shuddering. "i dinna ken," micah said, "but she's an ill ane." "did you never see her at your father's house?" "na; if he could get grip o' her he would break her ower his knee. i hearken to him saying that, when he's wild. he says she should be burned for a witch." "but if he hates her," asked babbie, "how can she have sic power ower him?" "it's no him that she has haud o'," replied micah. still looking away from her. "wha is it then?" "it's mr. dishart." babbie was struck as if by an arrow from the wood. it was so unexpected that she gave a cry, and then for the first time micah looked at her. "how should that send your father to the drink?" she asked, with an effort. "because my father's michty fond o' him," answered micah, staring strangely at her; "and when the folk ken about the woman, they'll stane the minister out o' thrums." the wood faded for a moment from the egyptian's sight. when it came back, the boy had slid off the standing stone and was stealing away. "why do you run frae me?" babbie asked, pathetically. "i'm fleid at you," he gasped, coming to a standstill at a safe distance: "you're the woman!" babbie cowered before her little judge, and he drew nearer her slowly. "what makes you think that?" she said. it was a curious time for babbie's beauty to be paid its most princely compliment. "because you're so bonny," micah whispered across the dyke. her tears gave him courage. "you might gang awa," he entreated. "if you kent what a differ mr. dishart made in my father till you came, you would maybe gang awa. when lie's roaring fou i have to sleep in the wood, and it's awful cauld. i'm doubting he'll kill me, woman, if you dinna gang awa." poor babbie put her hand to her heart, but the innocent lad continued mercilessly-- "if ony shame comes to the minister, his auld mither'll die. how have you sic an ill will at the minister?" babbie held up her hands like a supplicant. "i'll gie you my rabbit." micah said, "if you'll gang awa. i've juist the ane." she shook her head, and, misunderstanding her, he cried, with his knuckles in his eye, "i'll gie you them baith, though i'm michty sweer to part wi' spotty." then at last babbie found her voice. "keep your rabbits, laddie," she said, "and greet no more. i'm gaen awa." "and you'll never come back no more a' your life?" pleaded micah. "never no more a' my life," repeated babbie. "and ye'll leave the minister alane for ever and ever?" "for ever and ever." micah rubbed his face dry, and said, "will you let me stand on the standing stane and watch you gaen awa for ever and ever?" at that a sob broke from babbie's heart, and looking at her doubtfully micah said-- "maybe you're gey ill for what you've done?" "ay," babbie answered, "i'm gey ill for what i've done." a minute passed, and in her anguish she did not know that still she was standing at the dyke. micah's voice roused her: "you said you would gang awa, and you're no gaen," then babbie went away. the boy watched her across the hill. he climbed the standing stone and gazed after her until she was but a coloured ribbon among the broom. when she disappeared into windyghoul he ran home, joyfully, and told his father what a good day's work he had done. rob struck him for a fool for taking a gypsy's word, and warned him against speaking of the woman in thrums. but though dow believed that gavin continued to meet the egyptian secretly, he was wrong. a sum of money for nanny was sent to the minister, but he could guess only from whom it came. in vain did he search for babbie. some months passed and he gave up the search, persuaded that he should see her no more. he went about his duties with a drawn face that made many folk uneasy when it was stern, and pained them when it tried to smile. but to margaret, though the effort was terrible, he was as he had ever been, and so no thought of a woman crossed her loving breast. chapter xxv. beginning of the twenty-four hours. i can tell still how the whole of the glen was engaged about the hour of noon on the fourth of august month; a day to be among the last forgotten by any of us, though it began as quietly as a roaring march. at the spittal, between which and thrums this is a halfway house, were gathered two hundred men in kilts, and many gentry from the neighboring glens, to celebrate the earl's marriage, which was to take place on the morrow, and thither, too, had gone many of my pupils to gather gossip, at which girls of six are trustier hands than boys of twelve. those of us, however, who were neither children nor of gentle blood, remained at home, the farmers more taken up with the want of rain, now become a calamity, than with an old man's wedding, and their women-folk wringing their hands for rain also, yet finding time to marvel at the marriage's taking place at the spittal instead of in england, of which the ignorant spoke vaguely as an estate of the bride's. for my own part i could talk of the disastrous drought with waster lunny as i walked over his parched fields, but i had not such cause as he to brood upon it by day and night; and the ins and outs of the earl's marriage were for discussing at a tea-table, where there were women to help one to conclusions, rather than for the reflections of a solitary dominie, who had seen neither bride nor bridegroom. so it must be confessed that when i might have been regarding the sky moodily, or at the spittal, where a free table that day invited all, i was sitting in the school-house, heeling my left boot, on which i have always been a little hard. i made small speed, not through lack of craft, but because one can no more drive in tackets properly than take cities unless he gives his whole mind to it; and half of mine was at the auld licht manse. since our meeting six months earlier on the hill i had not seen gavin, but i had heard much of him, and of a kind to trouble me. "i saw nothing queer about mr. dishart," was waster lunny's frequent story, "till i hearkened to elspeth speaking about it to the lasses (for i'm the last elspeth would tell anything to, though i'm her man), and syne i minded i had been noticing it for months. elspeth says," he would go on, for he could no more forbear quoting his wife than complaining of her, "that the minister'll listen to you nowadays wi' his een glaring at you as if he had a perfectly passionate interest in what you were telling him (though it may be only about a hen wi' the croup), and then, after all, he hasna heard a sylib. ay, i listened to elspeth saying that, when she thocht i was at the byre, and yet, would you believe it, when i says to her after lousing times, 'i've been noticing of late that the minister loses what a body tells him,' all she answers is 'havers.' tod, but women's provoking." "i allow," birse said, "that on the first sabbath o' june month, and again on the third sabbath, he poured out the word grandly, but i've ta'en note this curran sabbaths that if he's no michty magnificent he's michty poor. there's something damming up his mind, and when he gets by it he's a roaring water, but when he doesna he's a despizable trickle. the folk thinks it's a woman that's getting in his way, but dinna tell me that about sic a scholar; i tell you he would gang ower a toon o' women like a loaded cart ower new-laid stanes." wearyworld hobbled after me up the roods one day, pelting me with remarks, though i was doing my best to get away from him. "even rob dow sees there's something come ower the minister," he bawled, "for rob's fou ilka sabbath now. ay, but this i will say for mr. dishart, that he aye gies me a civil word," i thought i had left the policeman behind with this, but next minute he roared, "and whatever is the matter wi' him it has made him kindlier to me than ever." he must have taken the short cut through lunan's close, for at the top of the roods his voice again made up on me. "dagone you, for a cruel pack to put your fingers to your lugs ilka time i open my mouth." as for waster lunny's daughter easie, who got her schooling free for redding up the school-house and breaking my furniture, she would never have been off the gossip about the minister, for she was her mother in miniature, with a tongue that ran like a pump after the pans are full, not for use but for the mere pleasure of spilling. on that awful fourth of august i not only had all this confused talk in my head but reason for jumping my mind between it and the egyptian (as if to catch them together unawares), and i was like one who, with the mechanism of a watch jumbled in his hand, could set it going if he had the art. of the gypsy i knew nothing save what i had seen that night, yet what more was there to learn? i was aware that she loved gavin and that he loved her. a moment had shown it to me. now with the auld lichts, i have the smith's acquaintance with his irons, and so i could not believe that they would suffer their minister to marry a vagrant. had it not been for this knowledge, which made me fearful for margaret, i would have done nothing to keep these two young people apart. some to whom i have said this maintain that the egyptian turned my head at our first meeting. such an argument is not perhaps worth controverting. i admit that even now i straighten under the fire of a bright eye, as a pensioner may salute when he sees a young officer. in the shooting season, should i chance to be leaning over my dyke while english sportsmen pass (as is usually the case if i have seen them approaching), i remember nought of them save that they call me "she," and end their greetings with "whatever" (which waster lunny takes to be a southron mode of speech), but their ladies dwell pleasantly in my memory, from their engaging faces to the pretty crumpled thing dangling on their arms, that is a hat or a basket, i am seldom sure which. the egyptian's beauty, therefore, was a gladsome sight to me, and none the less so that i had come upon it as unexpectedly as some men step into a bog. had she been alone when i met her i cannot deny that i would have been content to look on her face, without caring what was inside it; but she was with her lover, and that lover was gavin, and so her face was to me as little for admiring as this glen in a thunderstorm, when i know that some fellow-creature is lost on the hills. if, however, it was no quick liking for the gypsy that almost tempted me to leave these two lovers to each other, what was it? it was the warning of my own life. adam dishart had torn my arm from margaret's, and i had not recovered the wrench in eighteen years. rather than act his part between these two i felt tempted to tell them, "deplorable as the result may be, if you who are a minister marry this vagabond, it will be still more deplorable if you do not." but there was margaret to consider, and at thought of her i cursed the egyptian aloud. what could i do to keep gavin and the woman apart? i could tell him the secret of his mother's life. would that be sufficient? it would if he loved margaret, as i did not doubt. pity for her would make him undergo any torture rather than she should suffer again. but to divulge our old connection would entail her discovery of me. and i questioned if even the saving of gavin could destroy the bitterness of that. i might appeal to the egyptian. i might tell her even what i shuddered to tell him. she cared for him, i was sure, well enough to have the courage to give him up. but where was i to find her? were she and gavin meeting still? perhaps the change which had come over the little minister meant that they had parted. yet what i had heard him say to her on the hill warned me not to trust in any such solution of the trouble. boys play at casting a humming-top into the midst of others on the ground, and if well aimed it scatters them prettily. i seemed to be playing such a game with my thoughts, for each new one sent the others here and there, and so what could i do in the end but fling my tops aside, and return to the heeling of my boot? i was thus engaged when the sudden waking of the glen into life took me to my window. there is seldom silence up here, for if the wind be not sweeping the heather, the quharity, that i may not have heard for days, seems to have crept nearer to the school- house in the night, and if both wind and water be out of earshot, there is the crack of a gun, or waster lunny's shepherd is on a stone near at hand whistling, or a lamb is scrambling through a fence, and kicking foolishly with its hind legs. these sounds i am unaware of until they stop, when i look up. such a stillness was broken now by music. from my window i saw a string of people walking rapidly down the glen, and waster lunny crossing his potato-field to meet them. remembering that, though i was in my stocking soles, the ground was dry, i hastened to join the farmer, for i like to miss nothing. i saw a curious sight. in front of the little procession coming down the glen road, and so much more impressive than his satellites that they may be put of mind as merely ploughman and the like following a show, was a highlander that i knew to be lauchlan campbell, one of the pipers engaged to lend music to the earl's marriage. he had the name of a thrawn man when sober, but pretty at the pipes at both times, and he came marching down the glen blowing gloriously, as if he had the clan of campbell at his heels. i know no man who is so capable on occasion of looking like twenty as a highland piper, and never have i seen a face in such a blaze of passion as was lauchlan campbell's that day. his following were keeping out of his reach, jumping back every time he turned round to shake his fist in the direction of the spittal. while this magnificent man was yet some yards from us, i saw waster lunny, who had been in the middle of the road to ask questions, fall back in fear, and not being a fighting man myself, i jumped the dyke. lauchlan gave me a look that sent me farther into the field, and strutted past, shrieking defiance through his pipes, until i lost him and his followers in a bend of the road. "that's a terrifying spectacle," i heard waster lunny say when the music had become but a distant squeal. "you're bonny at louping dykes, dominie, when there is a wild bull in front o' you. na, i canna tell what has happened, but at the least lauchlan maun hae dirked the earl. thae loons cried out to me as they gaed by that he has been blawing awa' at that tune till he canna halt. what a wind's in the crittur! i'm thinking there's a hell in ilka highlandman." "take care then, waster lunny, that you dinna licht it," said an angry voice that made us jump, though it was only duncan, the farmer's shepherd, who spoke. "i had forgotten you was a highlandman yoursel', duncan," waster lunny said nervously; but elspeth, who had come to us unnoticed, ordered the shepherd to return to the hillside, which he did haughtily. "how did you no lay haud on that blast o' wind, lauchlan campbell," asked elspeth of her husband, "and speir at him what had happened at the spittal? a quarrel afore a marriage brings ill luck." "i'm thinking," said the farmer, "that rintoul's making his ain ill luck by marrying on a young leddy." "a man's never ower auld to marry," said elspeth. "no, nor a woman," rejoined waster lunny, "when she gets the chance. but, elspeth, i believe i can guess what has fired that fearsome piper. depend upon it, somebody has been speaking disrespectful about the crittur's ancestors." "his ancestors!" exclaimed elspeth, scornfully. "i'm thinking mine could hae bocht them at a crown the dozen." "hoots," said the farmer, "you're o' a weaving stock, and dinna understand about ancestors. take a stick to a highland laddie, and it's no him you hurt, but his ancestors. likewise it's his ancestors that stanes you for it. when duncan stalked awa the now, what think you he saw? he saw a farmer's wife dauring to order about his ancestors; and if that's the way wi' a shepherd, what will it be wi' a piper that has the kilts on him a' day to mind him o' his ancestors ilka time he looks down?" elspeth retired to discuss the probable disturbance at the spittal with her family, giving waster lunny the opportunity of saying to me impressively-- "man, man, has it never crossed you that it's a queer thing the like o' you and me having no ancestors? ay, we had them in a manner o' speaking, no doubt, but they're as completely lost sicht o' as a flagon lid that's fallen ahint the dresser. hech, sirs, but they would need a gey rubbing to get the rust off them now, i've been thinking that if i was to get my laddies to say their grandfather's name a curran times ilka day, like the catechism, and they were to do the same wi' their bairns, and it was continued in future generations, we micht raise a fell field o' ancestors in time. ay, but elspeth wouldna hear o't. nothing angers her mair than to hear me speak o' planting trees for the benefit o' them that's to be farmers here after me; and as for ancestors, she would howk them up as quick as i could plant them. losh, dominie, is that a boot in your hand?" to my mortification i saw that i had run out of the school-house with the boot on my hand as if it were a glove, and back i went straightway, blaming myself for a man wanting in dignity. it was but a minor trouble this, however, even at the time; and to recall it later in the day was to look back on happiness, for though i did not know it yet, lauchlan's playing raised the curtain on the great act of gavin's life, and the twenty-four hours had begun, to which all i have told as yet is no more than the prologue. chapter xxvi. scene at the spittal. within an hour after i had left him, waster lunny walked into the school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which i declined politely. it was with this ceremony that we usually opened our conversations. "i've seen the post," he said, and he tells me there has been a queer ploy at the spittal. it's a wonder the marriage hasna been turned into a burial, and all because o' that highland stirk, lauchlan campbell. waster lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a story if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait patiently while he delved through the ploughed fields that always lay between him and his destination. "as you ken, rintoul's so little o' a scotchman that he's no muckle better than an englisher. that maun be the reason he hadna mair sense than to tramp on a highlandman's ancestors, as he tried to tramp on lauchlan's this day." "if lord rintoul insulted the piper," i suggested, giving the farmer a helping hand cautiously, "it would be through inadvertence. rintoul only bought the spittal a year ago, and until then, i daresay, he had seldom been on our side of the border." this was a foolish, interruption, for it set walter lunny off in a new direction. "that's what elspeth says. says she, 'when the earl has grand estates in england, what for does he come to a barren place like the spittal to be married! it's gey like,' she says, 'as if he wanted the marriage to be got by quietly; a thing,' says she, 'that no woman can stand. furthermore,' elspeth says, 'how has the marriage been postponed twice?' we ken what the servants at the spittal says to that, namely, that the young lady is no keen to take him, but elspeth winna listen to sic arguments. she says either the earl had grown timid (as mony a man does) when the wedding-day drew near, or else his sister that keeps his house is mad at the thocht o' losing her place; but as for the young leddy's being sweer, says elspeth, 'an earl's an earl however auld he is, and a lassie's a lassie however young she is, and weel she kens you're never sure o' a man's no changing his mind about you till you're tied to him by law, after which it doesna so muckle matter whether he changes his mind about you or no.' ay, there's a quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it's a deep water elspeth canna bottom." "it is," i agreed; "but you were to tell me what birse told you of the disturbance at the spittal." "ay, weel." he answered, "the post puts the wite o't on her little leddyship, as they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till the morn. all i can say is that if the earl was saft enough to do sic a thing out of fondness for her, it's time he was married on her, so that he may come to his senses again. that's what i say; but elspeth conters me, of course, and says she, 'if the young leddy was so careless o' insulting other folks' ancestors, it proves she has nane o' her ain; for them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful no to break the china plates of others.'" "but what was the insult? was lauchlan dismissed?" "na, faags! it was waur than that. dominie, you're dull in the uptake compared to elspeth. i hadna telled her half the story afore she jaloused the rest. however, to begin again; there's great feasting and rejoicings gaen on at the spittal the now, and also a banquet, which the post says is twa dinners in one. weel, there's a curran ogilvys among the guests, and it was them that egged on her little leddyship to make the daring proposal to the earl. what was the proposal? it was no less than that the twa pipers should be ordered to play 'the bonny house o' airlie.' dominie, i wonder you can tak it so calm when you ken that's the ogilvy's sang, and that it's aimed at the clan o' campbell." "pooh!" i said. "the ogilvys and the campbells used to be mortal enemies, but the feud has been long forgotten." "ay, i've heard tell," waster lunny said sceptically, "that airlie and argyle shakes hands now like christians; but i'm thinking that's just afore the queen. dinna speak now, for i'm in the thick o't. her little leddyship was all hinging in gold and jewels, the which winna be her ain till the morn; and she leans ower to the earl and whispers to him to get the pipers to play 'the bonny house.' he wasna willing, for says he, 'there's ogilvys at the table, and ane o' the pipers is a campbell, and we'll better let sleeping dogs lie.' however, the ogilvys lauched at his caution; and he was so infatuated wi' her little leddyship that he gae in, and he cried out to the pipers to strike up 'the bonny house.'" waster lunny pulled his chair nearer me and rested his hand on my knees. "dominie," he said in a voice that fell now and again into a whisper, "them looking on swears that when lauchlan campbell heard these monstrous orders his face became ugly and black, so that they kent in a jiffy what he would do. it's said a' body jumped back frae him in a sudden dread, except poor angus, the other piper, wha was busy tuning up for 'the bonny house.' weel, angus had got no farther in the tune than the first skirl when lauchlan louped at him, and ripped up the startled crittur's pipes wi' his dirk. the pipes gae a roar o' agony like a stuck swine, and fell gasping on the floor. what happened next was that lauchlan wi' his dirk handy for onybody that micht try to stop him, marched once round the table, playing 'the campbells are coming,' and then straucht out o' the spittal, his chest far afore him, and his head so weel back that he could see what was going on ahint. frae the spittal to here he never stopped that fearsome tune, and i'se warrant he's blawing away at it at this moment through the streets o' thrums." waster lunny was not in his usual spirits, or he would have repeated his story before he left me, for he had usually as much difficulty in coming to an end as in finding a beginning. the drought was to him as serious a matter as death in the house, and as little to be forgotten for a lengthened period. "there's to be a prayer-meeting for rain in the auld licit kirk the night," he told me as i escorted him as far as my side of the quharity, now almost a dead stream, pitiable to see, "and i'm gaen; though i'm sweer to leave thae puir cattle o' mine. you should see how they look at me when i gie them mair o' that rotten grass to eat. it's eneuch to mak a man greet, for what richt hae i to keep kye when i canna meat them?" waster lunny has said to me more than once that the great surprise of his life was when elspeth was willing to take him. many a time, however, i have seen that in him which might have made any weaver's daughter proud of such a man, and i saw it again when we came to the river side. "i'm no ane o' thae farmers," he said, truthfully, "that's aye girding at the weather, and elspeth and me kens that we hae been dealt wi' bountifully since we took this farm wi' gey anxious hearts. that woman, dominie, is eneuch to put a brave face on a coward, and it's no langer syne than yestreen when i was sitting in the dumps, looking at the aurora borealis, which i canna but regard as a messenger o' woe, that she put her hand on my shoulder and she says, 'waster lunny, twenty year syne we began life thegither wi' nothing but the claethes on our back, and an it please god we can begin it again, for i hae you and you hae me, and i'm no cast down if you're no.' dominie, is there mony sic women in the warld as that?" "many a one," i said. "ay, man, it shamed me, for i hae a kind o' delight in angering elspeth, just to see what she'll say. i could hae ta'en her on my knee at that minute, but the bairns was there, and so it wouldna hae dune. but i cheered her up, for, after all, the drought canna put us so far back as we was twenty years syne, unless it's true what my father said, that the aurora borealis is the devil's rainbow. i saw it sax times in july month, and it made me shut my een. you was out admiring it, dominie, but i can never forget that it was seen in the year twelve just afore the great storm. i was only a laddie then, but i mind how that awful wind stripped a' the standing corn in the glen in less time than we've been here at the water's edge. it was called the deil's besom. my father's hinmost words to me was, 'it's time eneuch to greet, laddie, when you see the aurora borealis.' i mind he was so complete ruined in an hour that he had to apply for relief frae the poor's rates. think o' that, and him a proud man. he would tak' nothing till one winter day when we was a' starving, and syne i gaed wi' him to speir for't, and he telled me to grip his hand ticht, so that the cauldness o' mine micht gie him courage. they were doling out the charity in the town's house, and i had never been in't afore. i canna look at it now without thinking o' that day when me and my father gaed up the stair thegither. mr. duthie was presiding at the time, and he wasna muckle older than mr. dishart is now. i mind he speired for proof that we was needing, and my father couldna speak. he just pointed at me. 'but you have a good coat on your back yoursel',' mr. duthie said, for there were mony waiting, sair needing. 'it was lended him to come here,' i cried, and without a word my father opened the coat, and they saw he had nothing on aneath, and his skin blue wi' cauld. dominie, mr. duthie handed him one shilling and saxpence, and my father's fingers closed greedily on't for a minute, and syne it fell to the ground. they put it back in his hand, and it slipped out again, and mr. duthie gave it back to him, saying, 'are you so cauld as that?' but, oh, man, it wasna cauld that did it, but shame o' being on the rates. the blood a' ran to my father's head, and syne left it as quick, and he flung down the siller and walked out o' the town house wi' me running after him. we warstled through that winter, god kens how, and it's near a pleasure to me to think o't now, for, rain or no rain, i can never be reduced to sic straits again." the farmer crossed the water without using the stilts which were no longer necessary, and i little thought, as i returned to the school-house, what terrible things were to happen before he could offer me his snuff-mull again. serious as his talk had been it was neither of drought nor of the incident at the spittal that i sat down to think. my anxiety about gavin came back to me until i was like a man imprisoned between walls of his own building. it may be that my presentiments of that afternoon look gloomier now than they were, because i cannot return to them save over a night of agony, black enough to darken any time connected with it. perhaps my spirits only fell as the wind rose, for wind ever takes me back to harvie, and when i think of harvie my thoughts are of the saddest. i know that i sat for some hours, now seeing gavin pay the penalty of marrying the egyptian, and again drifting back to my days with margaret, until the wind took to playing tricks with me, so that i heard adam dishart enter our home by the sea every time the school-house door shook. i became used to the illusion after starting several times, and thus when the door did open, about seven o'clock, it was only the wind rushing to my fire like a shivering dog that made me turn my head. then i saw the egyptian staring at me, and though her sudden appearance on my threshold was a strange thing, i forgot it in the whiteness of her face. she was looking at me like one who has asked a question of life or death, and stopped her heart for the reply. "what is it?" i cried, and for a moment i believe i was glad she did not answer. she seemed to have told me already as much as i could bear. "he has not heard," she said aloud in an expressionless voice, and, turning, would have slipped away without another word. "is any one dead?" i asked, seizing her hands and letting them fall, they were so clammy. she nodded, and trying to speak could not. "he is dead," she said at last in a whisper. "mr. dishart is dead," and she sat down quietly. at that i covered my face, crying, "god help margaret!" and then she rose, saying fiercely, so that i drew back from her, "there is no margaret; he only cared for me." "she is his mother," i said hoarsely, and then she smiled to me, so that i thought her a harmless mad thing. "he was killed by a piper called lauchlan campbell," she said, looking up at me suddenly. "it was my fault." "poor margaret!" i wailed. "and poor babbie," she entreated pathetically; "will no one say, 'poor babbie'?" chapter xxvii. first journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours. "how did it happen?" i asked more than once, but the egyptian was only with me in the body, and she did not hear. i might have been talking to some one a mile away whom a telescope had drawn near my eyes. when i put on my bonnet, however, she knew that i was going to thrums, and she rose and walked to the door, looking behind to see that i followed. "you must not come," i said harshly, but her hand started to her heart as if i had shot her, and i added quickly, "come." we were already some distance on our way before i repeated my question. "what matter how it happened?" she answered piteously, and they were words of which i felt the force. but when she said a little later, "i thought you would say it is not true," i took courage, and forced her to tell me all she knew. she sobbed while she spoke, if one may sob without tears. "i heard of it at the spittal," she said. "the news broke out suddenly there that the piper had quarrelled with some one in thrums, and that in trying to separate them mr. dishart was stabbed. there is no doubt of its truth." "we should have heard of it here," i said hopefully, "before the news reached the spittal. it cannot be true." "it was brought to the spittal," she answered, "by the hill road." then my spirits sank again, for i knew that this was possible. there is a path, steep but short, across the hills between thrums and the top of the glen, which mr. glendinning took frequently when he had to preach at both places on the same sabbath. it is still called the minister's road. "yet if the earl had believed it he would have sent some one into thrums for particulars," i said, grasping at such comfort as i could make. "he does believe it," she answered. "he told me of it himself." you see the egyptian was careless of her secret now; but what was that secret to me? an hour ago it would have been much, and already it was not worth listening to. if she had begun to tell me why lord rintoul took a gypsy girl into his confidence i should not have heard her. "i ran quickly," she said. "even if a messenger was sent he might be behind me." was it her words or the tramp of a horse that made us turn our heads at that moment? i know not. but far back in a twist of the road we saw a horseman approaching at such a reckless pace that i thought he was on a runaway. we stopped instinctively, and waited for him, and twice he disappeared in hollows of the road, and then was suddenly tearing down upon us. i recognised in him young mr. mckenzie, a relative of rintoul, and i stretched out my arms to compel him to draw up. he misunderstood my motive, and was raising his whip threateningly, when he saw the egyptian, it is not too much to say that he swayed in the saddle. the horse galloped on, though he had lost hold of the reins. he looked behind until he rounded a corner, and i never saw such amazement mixed with incredulity on a human face. for some minutes i expected to see him coming back, but when he did not i said wonderingly to the egyptian-- "he knew you." "did he?" she answered indifferently, and i think we spoke no more until we were in windyghoul. soon we were barely conscious of each other's presence. never since have i walked between the school- house and thrums in so short a time, nor seen so little on the way. in the egyptian's eyes, i suppose, was a picture of gavin lying dead; but if her grief had killed her thinking faculties, mine, that was only less keen because i had been struck down once before, had set all the wheels of my brain in action. for it seemed to me that the hour had come when i must disclose myself to margaret. i had realised always that if such a necessity did arise it could only be caused by gavin's premature death, or by his proving a bad son to her. some may wonder that i could have looked calmly thus far into the possible, but i reply that the night of adam dishart's home-coming had made of me a man whom the future could not surprise again. though i saw gavin and his mother happy in our auld licht manse, that did not prevent my considering the contingencies which might leave her without a son. in the school- house i had brooded over them as one may think over moves on a draught-board. it may have been idle, but it was done that i might know how to act best for margaret if any thing untoward occurred. the time for such action had come. gavin's death had struck me hard, but it did not crush me. i was not unprepared. i was going to margaret now. what did i see as i walked quickly along the glen road, with babbie silent by my side, and i doubt not pods of the broom cracking all around us? i saw myself entering the auld licht manse, where margaret sat weeping over the body of gavin, and there was none to break my coming to her, for none but she and i knew what had been. i saw my margaret again, so fragile now, so thin the wrists, her hair turned grey. no nearer could i go, but stopped at the door, grieving for her, and at last saying her name aloud. i saw her raise her face, and look upon me for the first time for eighteen years. she did not scream at sight of me, for the body of her son lay between us, and bridged the gulf that adam dishart had made. i saw myself draw near her reverently and say, "margaret, he is dead, and that is why i have come back," and i saw her put her arms around my neck as she often did long ago. but it was not to be. never since that night at harvie have i spoken to margaret. the egyptian and i were to come to windyghoul before i heard her speak. she was not addressing me. here gavin and she had met first, and she was talking of that meeting to herself. "it was there," i heard her say softly, as she gazed at the bush beneath which she had seen him shaking his fist at her on the night of the riots. a little farther on she stopped where a path from windyghoul sets off for the well in the wood. she looked up it wistfully, and there i left her behind, and pressed on to the mud-house to ask nanny webster if the minister was dead. nanny's gate was swinging in the wind, but her door was shut, and for a moment i stood at it like a coward, afraid to enter and hear the worst. the house was empty. i turned from it relieved, as if i had got a respite, and while i stood in the garden the egyptian came to me shuddering, her twitching face asking the question that would not leave her lips. "there is no one in the house," i said. "nanny is perhaps at the well." but the gypsy went inside, and pointing to the fire said, "it has been out for hours. do you not see? the murder has drawn every one into thrums." so i feared. a dreadful night was to pass before i knew that this was the day of the release of sanders webster, and that frail nanny had walked into tilliedrum to meet him at the prison gate. babbie sank upon a stool, so weak that i doubt whether she heard me tell her to wait there until my return. i hurried into thrums, not by the hill, though it is the shorter way, but by the roods, for i must hear all before i ventured to approach the manse. from windyghoul to the top of the roods it is a climb and then a steep descent. the road has no sooner reached its highest point than it begins to fall in the straight line of houses called the roods, and thus i came upon a full view of the street at once. a cart was laboring up it. there were women sitting on stones at their doors, and girls playing at palaulays, and out of the house nearest me came a black figure. my eyes failed me; i was asking so much from them. they made him tall and short, and spare and stout, so that i knew it was gavin, and yet, looking again, feared, but all the time, i think, i knew it was he. chapter xxviii. the hill before darkness fell--scene of the impending catastrophe. "you are better now?" i heard gavin ask, presently. he thought that having been taken ill suddenly i had waved to him for help because he chanced to be near. with all my wits about me i might have left him in that belief, for rather would i have deceived him than had him wonder why his welfare seemed so vital to me. but i, who thought the capacity for being taken aback had gone from me, clung to his arm and thanked god audibly that he still lived. he did not tell me then how my agitation puzzled him, but led me kindly to the hill, where we could talk without listeners. by the time we reached it i was again wary, and i had told him what had brought me to thrums, without mentioning how the story of his death reached my ears, or through whom. "mr. mckenzie," he said, interrupting me, "galloped all the way from the spittal on the same errand. however, no one has been hurt much, except the piper himself." then he told me how the rumor arose. "you know of the incident at the spittal, and that campbell marched off in high dudgeon? i understand that he spoke to no one between the spittal and thrums, but by the time he arrived here he was more communicative; yes, and thirstier. he was treated to drink in several public-houses by persons who wanted to hear his story, and by-and-by he began to drop hints of knowing something against the earl's bride. do you know rob dow?" "yes," i answered, "and what you have done for him." "ah, sir!" he said, sighing, "for a long time i thought i was to be god's instrument in making a better man of rob, but my power over him went long ago. ten short months of the ministry takes some of the vanity out of a man." looking sideways at him i was startled by the unnatural brightness of his eyes. unconsciously he had acquired the habit of pressing his teeth together in the pauses of his talk, shutting them on some woe that would proclaim itself, as men do who keep their misery to themselves. "a few hours ago," he went on, "i heard rob's voice in altercation as i passed the bull tavern, and i had, a feeling that if i failed with him so should i fail always throughout my ministry. i walked into the public-house, and stopped at the door of a room in which dow and the piper were sitting drinking. i heard rob saying, fiercely, 'if what you say about her is true, highlandman, she's the woman i've been looking for this half year and mair; what is she like?' i guessed, from what i had been told of the piper, that they were speaking of the earl's bride; but rob saw me and came to an abrupt stop, saying to his companion, 'dinna say another word about her afore the minister.' rob would have come away at once in answer to my appeal, but the piper was drunk and would not be silenced. 'i'll tell the minister about her, too,' he began. 'you dinna ken what you're doing," rob roared, and then, as if to save my ears from scandal at any cost, he struck campbell a heavy blow on the mouth. i tried to intercept the blow, with the result that i fell, and then some one ran out of the tavern crying, 'he's killed!' the piper had been stunned, but the story went abroad that he had stabbed me for interfering with him. that is really all. nothing, as you know, can overtake an untruth if it has a minute's start." "where is campbell now?" "sleeping off the effect of the blow: but dow has fled. he was terrified at the shouts of murder, and ran off up the west town end. the doctor's dogcart was standing at a door there and rob jumped into it and drove off. they did not chase him far, because he is sure to hear the truth soon, and then, doubtless, he will come back." though in a few hours we were to wonder at our denseness, neither gavin nor i saw why dow had struck the highlander down rather than let him tell his story in the minister's presence. one moment's suspicion would have lit our way to the whole truth, but of the spring to all rob's behavior in the past eight months we were ignorant, and so to gavin the bull had only been the scene of a drunken brawl, while i forgot to think in the joy of finding him alive. "i have a prayer-meeting for rain presently," gavin said, breaking a picture that had just appeared unpleasantly before me of babbie still in agony at nanny's, "but before i leave you tell me why this rumor caused you such distress." the question troubled me, and i tried to avoid it. crossing the hill we had by this time drawn near a hollow called the toad's- hole, then gay and noisy with a caravan of gypsies. they were those same wild lindsays, for whom gavin had searched caddam one eventful night, and as i saw them crowding round their king, a man well known to me, i guessed what they were at. "mr. dishart," i said abruptly, "would you like to see a gypsy marriage? one is taking place there just now. that big fellow is the king, and he is about to marry two of his people over the tongs. the ceremony will not detain us five minutes, though the rejoicings will go on all night." i have been present at more than one gypsy wedding in my time, and at the wild, weird orgies that followed them, but what is interesting to such as i may not be for a minister's eyes, and, frowning at my proposal, gavin turned his back upon the toad's- hole. then, as we recrossed the hill, to get away from the din of the camp, i pointed out to him that the report of his, death had brought mckenzie to thrums, as well as me. "as soon as mckenzie heard i was not dead," he answered, "he galloped off to the spittal, without ever seeing me. i suppose he posted back to be in time for the night's rejoicings there. so you see, it was no solicitude for me that brought him. he came because a servant at the spittal was supposed to have done the deed." "well, mr. dishart," i had to say, "why should deny that i have a warm regard for you? you have done brave work in our town." "it has been little," he replied. "with god's help it will be more in future." he meant that he had given time to his sad love affair that he owed to his people. of seeing babbit again i saw that he had given up hope. instead of repining, he was devoting his whole soul to god's work. i was proud of him, and yet i grieved, for i could no think that god wanted him to bury his youth so soon. "i had thought," he confessed to me, "that you were one of those who did not like my preaching." "you were mistaken," i said, gravely. i dared not tell him that, except his mother, none would have saw under him so eagerly as i. "nevertheless," he said, "you were a member of the auld licht church in mr. carfrae's time, and you left it when i came." "i heard your first sermon," i said. "ah," he replied. "i had not been long in thrums before i discovered that if i took tea with any of my congregation and declined a second cup, they thought it a reflection on their brewing." "you must not look upon my absence in that light," was all i could say. "there are reasons why i cannot come." he did not press me further, thinking i meant that the distance was too great, though frailer folk than i walked twenty miles to hear him. we might have parted thus had we not wandered by chance to the very spot where i had met him and babbie. there is a seat there now for those who lose their breath on the climb up, and so i have two reasons nowadays for not passing the place by. we read each other's thoughts, and gavin said calmly, "i have not seen her since that night. she disappeared as into a grave." how could i answer when i knew that babbie was dying for want of him, not half a mile away? "you seemed to understand everything that night," he went on; "or if you did not, your thoughts were very generous to me." in my sorrow for him i did not notice that we were moving on again, this time in the direction of windyghoul. "she was only a gypsy girl," he said, abruptly, and i nodded. "but i hoped," he continued," that she would be my wife." "i understood that," i said. "there was nothing monstrous to you," he asked, looking me in the face, "in a minister's marrying a gypsy?" i own that if i had loved a girl, however far below or above me in degree, i would have married her had she been willing to take me. but to gavin i only answered, "these are matters a man must decide for himself." "i had decided for myself," he said, emphatically. "yet," i said, wanting him to talk to me of margaret, "in such a case one might have others to consider besides himself." "a man's marriage," he answered, "is his own affair, i would have brooked no interference from my congregation." i thought, "there is some obstinacy left in him still;" but aloud i said, "it was of your mother i was thinking." "she would have taken babbie to her heart," he said, with the fond conviction of a lover. i doubted it, but i only asked, "your mother knows nothing of her?" "nothing," he rejoined. "it would be cruelty to tell my mother of her now that she is gone." gavin's calmness had left him, and he was striding quickly nearer to windyghoul. i was in dread lest he should see the egyptian at nanny's door, yet to have turned him in another direction might have roused his suspicions. when we were within a hundred yards of the mudhouse, i knew that there was no babbie in sight. we halved the distance and then i saw her at the open window. gavin's eyes were on the ground, but she saw him. i held my breath, fearing that she would run out to him. "you have never seen her since that night?" gavin asked me, without hope in his voice. had he been less hopeless he would have wondered why i did not reply immediately. i was looking covertly at the mudhouse, of which we were now within a few yards. babbie's face had gone from the window, and. the door remained shut. that she could hear every word we uttered now, i could not doubt. but she was hiding from the man for whom her soul longed. she was sacrificing herself for him. "never," i answered, notwithstanding my pity of the brave girl, and then while i was shaking lest he should go in to visit nanny, i heard the echo of the auld licht bell. "that calls me to the meeting for rain," gavin said, bidding me good-night. i had acted for margaret, and yet i had hardly the effrontery to take his hand. i suppose he saw sympathy in my face, for suddenly the cry broke from him-- "if i could only know that nothing evil had befallen her!" babbie heard him and could not restrain a heartbreaking sob. "what was that?" he said, starting. a moment i waited, to let her show herself if she chose. but the mudhouse was silent again. "it was some boy in the wood," i answered. "good-bye," he said, trying to smile. had i let him go, here would have been the end of his love story, but that piteous smile unmanned me, and i could not keep the words back. "she is in nanny's house," i cried. in another moment these two were together for weal or woe, and i had set off dizzily for the school-house, feeling now that i had been false to margaret, and again exulting in what i had done. by and by the bell stopped, and gavin and babbie regarded it as little as i heeded the burns now crossing the glen road noisily at places that had been dry two hours before. chapter xxix. story of the egyptian. god gives us more than, were we not overbold, we should dare to ask for, and yet how often (perhaps after saying "thank god" so curtly that it is only a form of swearing) we are suppliants again within the hour. gavin was to be satisfied if he were told that no evil had befallen her he loved, and all the way between the school-house and windyghoul babbie craved for no more than gavin's life. now they had got their desires; but do you think they were content? the egyptian had gone on her knees when she heard gavin speak of her. it was her way of preventing herself from running to him. then, when she thought him gone, he opened the door. she rose and shrank back, but first she had stepped toward him with a glad cry. his disappointed arms met on nothing. "you, too, heard that i was dead?" he said, thinking her strangeness but grief too sharply turned to joy. there were tears in the word with which she answered him, and he would have kissed her, but she defended her face with her hand. "babbie," he asked, beginning to fear that he had not sounded her deepest woe, "why have you left me all this time? you are not glad to see me now?" "i was glad," she answered in a low voice, "to see you from the window, but i prayed to god not to let you see me." she even pulled away her hand when he would have taken it. "no, no, i am to tell you everything now, and then--" "say that you love me first," he broke in, when a sob checked her speaking. "no," she said, "i must tell you first what i have done, and then you will not ask me to say that. i am not a gypsy." "what of that?" cried gavin. "it was not because you were a gypsy that i loved you." "that is the last time you will say you love me," said babbie. "mr. dishart, i am to be married to-morrow." she stopped, afraid to say more lest he should fall, but except that his arms twitched he did not move. "i am to be married to lord rintoul," she went on. "now you know who i am." she turned from him, for his piercing eyes frightened her. never again, she knew, would she see the love-light in them. he plucked himself from the spot where he had stood looking at her and walked to the window. when he wheeled round there was no anger on his face, only a pathetic wonder that he had been deceived so easily. it was at himself that he was smiling grimly rather than at her, and the change pained babbie as no words could have hurt her. he sat down on a chair and waited for her to go on. "don't look at me," she said, "and i will tell you everything." he dropped his eyes listlessly, and had he not asked her a question from time to time, she would have doubted whether he heard her. "after all," she said, "a gypsy dress is my birthright, and so the thrums people were scarcely wrong in calling me an egyptian. it is a pity any one insisted on making me something different. i believe i could have been a good gypsy." "who were your parents?" gavin asked, without looking up. "you ask that," she said, "because you have a good mother. it is not a question that would occur to me. my mother--if she was bad, may not that be some excuse for me? ah, but i have no wish to excuse myself. have you seen a gypsy cart with a sort of hammock swung beneath it in which gypsy children are carried about the country? if there are no children, the pots and pans are stored in it. unless the roads are rough it makes a comfortable cradle, and it was the only one i ever knew. well, one day i suppose the road was rough, for i was capsized. i remember picking myself up after a little and running after the cart, but they did not hear my cries. i sat down by the roadside and stared after the cart until i lost sight of it. that was in england, and i was not three years old." "but surely," gavin said, "they came back to look for you?" "so far as i know," babbie answered hardly, "they did not come back. i have never seen them since. i think they were drunk. my only recollection of my mother is that she once took me to see the dead body of some gypsy who had been murdered. she told me to dip my hand in the blood, so that i could say i had done so when i became a woman. it was meant as a treat to me, and is the one kindness i am sure i got from her. curiously enough, i felt the shame of her deserting me for many years afterwards. as a child i cried hysterically at thought of it; it pained me when i was at school in edinburgh every time i saw the other girls writing home; i cannot think of it without a shudder even now. it is what makes me worse than other women." her voice had altered, and she was speaking passionately. "sometimes," she continued, more gently, "i try to think that my mother did come back for me, and then went away because she heard i was in better hands than hers. it was lord rintoul who found me, and i owe everything to him. you will say that he has no need to be proud of me. he took me home on his horse, and paid his gardener's wife to rear me. she was scotch, and that is why i can speak two languages. it was he, too, who sent me to school in edinburgh." "he has been very kind to you," said gavin, who would have preferred to dislike the earl. "so kind," answered babbie, "that now he is to marry me. but do you know why he has done all this?" now again she was agitated, and spoke indignantly. "it is all because i have a pretty face," she said, her bosom rising and falling. "men think of nothing else. he had no pity for the deserted child. i knew that while i was yet on his horse. when he came to the gardener's afterwards, it was not to give me some one to love, it was only to look upon what was called my beauty; i was merely a picture to him, and even the gardener's children knew it and sought to terrify me by saying, 'you are losing your looks; the earl will not care for you any more.' sometimes he brought his friends to see me, 'because i was such a lovely child,' and if they did not agree with him on that point he left without kissing me. throughout my whole girlhood i was taught nothing but to please him, and the only way to do that was to be pretty. it was the only virtue worth striving for; the others were never thought of when he asked how i was getting on. once i had fever and nearly died, yet this knowledge that my face was everything was implanted in me so that my fear lest he should think me ugly when i recovered terrified me into hysterics. i dream still that i am in that fever and all my fears return. he did think me ugly when he saw me next. i remember the incident so well still. i had run to him, and he was lifting me up to kiss me when he saw that my face had changed. 'what a cruel disappointment,' he said, and turned his back on me. i had given him a child's love until then, but from that day i was hard and callous." "and when was it you became beautiful again?" gavin asked, by no means in the mind to pay compliments. "a year passed," she continued, "before i saw him again. in that time he had not asked for me once, and the gardener had kept me out of charity. it was by an accident that we met, and at first he did not know me. then he said, 'why, babbie, i believe you are to be a beauty, after all!' i hated him for that, and stalked away from him, but he called after me, 'bravo! she walks like a queen'; and it was because i walked like a queen that he sent me to an edinburgh school. he used to come to see me every year, and as i grew up the girls called me lady rintoul. he was not fond of me; he is not fond of me now. he would as soon think of looking at the back of a picture as at what i am apart from my face, but he dotes on it, and is to marry it. is that love? long before i left school, which was shortly before you came to thrums, he had told his sister that he was determined to marry me, and she hated me for it, making me as uncomfortable as she could, so that i almost looked forward to the marriage because it would be such a humiliation to her." in admitting this she looked shamefacedly at gavin, and then went on: "it is humiliating him too. i understand him. he would like not to want to marry me, for he is ashamed of my origin, but he cannot help it. it is this feeling that has brought him here, so that the marriage may take place where my history is not known." "the secret has been well kept," gavin said, "for they have failed to discover it even in thrums." "some of the spittal servants suspect it, nevertheless," babbie answered, "though how much they know i cannot say. he has not a servant now, either here or in england, who knew me as a child. the gardener who befriended me was sent away long ago. lord rintoul looks upon me as a disgrace to him that he cannot live without." "i dare say he cares for you more than you think," gavin said gravely. "he is infatuated about my face, or the pose of my head, or something of that sort," babbie said bitterly, "or he would not have endured me so long. i have twice had the wedding postponed, chiefly, i believe, to enrage my natural enemy, his sister, who is as much aggravated by my reluctance to marry him as by his desire to marry me. however, i also felt that imprisonment for life was approaching as the day drew near, and i told him that if he did not defer the wedding i should run away. he knows i am capable of it, for twice i ran away from school. if his sister only knew that!" for a moment it was the old babbie gavin saw; but her glee was short-lived, and she resumed sedately: "they were kind to me at school, but the life was so dull and prim that i ran off in a gypsy dress of my own making. that is what it is to have gypsy blood in one. i was away for a week the first time, wandering the country alone, telling fortunes, dancing and singing in woods, and sleeping in barns. i am the only woman in the world well brought up who is not afraid of mice or rats. that is my gypsy blood again. after that wild week i went back to the school of my own will, and no one knows of the escapade but my school-mistress and lord rintoul. the second time, however, i was detected singing in the street, and then my future husband was asked to take me away. yet miss feversham cried when i left, and told me that i was the nicest girl she knew, as well as the nastiest. she said she should love me as soon as i was not one of her boarders." "and then you came to the spittal?" "yes; and lord rintoul wanted me to say i was sorry for what i had done, but i told him i need not say that, for i was sure to do it again. as you know, i have done it several times since then; and though i am a different woman since i knew you, i dare say i shall go on doing it at times all my life. you shake your head because you do not understand. it is not that i make up my mind to break out in that way; i may not have had the least desire to do it for weeks, and then suddenly, when i am out riding, or at dinner, or at a dance, the craving to be a gypsy again is so strong that i never think of resisting it; i would risk my life to gratify it. yes, whatever my life in the future is to be, i know that must be a part of it. i used to pretend at the spittal that i had gone to bed, and then escape by the window. i was mad with glee at those times, but i always returned before morning, except once, the last time i saw you, when i was away for nearly twenty-four hours. lord rintoul was so glad to see me come back then that he almost forgave me for going away. there is nothing more to tell except that on the night of the riot it was not my gypsy nature that brought me to thrums, but a desire to save the poor weavers. i had heard lord rintoul and the sheriff discussing the contemplated raid. i have hidden nothing from you. in time, perhaps, i shall have suffered sufficiently for all my wickedness." gavin rose weariedly, and walked through the mudhouse looking at her. "this is the end of it all," he said harshly, coming to a standstill. "i loved you, babbie." "no," she answered, shaking her head. "you never knew me until now, and so it was not me you loved. i know what you thought i was, and i will try to be it now." "if you had only told me this before," the minister said sadly, "it might not have been too late." "i only thought you like all the other men i knew," she replied, "until the night i came to the manse. it was only my face you admired at first." "no, it was never that," gavin said with such conviction that her mouth opened in alarm to ask him if he did not think her pretty. she did not speak, however, and he continued, "you must have known that i loved you from the first night." "no; you only amused me," she said, like one determined to stint nothing of the truth. "even at the well i laughed at your vows." this wounded gavin afresh, wretched as her story had made him, and he said tragically, "you have never cared for me at all." "oh, always, always," she answered, "since i knew what love was; and it was you who taught me." even in his misery he held his head high with pride. at least she did love him. "and then," babbie said, hiding her face, "i could not tell you what i was because i knew you would loathe me. i could only go away." she looked at him forlornly through her tears, and then moved toward the door. he had sunk upon a stool, his face resting on the table, and it was her intention to slip away unnoticed. but he heard the latch rise, and jumping up, said sharply, "babbie, i cannot give you up." she stood in tears, swinging the door unconsciously with her hand. "don't say that you love me still," she cried; and then, letting her hand fall from the door, added imploringly, "oh, gavin, do you?" chapter xxx. the meeting for rain. meanwhile the auld lichts were in church, waiting for their minister, and it was a full meeting, because nearly every well in thrums had been scooped dry by anxious palms. yet not all were there to ask god's rain for themselves. old charles yuill was in his pew, after dreaming thrice that he would break up with the drought; and bell christison had come, though her man lay dead at home, and she thought it could matter no more to her how things went in the world. you, who do not love that little congregation, would have said that they were waiting placidly. but probably so simple a woman as meggy rattray could have deceived you into believing that because her eyes were downcast she did not notice who put the three-penny- bit in the plate. a few men were unaware that the bell was working overtime, most of them farmers with their eyes on the windows, but all the women at least were wondering. they knew better, however, than to bring their thoughts to their faces, and none sought to catch another's eye. the men-folk looked heavily at their hats in the seats in front. even when hendry munn, instead of marching to the pulpit with the big bible in his hands, came as far as the plate and signed to peter tosh, elder, that he was wanted in the vestry, you could not have guessed how every woman there, except bell christison, wished she was peter tosh. peter was so taken aback that he merely gaped at hendry, until suddenly he knew that his five daughters were furious with him, when he dived for his hat and staggered to the vestry with his mouth open. his boots cheeped all the way, but no one looked up. "i hadna noticed the minister was lang in coming," waster lunny told me afterward, "but elspeth noticed it, and with a quickness that baffles me she saw i was thinking o' other things. so she let out her foot at me. i gae a low cough to let her ken i wasna sleeping, but in a minute out goes her foot again. ay, syne i thocht i micht hae dropped my hanky into snecky hobart's pew, but no, it was in my tails. yet her hand was on the board, and she was working her fingers in a way that i kent meant she would like to shake me. next i looked to see if i was sitting on her frock, the which tries a woman sair, but i wasna, 'does she want to change bibles wi' me?' i wondered; 'or is she sliding yont a peppermint to me?' it was neither, so i edged as far frae her as i could gang. weel, would you credit it, i saw her body coming nearer me inch by inch, though she was looking straucht afore her, till she was within kick o' me, and then out again goes her foot. at that, dominie, i lost patience, and i whispered, fierce-like, 'keep your foot to yoursel', you limmer!' ay, her intent, you see, was to waken me to what was gaen on, but i couldna be expected to ken that." in the vestry hendry munn was now holding counsel with three elders, of whom the chief was lang tammas. "the laddie i sent to the manse," hendry said, "canna be back this five minutes, and the question is how we're to fill up that time. i'll ring no langer, for the bell has been in a passion ever since a quarter-past eight. it's as sweer to clang past the quarter as a horse to gallop by its stable." "you could gang to your box and gie out a psalm, tammas," suggested john spens. "and would a psalm sung wi' sic an object," retorted the precentor, "mount higher, think you, than a bairn's kite? i'll insult the almighty to screen no minister." "you're screening him better by standing whaur you are," said the imperturbable hendry; "for as lang as you dinna show your face they'll think it may be you that's missing instead o' mr. dishart." indeed, gavin's appearance in church without the precentor would have been as surprising as tammas's without the minister. as certainly as the shutting of a money-box is followed by the turning of the key, did the precentor walk stiffly from the vestry to his box a toll of the bell in front of the minister. tammas's halfpenny rang in the plate as gavin passed t'nowhead's pew, and gavin's sixpence with the snapping-to of the precentor's door. the two men might have been connected by a string that tightened at ten yards. "the congregation ken me ower weel," tammas said, "to believe i would keep the lord waiting." "and they are as sure o' mr. dishart," rejoined spens, with spirit, though he feared the precentor on sabbaths and at prayer- meetings. "you're a hard man." "i speak the blunt truth," whamond answered. "ay," said spens, "and to tak' credit for that may be like blawing that you're ower honest to wear claethes." hendry, who had gone to the door, returned now with the information that mr. dishart had left the manse two hours ago to pay visits, meaning to come to the prayer-meeting before he returned home. "there's a quirk in this, hendry," said tosh. "was it mistress dishart the laddie saw?" "no," hendry replied. "it was jean. she canna get to the meeting because the mistress is nervous in the manse by herself; and jean didna like to tell her that he's missing, for fear o' alarming her. what are we to do now?" "he's an unfaithful shepherd," cried the precentor, while hendry again went out. "i see it written on the walls." "i dinna," said spens doggedly. "because," retorted tammas, "having eyes you see not." "tammas, i aye thocht you was fond o' mr. dishart." "if my right eye were to offend me," answered the precentor. "i would pluck it out. i suppose you think, and baith o' you farmers too, that there's no necessity for praying for rain the nicht? you'll be content, will ye, if mr. dishart just drops in to the kirk some day, accidental-like, and offers up a bit prayer?" "as for the rain," spens said, triumphantly, "i wouldna wonder though it's here afore the minister. you canna deny, peter tosh, that there's been a smell o' rain in the air this twa hours back." "john," peter said agitatedly, "dinna speak so confidently. i've kent it," he whispered, "since the day turned; but it wants to tak' us by surprise, lad, and so i'm no letting on." "see that you dinna make an idol o' the rain," thundered whamond. "your thochts is no wi' him, but wi' the clouds; and, whaur your thochts are, there will your prayers stick also." "if you saw my lambs," tosh began; and then, ashamed of himself, said, looking upward, "he holds the rain in the hollow of his hand." "and he's closing his neive ticht on't again," said the precentor solemnly. "hearken to the wind rising!" "god help me!" cried tosh, wringing his hands. "is it fair, think you," he said, passionately addressing the sky, "to show your wrath wi' mr. dishart by ruining my neeps?" "you were richt, tammas whamond," spens said, growing hard as he listened to the wind, "the sanctuary o' the lord has been profaned this nicht by him wha should be the chief pillar o' the building." they were lowering brows that greeted hendry when he returned to say that mr. dishart had been seen last on the hill with the glen quharity dominie. "some thinks," said the kirk officer, "that he's awa hunting for rob dow." "nothing'll excuse him," replied spens, "short o' his having fallen over the quarry." hendry's was usually a blank face, but it must have looked troubled now, for tosh was about to say, "hendry, you're keeping something back," when the precentor said it before him. "wi' that story o' mr. dishart's murder, no many hours auld yet," the kirk officer replied evasively, "we should be wary o' trusting gossip." "what hae you heard?" "it's through the town," hendry answered, "that a woman was wi' the dominie." "a woman!" cried tosh, "the woman there's been sic talk about in connection wi' the minister? whaur are they now?" "it's no kent, but--the dominie was seen goin' hame by himsel'." "leaving the minister and her thegither!" cried the three men at once. "hendry munn," tammas said sternly, "there's mair about this; wha is the woman?" "they are liars," hendry answered, and shut his mouth tight. "gie her a name, i say," the precentor ordered, "or, as chief elder of this kirk, supported by mair than half o' the session, i command you to lift your hat and go." hendry gave an appealing look to tosh and spens, but the precentor's solemnity had cowed them. "they say, then," he answered sullenly, "that it's the egyptian. yes, and i believe they ken." the two farmers drew back from this statement incredulously; but tammas whamond jumped at the kirk officer's throat, and some who were in the church that night say they heard hendry scream. then the precentor's fingers relaxed their grip, and he tottered into the middle of the room. "hendry," he pleaded, holding out his arms pathetically, "tak' back these words. oh, man, have pity, and tak' them back!" but hendry would not, and then lang tammas's mouth worked convulsively, and he sobbed, crying, "nobody kent it, but mair than mortal son, o god, i did love the lad!" so seldom in a lifetime had any one seen into this man's heart that spens said, amazed: "tammas, tammas whamond, it's no like you to break down." the rusty door of whamond's heart swung to. "who broke down?" he asked fiercely. "let no member of this session dare to break down till his work be done." "what work?" tosh said uneasily. "we canna interfere." "i would rather resign," spens said, but shook when whamond hurled these words at him: "'and jesus said unto him, no man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of god.'" "it mayna be true," hendry said eagerly. "we'll soon see." "he would gie her up," said tosh. "peter tosh," answered whamond sternly, "i call upon you to dismiss the congregation." "should we no rather haud the meeting oursel's?" "we have other work afore us," replied the precentor. "but what can i say?" tosh asked nervously, "should i offer up a prayer?" "i warn you all," broke in hendry, "that though the congregation is sitting there quietly, they'll be tigers for the meaning o' this as soon as they're in the street." "let no ontruth be telled them," said the precentor. "peter tosh, do your duty. john spens, remain wi' me." the church emptied silently, but a buzz of excitement arose outside. many persons tried to enter the vestry, but were ordered away, and when tosh joined his fellow-elders the people were collecting in animated groups in the square, or scattering through the wynds for news. "and now," said the precentor, "i call upon the three o' you to come wi' me. hendry munn, you gang first." "i maun bide ahint," hendry said, with a sudden fear, "to lock up the kirk." "i'll lock up the kirk," whamond answered harshly. "you maun gie me the keys, though," entreated the kirk officer. "i'll take care o' the keys," said whamond. "i maun hae them," hendry said, "to open the kirk on sabbath." the precentor locked the doors, and buttoned up the keys in his trousers pockets. "wha kens," he said, in a voice of steel, "that the kirk'll be open next sabbath?" "hae some mercy on him, tamtnas," spens implored. "he's no twa- and-twenty." "wha kens," continued the precentor, "but that the next time this kirk is opened will be to preach it toom?" "what road do we tak'?" "the road to the hill, whaur he was seen last." chapter xxxi. various bodies converging on the hill. it would be coming on for a quarter-past nine, and a misty night, when i reached the school-house, and i was so weary of mind and body that i sat down without taking off my bonnet. i had left the door open, and i remember listlessly watching the wind making a target of my candle, but never taking a sufficiently big breath to do more than frighten it. from this lethargy i was roused by the sound of wheels. in the daytime our glen road leads to many parts, but in the night only to the doctor's. then the gallop of a horse makes farmers start up in bed and cry, "who's ill?" i went to my door and listened to the trap coming swiftly down the lonely glen, but i could not see it, for there was a trailing scarf of mist between the school-house and the road. presently i heard the swish of the wheels in water, and so learned that they were crossing the ford to come to me. i had been unstrung by the events of the evening, and fear at once pressed thick upon me that this might be a sequel to them, as indeed it was. while still out of sight the trap stopped, and i heard some one jump from it. then came this conversation, as distinct as though it had been spoken into my ear: "can you see the school-house now, mckenzie?" "i am groping for it, rintoul. the mist seems to have made off with the path." "where are you, mckenzie? i have lost sight of you." it was but a ribbon of mist, and as these words were spoken mckenzie broke through it. i saw him, though to him i was only a stone at my door. "i have found the house, rintoul," he shouted, "and there is a light in it, so that the fellow has doubtless returned." "then wait a moment for me." "stay where you are, rintoul, i entreat you, and leave him to me. he may recognize you." "no, no, mckenzie, i am sure he never saw me before. i insist on accompanying you." "your excitement, rintoul, will betray you. let me go alone. i can question him without rousing his suspicions. remember, she is only a gypsy to him." "he will learn nothing from me. i am quite calm now." "rintoul, i warn you your manner will betray you, and to-morrow it will be roared through the countryside that your bride ran away from the spittal in a gypsy dress, and had to be brought back by force." the altercation may have lasted another minute, but the suddenness with which i learned babbie's secret had left my ears incapable of learning more. i daresay the two men started when they found me at my door, but they did not remember, as few do remember who have the noisy day to forget it in, how far the voice carries in the night. they came as suddenly on me as i on them, for though they had given unintentional notice of their approach, i had lost sight of the speakers in their amazing words. only a moment did young mckenzie's anxiety to be spokesman give me to regard lord rintoul. i saw that he was a thin man and tall, straight in the figure, but his head began to sink into his shoulders and not very steady on them. his teeth had grip of his under-lip, as if this was a method of controlling his agitation, and he was opening and shutting his hands restlessly. he had a dog with him which i was to meet again. "well met, mr. ogilvy," said mckenzie, who knew me slightly, having once acted as judge at a cock-fight in the school-house. "we were afraid we should have to rouse you." "you will step inside?" i asked awkwardly, and while i spoke i was wondering how long it would be before the earl's excitement broke out. "it is not necessary," mckenzie answered hurriedly. "my friend and i (this is mr. mcclure) have been caught in the mist without a lamp, and we thought you could perhaps favor us with one." "unfortunately i have nothing of the kind," i said, and the state of mind i was in is shown by my answering seriously. "then we must wish you a good-night and manage as best we can," he said; and then before he could touch, with affected indifference, on the real object of their visit, the alarmed earl said angrily, "mckenzie, no more of this." "no more of this delay, do you mean, mcclure?" asked mckenzie, and then, turning to me said, "by the way, mr. ogilvy, i think this is our second meeting to-night. i met you on the road a few hours ago with your wife. or was it your daughter?" "it was neither, mr. mckenzie," i answered, with the calmness of one not yet recovered from a shock. "it was a gypsy girl." "where is she now?" cried rintoul feverishly; but mckenzie, speaking loudly at the same time, tried to drown his interference as one obliterates writing by writing over it. "a strange companion for a schoolmaster," he said. "what became of her?" "i left her near caddam wood," i replied, "but she is probably not there now" "ah, they are strange creatures, these gypsies!" he said, casting a warning look at the earl. "now i wonder where she had been bound for." "there is a gypsy encampment on the hill," i answered, though i cannot say why. "she is there!" exclaimed rintoul, and was done with me. "i daresay," mckenzie said indifferently. "however, it is nothing to us. good-night, sir." the earl had started for the trap, but mckenzie's salute reminded him of a forgotten courtesy, and, despite his agitation, he came back to apologize. i admired him for this. then my thoughtlessness must needs mar all. "good-night, mr. mckenzie," i said. "good-night, lord rintoul." i had addressed him by his real name. never a turnip fell from a bumping, laden cart, and the driver more unconscious of it, than i that i had dropped that word. i re-entered the house, but had not reached my chair when mckenzie's hand fell roughly on me, and i was swung round. "mr. ogilvy," he said, the more savagely i doubt not because his passions had been chained so long, "you know more than you would have us think. beware, sir, of recognising that gypsy should you ever see her again in different attire. i advise you to have forgotten this night when you waken to-morrow morning." with a menacing gesture he left me, and i sank into a chair, glad to lose sight of the glowering eyes with which he had pinned me to the wall. i did not hear the trap cross the ford and renew its journey. when i looked out next, the night had fallen very dark, and the glen was so deathly in its drowsiness that i thought not even the cry of murder could tear its eyes open. the earl and mckenzie would be some distance still from the hill when the office-bearers had scoured it in vain for their minister. the gypsies, now dancing round their fires to music that, on ordinary occasions, lang tammas would have stopped by using his fists to the glory of god, had seen no minister, they said, and disbelieved in the existence of the mysterious egyptian. "liars they are to trade," spens declared to his companions, "but now and again they speak truth, like a standing clock, and i'm beginning to think the minister's lassie was invented in the square." "not so," said the precentor, "for we saw her oursel's a short year syne, and hendry munn there allows there's townsfolk that hae passed her in the glen mair recently." "i only allowed," hendry said cautiously, "that some sic talk had shot up sudden-like in the town. them that pretends they saw her says that she joukit quick out o' sicht." "ay, and there's another quirk in that," responded the suspicious precentor. "i'se uphaud the minister's sitting in the manse in his slippers by this time," hendry said. "i'm willing," replied whamond, "to gang back and speir, or to search caddam next; but let the matter drop i winna, though i ken you're a' awid to be hame now." "and naturally," retorted tosh, "for the nicht's coming on as black as pick, and by the time we're at caddam we'll no even see the trees." toward caddam, nevertheless, they advanced, hearing nothing but a distant wind and the whish of their legs in the broom. "whaur's john spens?" hendry said suddenly. they turned back and found spens rooted to the ground, as a boy becomes motionless when he thinks he is within arm's reach of a nest and the bird sitting on the eggs. "what do you see, man?" hendry whispered. "as sure as death," answered spens, awe-struck, "i felt a drap o' rain." "it's no rain we're here to look for," said the precentor. "peter tosh," cried spens, "it was a drap! oh, peter! how are you looking at me so queer, peter, when you should be thanking the lord for the promise that's in that drap?" "come away," whamond said, impatiently; "but spens answered, "no till i've offered up a prayer for the promise that's in that drap. peter tosh, you've forgotten to take off your bonnet." "think twice, john spens," gasped tosh, "afore you pray for rain this nicht." the others thought him crazy, but he went on, with a catch in his voice: "i felt a drap o' rain mysel', just afore it came on dark so hurried, and my first impulse was to wish that i could carry that drap about wi' me and look at it. but, john spens, when i looked up i saw sic a change running ower the sky that i thocht hell had taken the place o' heaven, and that there was waterspouts gathering therein for the drowning o' the world." "there's no water in hell," the precentor said grimly. "genesis ix.," said spens, "verses to . ay, but, peter, you've startled me, and i'm thinking we should be stepping hame. is that a licht?" "it'll be in nanny webster's," hendry said, after they had all regarded the light. "i never heard that nanny needed a candle to licht her to her bed," the precentor muttered. "she was awa to meet sanders the day as he came out o' the tilliedrum gaol," spens remembered, "and i daresay the licht means they're hame again." "it's well kent--" began hendry, and would have recalled his words. hendry munn, "cried the precentor," if you hae minded onything that may help us, out wi't." "i was just minding," the kirk officer answered reluctantly, "that nanny allows it's mr. dishart that has been keeping her frae the poorhouse. you canna censure him for that, tammas." "can i no?" retorted whamond. "what business has he to befriend a woman that belongs to another denomination? i'll see to the bottom o' that this nicht. lads, follow me to nanny's, and dinna be surprised if we find baith the minister and the egyptian there." they had not advanced many yards when spens jumped to the side, crying, "be wary, that's no the wind; it's a machine!" immediately the doctor's dogcart was close to them, with rob dow for its only occupant. he was driving slowly, or whamond could not have escaped the horse's hoofs. "is that you, rob dow?" said the precentor sourly. "i tell you, you'll be gaoled for stealing the doctor's machine." "the hielandman wasna muckle hurt, rob," hendry said, more good- naturedly. "i ken that," replied rob, scowling at the four of them. "what are you doing here on sic a nicht?" "do you see anything strange in the nicht, rob?" tosh asked apprehensively. "it's setting to rain," dow replied. "i dinna see it, but i feel it." "ay," said tosh, eagerly, "but will it be a saft, cowdie sweet ding-on?" "let the heavens open if they will," interposed spens recklessly. "i would swap the drought for rain, though it comes down in a sheet as in the year twelve." "and like a sheet it'll come," replied dow, "and the deil'll blaw it about wi' his biggest bellowses." tosh shivered, but whamond shook him roughly, saying-- "keep your oaths to yoursel', rob dow, and tell me, hae you seen mr. dishart?" "i hinna," rob answered curtly, preparing to drive on. "nor the lassie they call the egyptian?" rob leaped from the dogcart, crying, "what does that mean?" "hands off," said the precentor, retreating from him. "it means that mr. dishart neglected the prayer-meeting this nicht to philander after that heathen woman." "we're no sure o't, tammas," remonstrated the kirk officer. dow stood quite still. "i believe rob kens it's true," hendry added sadly, "or he would hae flown at your throat, tammas whamond, for saying these words." even this did not rouse dow. "rob doesna worship the minister as he used to do," said spens. "and what for no?" cried the precentor. "rob dow, is it because you've found out about this woman?" "you're a pack o' liars," roared rob, desperately, "and if you say again that ony wandering hussy has haud o' the minister, i'll let you see whether i can loup at throats." "you'll swear by the book." asked whamond, relentlessly, "that you've seen neither o' them this nicht, nor them thegither at any time?" "i so swear by the book," answered poor loyal rob. "but what makes you look for mr. dishart here?" he demanded, with an uneasy look at the light in the mudhouse. "go hame," replied the precentor, "and deliver up the machine you stole, and leave this session to do its duty. john, we maun fathom the meaning o' that licht." dow started, and was probably at that moment within an ace of felling whamond. "i'll come wi' you," he said, hunting in his mind for a better way of helping gavin. they were at nanny's garden, but in the darkness whamond could not find the gate. rob climbed the paling, and was at once lost sight of. then they saw his head obscure the window. they did not, however, hear the groan that startled babbie. "there's nobody there," he said, coming back, "but nanny and sanders. you'll mind sanders was to be freed the day." "i'll go in and see sanders," said hendry, but the precentor pulled him back, saying, "you'll do nothing o' the kind, hendry munn; you'll come awa wi' me now to the manse." "it's mair than me and peter'll do, then," said spens, who had been consulting with the other farmer. "we're gaun as straucht hame as the darkness 'll let us." with few more words the session parted, spens and tosh setting off for their farms, and hendry accompanying the precentor. no one will ever know where dow went. i can fancy him, however, returning to the wood, and there drawing rein. i can fancy his mind made up to watch the mudhouse until gavin and the gypsy separated, and then pounce upon her. i daresay his whole plot could be condensed into a sentence, "if she's got rid o' this nicht, we may cheat the session yet," but this is mere surmise. all i know is that he waited near nanny's house, and by and by heard another trap coming up windyghoul. that was just before the ten o'clock bell began to ring. chapter xxxii. leading swiftly to the appalling marriage. the little minister bowed his head in assent when babbie's cry, "oh, gavin, do you?" leapt in front of her unselfish wish that he should care for her no more. "but that matters very little now," he said. she was his to do with as he willed; and, perhaps, the joy of knowing herself loved still, begot a wild hope that he would refuse to give her up. if so, these words laid it low, but even the sentence they passed upon her could not kill the self-respect that would be hers henceforth. "that matters very little now," the man said, but to the woman it seemed to matter more than anything else in the world. throughout the remainder of this interview until the end came, gavin never faltered. his duty and hers lay so plainly before him that there could be no straying from it. did babbie think him strangely calm? at the glen quharity gathering i once saw rob angus lift a boulder with such apparent ease that its weight was discredited, until the cry arose that the effort had dislocated his arm. perhaps gavin's quietness deceived the egyptian similarly. had he stamped, she might have understood better what he suffered, standing there on the hot embers of his passion. "we must try to make amends now," he said gravely, "for the wrong we have done." "the wrong i have done," she said, correcting him. "you will make it harder for me if you blame yourself. how vile i was in those days!" "those days," she called them, they seemed so far away. "do not cry, babbie," gavin replied, gently. "he knew what you were, and why, and he pities you. 'for his anger endureth but a moment: in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.'" "not to me." "yes, to you," he answered. "babbie, you will return to the spittal now, and tell lord rintoul everything." "if you wish it." "not because i wish it, but because it is right. he must be told that you do not love him." "i never pretended to him that i did," babbie said, looking up. "oh," she added, with emphasis, "he knows that. he thinks me incapable of caring for any one." "and that is why he must be told of me," gavin replied. "you are no longer the woman you were, babbie, and you know it, and i know it, but he does not know it. he shall know it before he decides whether he is to marry you." babbie looked at gavin, and wondered he did not see that this decision lay with him. "nevertheless," she said, "the wedding will take place to-morrow: if it did not, lord rintoul would be the scorn of his friends." "if it does," the minister answered, "he will be the scorn of himself. babbie, there is a chance." "there is no chance," she told him. "i shall be back at the spittal without any one's knowing of my absence, and when i begin to tell him of you, he will tremble, lest it means my refusal to marry him; when he knows it does not, he will wonder only why i told him anything." "he will ask you to take time--" "no, he will ask me to put on my wedding-dress. you must not think anything else possible." "so be it, then," gavin said firmly. "yes, it will be better so," babbie answered, and then, seeing him misunderstand her meaning, exclaimed reproachfully, "i was not thinking of myself. in the time to come, whatever be my lot, i shall have the one consolation, that this is best for you. think of your mother." "she will love you," gavin said, "when i tell her of you." "yes," said babbie, wringing her hands; "she will almost love me, but for what? for not marrying you. that is the only reason any one in thrums will have for wishing me well." "no others," gavin answered, "will ever know why i remained unmarried." "will you never marry?" babbie asked, exultingly. "ah!" she cried, ashamed, "but you must." "never." well, many a man and many a woman has made that vow in similar circumstances, and not all have kept it. but shall we who are old smile cynically at the brief and burning passion of the young? "the day," you say, "will come when--" good sir, hold your peace. their agony was great and now is dead, and, maybe, they have forgotten where it lies buried; but dare you answer lightly when i ask you which of these things is saddest? babbie believed his "never," and, doubtless, thought no worse of him for it; but she saw no way of comforting him save by disparagement of herself. "you must think of your congregation," she said. "a minister with a gypsy wife--" "would have knocked them about with a flail," gavin interposed, showing his teeth at the thought of the precentor, "until they did her reverence." she shook her head, and told him of her meeting with micah dow. it silenced him; not, however, on account of its pathos, as she thought, but because it interpreted the riddle of rob's behavior. "nevertheless," he said ultimately, "my duty is not to do what is right in my people's eyes, but what seems right in my own." babbie had not heard him. "i saw a face at the window just now," she whispered, drawing closer to him. "there was no face there; the very thought of rob dow raises him before you," gavin answered reassuringly, though rob was nearer at that moment than either of them thought. "i must go away at once," she said, still with her eyes in the window. "no, no, you shall not come or stay with me; it is you who are in danger." "do not fear for me." "i must, if you will not. before you came in, did i not hear you speak of a meeting you had to attend to-night?" "my pray--" his teeth met on the word; so abruptly did it conjure up the forgotten prayer-meeting that before the shock could reach his mind he stood motionless, listening for the bell. for one instant all that had taken place since he last heard it might have happened between two of its tinkles; babbie passed from before him like a figure in a panorama, and he saw, instead, a congregation in their pews. "what do you see?" babbie cried in alarm, for he seemed to be gazing at the window. "only you," he replied, himself again; "i am coming with you." "you must let me go alone," she entreated; "if not for your own safety"--but it was only him she considered--"then for the sake of lord rintoul. were you and i to be seen together now, his name and mine might suffer." it was an argument the minister could not answer save by putting his hands over his face; his distress made babbie strong; she moved to the door, trying to smile. "go, babbie!" gavin said, controlling his voice, though it had been a smile more pitiful than her tears. "god has you in his keeping; it is not his will to give me this to bear for you." they were now in the garden. "do not think of me as unhappy," she said; "it will be happiness to me to try to be all you would have me be." he ought to have corrected her. "all that god would have me be," is what she should have said. but he only replied, "you will be a good woman, and none such can be altogether unhappy; god sees to that." he might have kissed her, and perhaps she thought so. "i am--i am going now, dear," she said, and came back a step because he did not answer; then she went on, and was out of his sight at three yards' distance. neither of them heard the approaching dogcart. "you see, i am bearing it quite cheerfully," she said. "i shall have everything a woman loves; do not grieve for me so much." gavin dared not speak nor move. never had he found life so hard; but he was fighting with the ignoble in himself, and winning. she opened the gate, and it might have been a signal to the dogcart to stop. they both heard a dog barking, and then the voice of lord rintoul: "that is a light in the window. jump down, mckenzie, and inquire." gavin took one step nearer babbie and stopped. he did not see how all her courage went from her, so that her knees yielded, and she held out her arms to him, but he heard a great sob and then his name. "gavin, i am afraid." gavin understood now, and i say he would have been no man to leave her after that; only a moment was allowed him, and it was their last chance on earth. he took it. his arm went round his beloved, and he drew her away from nanny's. mckenzie found both house and garden empty. "and yet," he said, "i swear some one passed the window as we sighted it." "waste no more time," cried the impatient earl. "we must be very near the hill now. you will have to lead the horse, mckenzie, in this darkness; the dog may find the way through the broom for us." "the dog has run on," mckenzie replied, now in an evil temper. "who knows, it may be with her now? so we must feel our way cautiously; there is no call for capsizing the trap in our haste." but there was call for haste if they were to reach the gypsy encampment before gavin and babbie were made man and wife over the tongs. the spittal dogcart rocked as it dragged its way through the broom. rob dow followed. the ten o'clock bell began to ring. chapter xxxiii. while the ten o'clock bell was ringing. in the square and wynds--weavers in groups: "no, no, davit, mr. dishart hadna felt the blow the piper gave him till he ascended the pulpit to conduct the prayer-meeting for rain, and then he fainted awa. tammas whamond and peter tosh carried him to the session-house. ay, an awful scene." "how did the minister no come to the meeting? i wonder how you could expect it, snecky, and his mother taen so suddenly ill; he's at her bedside, but the doctor has little hope." "this is what has occurred, tailor: mr. dishart never got the length of the pulpit. he fell in a swound on the vestry floor. what caused it? oh, nothing but the heat. thrums is so dry that one spark would set it in a blaze." "i canna get at the richts o' what keeped him frae the meeting, femie, but it had something to do wi' an egyptian on the hill. very like he had been trying to stop the gypsy marriage there. i gaed to the manse to speir at jean what was wrang, but i'm thinking i telled her mair than she could tell me." "man, man, andrew, the wite o't lies wi' peter tosh. he thocht we was to hae sic a terrible rain that he implored the minister no to pray for it, and so angry was mr. dishart that he ordered the whole session out o' the kirk. i saw them in couthie's close, and michty dour they looked." "yes, as sure as death, tammas whamond locked the kirk-door in mr. dishart's face." "i'm a' shaking! and small wonder, marget, when i've heard this minute that mr. dishart's been struck by lichtning while looking for rob dow. he's no killed, but, woe's me! they say he'll never preach again." "nothing o' the kind. it was rob that the lichtning struck dead in the doctor's machine. the horse wasna touched; it came tearing down the roods wi' the corpse sitting in the machine like a living man." "what are you listening to, woman? is it to a dog barking? i've heard it this while, but it's far awa." in the manse kitchen: "jean, did you not hear me ring? i want you to--why are you staring out at the window, jean?" "i--i was just hearkening to the ten o'clock bell, ma'am." "i never saw you doing nothing before! put the heater in the fire, jean. i want to iron the minister's neckcloths. the prayer-meeting is long in coming out, is it not?" "the--the drouth, ma'am, has been so cruel hard." "and, to my shame, i am so comfortable that i almost forgot how others are suffering. but my son never forgets, jean. you are not crying, are you?" "no, ma'am." "bring the iron to the parlor, then. and if the minis--why did you start, jean? i only heard a dog barking." "i thocht, ma'am--at first i thocht it was mr. dishart opening the door. ay, it's just a dog; some gypsy dog on the hill, i'm thinking, for sound would carry far the nicht." "even you, jean, are nervous at nights, i see, if there is no man in the house. we shall hear no more distant dogs barking, i warrant, when the minister comes home." "when he comes home, ma'am." on the middle of a hill--a man and a woman: "courage, beloved; we are nearly there." "but, gavin, i cannot see the encampment." "the night is too dark." "but the gypsy fires?" "they are in the toad's-hole." "listen to that dog barking." "there are several dogs at the encampment, babbie." "there is one behind us. see, there it is!" "i have driven it away, dear. you are trembling." "what we are doing frightens me, gavin. it is at your heels again!" "it seems to know you." "oh, gavin, it is lord rintoul's collie snap. it will bite you." "no, i have driven it back again. probably the earl is following us." "gavin, i cannot go on with this." "quicker, babbie." "leave me, dear, and save yourself." "lean on me, babbie." "oh, gavin, is there no way but this?" "no sure way." "even though we are married to-night--" "we shall be maried in five minutes, and then, whatever befall, he cannot have you." "but after?" "i will take you straight to the manse, to my mother." "were it not for that dog, i should think we were alone on the hill." "but we are not. see, there are the gypsy fires." on the west side of the hill--two figures: "tammas, tammas whamond, i've lost you. should we gang to the manse down the fields?" "wheesht, hendry!" "what are you listening for?" "i heard a dog barking." "only a gypsy dog, tammas, barking at the coming storm." "the gypsy dogs are all tied up, and this one's atween us and the toad's-hole. what was that?" "it was nothing but the rubbing of the branches in the cemetery on ane another. it's said, trees mak' that fearsome sound when they're terrified." "it was a dog barking at somebody that's stoning it. i ken that sound, hendry munn." "may i die the death, tammas whamond, if a great drap o' rain didna strike me the now, and i swear it was warm. i'm for running hame." "i'm for seeing who drove awa that dog. come back wi' me, hendry." "i winna. there's no a soul on the hill but you and me and thae daffing and drinking gypsies. how do you no answer me, tammas? hie, tammas whamond, whaur are you? he's gone! ay, then i'll mak' tracks hame." in the broom--a dogcart: "do you see nothing yet, mckenzie?" "scarce the broom at my knees, rintoul. there is not a light on the hill." "mckenzie, can that schoolmaster have deceived us?" "it is probable." "urge on the horse, however. there is a road through the broom, i know. have we stuck again?" "rintoul, she is not here. i promised to help you to bring her back to the spittal before this escapade became known, but we have failed to find her. if she is to be saved, it must be by herself. i daresay she has returned already. let me turn the horse's head. there is a storm brewing." "i will search this gypsy encampment first, if it is on the hill. hark! that was a dog's bark. yes, it is snap; but he would not bark at nothing. why do you look behind you so often, mczenzie?" "for some time, rintoul, it has seemed to me that we are being followed. listen!" "i hear nothing. at last, mckenzie, at last, we are out of the broom." "and as i live, rintoul, i see the gypsy lights!" it might have been a lantern that was flashed across the hill. then all that part of the world went suddenly on fire. everything was horribly distinct in that white light. the firs of caddam were so near that it seemed to have arrested them in a silent march upon the hill. the grass would not hide a pebble. the ground was scored with shadows of men and things. twice the light flickered and recovered itself. a red serpent shot across it, and then again black night fell. the hill had been illumined thus for nearly half a minute. during that time not even a dog stirred. the shadows of human beings lay on the ground as motionless as logs. what had been revealed seemed less a gypsy marriage than a picture. or was it that during the ceremony every person on the hill had been turned into stone? the gypsy king, with his arm upraised, had not had time to let it fall. the men and women behind him had their mouths open, as if struck when on the point of calling out. lord rintoul had risen in the dogcart and was leaning forward. one of mckenzie's feet was on the shaft. the man crouching in the dogcart's wake had flung up his hands to protect his face. the precentor, his neck outstretched, had a hand on each knee. all eyes were fixed, as in the death glare, on gavin and babbie, who stood before the king, their hands clasped over the tongs. fear was petrified on the woman's face, determination on the man's. they were all released by the crack of the thunder, but for another moment none could have swaggered. "that was lord rintoul in the dogcart," babbie whispered, drawing in her breath. "yes, dear," gavin answered resolutely, "and now is the time for me to have my first and last talk with him. remain here, babbie. do not move till i come back." "but, gavin, he has seen. i fear him still." "he cannot touch you now, babbie. you are my wife." in the vivid light gavin had thought the dogcart much nearer than it was. he called lord rintoul's name, but got no answer. there were shouts behind, gypsies running from the coming rain, dogs whining, but silence in front. the minister moved on some paces. away to the left he heard voices-- "who was the man, mckenzie?" "my lord, i have lost sight of you. this is not the way to the camp." "tell me, mckenzie, that you did not see what i saw." "rintoul, i beseech you to turn back. we are too late." "we are not too late." gavin broke through the darkness between them and him, but they were gone. he called to them, and stopped to listen to their feet. "is that you, gavin?" babbie asked just then. for reply, the man who had crept up to her clapped his hand upon her mouth. only the beginning of a scream escaped from her. a strong arm drove her quickly southward. gavin heard her cry, and ran back to the encampment. babbie was gone. none of the gypsies had seen her since the darkness cause back. he rushed hither and thither with a torch that only showed his distracted face to others. he flung up his arms in appeal for another moment of light; then he heard babbie scream again, and this time it was from a distance. he dashed after her; he heard a trap speeding down the green sward through the broom. lord rintoul had kidnapped babbie. gavin had no other thought as he ran after the dogcart from which the cry had come. the earl's dog followed him, snapping at his heels. the rain began. chapter xxxiv. the great rain. gavin passed on through windyghoul, thinking in his frenzy that he still heard the trap. in a rain that came down like iron rods every other sound was beaten dead. he slipped, and before he could regain his feet the dog bit him. to protect himself from dikes and trees and other horrors of the darkness he held his arm before him, but soon it was driven to his side. wet whips cut his brow so that he had to protect it with his hands, until it had to bear the lash again, for they would not. now he had forced up his knees, and would have succumbed but for a dread of being pinned to the earth. this fight between the man and the rain went on all night, and long before it ended the man was past the power of thinking. in the ringing of the ten o'clock bell gavin had lived the seventh part of a man's natural life. only action was required of him. that accomplished, his mind had begun to work again, when suddenly the loss of babbie stopped it, as we may put out a fire with a great coal. the last thing he had reflected about was a dogcart in motion, and, consequently, this idea clung to him. his church, his mother, were lost knowledge of, but still he seemed to hear the trap in front. the rain increased in violence, appalling even those who heard it from under cover. however rain may storm, though it be an army of archers battering roofs and windows, it is only terrifying when the noise swells every instant. in those hours of darkness it again and again grew in force and doubled its fury, and was louder, louder, and louder, until its next attack was to be more than men and women could listen to. they held each other's hands and stood waiting. then abruptly it abated, and people could speak. i believe a rain that became heavier every second for ten minutes would drive many listeners mad. gavin was in it on a night that tried us repeatedly for quite half that time. by and by even the vision of babbie in the dogcart was blotted out. if nothing had taken its place, he would not have gone on probably; and had he turned back objectless, his strength would have succumbed to the rain. now he saw babbie and rintoul being married by a minister who was himself, and there was a fair company looking on, and always when he was on the point of shouting to himself, whom he could see clearly, that this woman was already married, the rain obscured his words and the light went out. presently the ceremony began again, always to stop at the same point. he saw it in the lightning-flash that had startled the hill. it gave him courage to fight his way onward, because he thought he must be heard if he could draw nearer to the company. a regiment of cavalry began to trouble him. he heard it advancing from the spittal, but was not dismayed, for it was, as yet, far distant. the horsemen came thundering on, filling the whole glen of quharity. now he knew that they had been sent out to ride him down. he paused in dread, until they had swept past him. they came back to look for him, riding more furiously than ever, and always missed him, yet his fears of the next time were not lessened. they were only the rain. all through the night the dog followed him. he would forget it for a time, and then it would be so close that he could see it dimly. he never heard it bark, but it snapped at him, and a grin had become the expression of its face. he stoned it, he even flung himself at it, he addressed it in caressing tones, and always with the result that it disappeared, to come back presently. he found himself walking in a lake, and now even the instinct of self-preservation must have been flickering, for he waded on, rejoicing merely in getting rid of the dog. something in the water rose and struck him. instead of stupefying him, the blow brought him to his senses, and he struggled for his life. the ground slipped beneath his feet many times, but at last he was out of the water. that he was out in a flood he did not realize; yet he now acted like one in full possession of his faculties. when his feet sank in water, he drew back; and many times he sought shelter behind banks and rocks, first testing their firmness with his hands. once a torrent of stones, earth, and heather carried him down a hillside until he struck against a tree. he twined his arms round it, and had just done so when it fell with him. after that, when he touched trees growing in water, he fled from them, thus probably saving himself from death. what he heard now might have been the roll and crack of the thunder. it sounded in his ear like nothing else. but it was really something that swept down the hill in roaring spouts of water, and it passed on both sides of him so that at one moment, had he paused, it would have crashed into him, and at another he was only saved by stopping. he felt that the struggle in the dark was to go on till the crack of doom. then he cast himself upon the ground. it moved beneath him like some great animal, and he rose and stole away from it. several times did this happen. the stones against which his feet struck seemed to acquire life from his touch. so strong had he become, or so weak all other things, that whatever clump he laid hands on by which to pull himself out of the water was at once rooted up. the daylight would not come. he longed passionately for it. he tried to remember what it was like, and could not; he had been blind so long. it was away in front somewhere, and he was struggling to overtake it. he expected to see it from a dark place, when he would rush forward to bathe his arms in it, and then the elements that were searching the world for him would see him and he would perish. but death did not seem too great a penalty to pay for light. and at last day did come back, gray and drear. he saw suddenly once more. i think he must have been wandering the glen with his eyes shut, as one does shut them involuntarily against the hidden dangers of black night. how different was daylight from what he had expected! he looked, and then shut his dazed eyes again, for the darkness was less horrible than the day. had he indeed seen, or only dreamed that he saw? once more he looked to see what the world was like; and the sight that met his eyes was so mournful that he who had fought through the long night now sank hopeless and helpless among the heather. the dog was not far away, and it, too, lost heart. gavin held out his hand, and snap crept timidly toward him. he unloosened his coat, and the dog nestled against him, cowed and shivering, hiding its head from the day, thus they lay, and the rain beat upon them. chapter xxxv. the glen at break of day. my first intimation that the burns were in flood came from waster lunny, close on the strike of ten o'clock. this was some minutes before they had any rain in thrums. i was in the school-house, now piecing together the puzzle lord rintoul had left with me, and anon starting upright as mckenzie's hand seemed to tighten on my arm. waster lunny had been whistling to me (with his fingers in his mouth) for some time before i heard him and hurried out. i was surprised and pleased, knowing no better, to be met on the threshold by a whisk of rain. the night was not then so dark but that when i reached the quharity i could see the farmer take shape on the other side of it. he wanted me to exult with him, i thought, in the end of the drought, and i shouted that i would fling him the stilts. "it's yoursel' that wants them," he answered excitedly, "if you're fleid to be left alone in the school-house the nicht. do you hear me, dominie? there has been frichtsome rain among the hills, and the bog burn is coming down like a sea. it has carried awa the miller's brig, and the steading o' muckle pirley is standing three feet in water." "you're dreaming, man," i roared back, but beside his news he held my doubts of no account. "the retery's in flood," he went on, "and running wild through hazel wood; t'nowdunnie's tattie field's out o' sicht, and at the kirkton they're fleid they've lost twa kye." "there has been no rain here," i stammered, incredulously. "it's coming now." he replied. "and listen: the story's out that the backbone has fallen into the loch. you had better cross, dominie, and thole out the nicht wi' us." the backbone was a piece of mountain-side overhanging a loch among the hills, and legend said that it would one day fall forward and squirt all the water into the glen. something of the kind had happened, but i did not believe it then; with little wit i pointed to the shallow quharity. "it may come down at any minute," the farmer answered, "and syne, mind you, you'll be five miles frae waster lunny, for there'll be no crossing but by the brig o' march. if you winna come, i maun awa back. i mauna bide langer on the wrang side o' the moss ditch, though it has been as dry this month back as a tabbit's roady. but if you--" his voice changed. "god's sake, man," he cried, "you're ower late. look at that! dinna look--run, run!" if i had not run before he bade me, i might never have run again on earth. i had seen a great shadowy yellow river come riding down the quharity. i sprang from it for my life; and when next i looked behind, it was upon a turbulent loch, the further bank lost in darkness. i was about to shout to waster lunny, when a monster rose in the torrent between me and the spot where he had stood. it frightened me to silence until it fell, when i knew it was but a tree that had been flung on end by the flood. for a time there was no answer to my cries, and i thought the farmer had been swept away. then i heard his whistle, and back i ran recklessly through the thickening darkness to the school-house. when i saw the tree rise, i had been on ground hardly wet as yet with the rain; but by the time waster lunny sent that reassuring whistle to me i was ankle-deep in water, and the rain was coming down like hail. i saw no lightning. for the rest of the night i was only out once, when i succeeded in reaching the hen-house and brought all my fowls safely to the kitchen, except a hen which would not rise off her young. between us we had the kitchen floor, a pool of water; and the rain had put out my fires already, as effectually as if it had been an overturned broth-pot. that i never took off my clothes that night i need not say, though of what was happening in the glen i could only guess. a flutter against my window now and again, when the rain had abated, told me of another bird that had flown there to die; and with waster lunny, i kept up communication by waving a light, to which he replied in a similar manner. before morning, however, he ceased to answer my signals, and i feared some catastrophe had occurred at the farm. as it turned out, the family was fighting with the flood for the year's shearing of wool, half of which eventually went down the waters, with the wool-shed on top of it. the school-house stands too high to fear any flood, but there were moments when i thought the rain would master it. not only the windows and the roof were rattling then, but all the walls, and i was like one in a great drum. when the rain was doing its utmost, i heard no other sound; but when the lull came, there was the wash of a heavy river, or a crack as of artillery that told of landslips, or the plaintive cry of the peesweep as it rose in the air, trying to entice the waters away from its nest. it was a dreary scene that met my gaze at break of day. already the quharity had risen six feet, and in many parts of the glen it was two hundred yards wide. waster lunny's corn-field looked like a bog grown over with rushes, and what had been his turnips had become a lake with small islands in it. no dike stood whole except one that the farmer, unaided, had built in a straight line from the road to the top of mount bare, and my own, the further end of which dipped in water. of the plot of firs planted fifty years earlier to help on waster lunny's crops, only a triangle had withstood the night. even with the aid of my field-glass i could not estimate the damage on more distant farms, for the rain, though now thin and soft, as it continued for six days, was still heavy and of a brown color. after breakfast--which was interrupted by my bantam cock's twice spilling my milk--saw waster lunny and his son, matthew, running towards the shepherd's house with ropes in their hands. the house, i thought, must be in the midst beyond; and then i sickened, knowing all at once that it should be on this side of the mist. when i had nerve to look again, i saw that though the roof had fallen in, the shepherd was astride one of the walls, from which he was dragged presently through the water by the help of the ropes. i remember noticing that he returned to his house with the rope still about him. and concluded that he had gone back to save some of his furniture. i was wrong, however. there was too much to be done at the farm to allow this, but waster lunny had consented to duncan's forcing his way back to the shieling to stop the clock. to both men it seemed horrible to let a clock go on ticking in a deserted house. having seen this rescue accomplished, i was letting my glass roam in the opposite direction, when one of its shakes brought into view something on my own side of the river. i looked at it long, and saw it move slightly. was it a human being? no, it was a dog. no, it was a dog and something else. i hurried out to see more clearly, and after a first glance the glass shook so in my hands that i had to rest it on the dike. for a full minute, i daresay, did i look through the glass without blinking, and then i needed to look no more, that black patch was, indeed, gavin. he lay quite near the school-house, but i had to make a circuit of half a mile to reach him. it was pitiful to see the dog doing its best to come to me, and falling every few steps. the poor brute was discolored almost beyond recognition; and when at last it reached me, it lay down at my feet and licked them. i stepped over it and ran on recklessly to gavin. at first i thought he was dead. if tears rolled down my cheeks, they were not for him. i was no strong man even in those days, but i carried him to the school-house, the dog crawling after us. gavin i put upon my bed, and i lay down beside him, holding him close to me, that some of the heat of my body might be taken in by his. when he was able to look at me, however, it was not with understanding, and in vain did my anxiety press him with questions. only now and again would some word in my speech strike upon his brain and produce at least an echo. to "did you meet lord rintoul's dogcart?" he sat up, saying quickly: "listen, the dogcart!" "egyptian" was not that forenoon among the words he knew, and i did not think of mentioning "hill." at "rain" he shivered; but "spittal" was what told me most. "he has taken her back," he replied at once, from which i learned that gavin now knew as much of babbie as i did. i made him as comfortable as possible, and despairing of learning anything from him in his present state, i let him sleep. then i went out into the rain, very anxious, and dreading what he might have to tell me when he woke. i waded and jumped my way as near to the farm as i dared go, and waster lunny, seeing me, came to the water's edge. at this part the breadth of the flood was not forty yards, yet for a time our voices could no more cross its roar than one may send a snowball through a stone wall. i know not whether the river then quieted for a space, or if it was only that the ears grow used to dins as the eyes distinguish the objects in a room that is at first black to them; but after a little we were able to shout our remarks across, much as boys fling pebbles, many to fall into the water, but one occasionally to reach the other side. waster lunny would have talked of the flood, but i had not come here for that. "how were you home so early from the prayer-meeting last night?" i bawled. "no meeting ... i came straucht hame ... but terrible stories ... mr. dishart," was all i caught after waster lunny had flung his words across a dozen times. i could not decide whether it would be wise to tell him that gavin was in the school-house, and while i hesitated he continued to shout: "some woman ... the session ... lang tammas ... god forbid ... maun back to the farm ... byre running like a mill-dam." he signed to me that he must be off, but my signals delayed him, and after much trouble he got my question, "any news about lord rintoul?" my curiosity about the earl must have surprised him, but he answered: "marriage is to be the day ... cannon." i signed that i did not grasp his meaning. "a cannon is to be fired as soon as they're man and wife," he bellowed. "we'll hear it." with that we parted. on my way home, i remember, i stepped on a brood of drowned partridge. i was only out half an hour, but i had to wring my clothes as if they were fresh from the tub. the day wore on, and i did not disturb the sleeper. a dozen times, i suppose, i had to relight my fire of wet peats and roots; but i had plenty of time to stare out at the window, plenty of time to think. probably gavin's life depended on his sleeping, but that was not what kept my hands off him. knowing so little of what had happened in thrums since i left it, i was forced to guess, and my conclusion was that the earl had gone off with his own, and that gavin in a frenzy had followed them. my wisest course, i thought, was to let him sleep until i heard the cannon, when his struggle for a wife must end. fifty times at least did i stand regarding him as he slept; and if i did not pity his plight sufficiently, you know the reason. what were margaret's sufferings at this moment? was she wringing her hands for her son lost in the flood, her son in disgrace with the congregation? by one o'clock no cannon had sounded, and my suspense had become intolerable. i shook gavin awake, and even as i shook him demanded a knowledge of all that had happened since we parted at nanny's gate. "how long ago is that?" he asked, with bewilderment. "it was last night," i answered. "this morning i found you senseless on the hillside, and brought you here, to the glen quharity school-house. that dog was with you." he looked at the dog, but i kept my eyes on him, and i saw intelligence creep back, like a blush, into his face. "now i remember," he said, shuddering. "you have proved yourself my friend, sir, twice in the four and twenty hours." "only once, i fear," i replied gloomily. "i was no friend when i sent you to the earl's bride last night." "you know who she is?" he cried, clutching me, and finding it agony to move his limbs. "i know now," i said, and had to tell him how i knew before he would answer another question. then i became listener, and you who read know to what alarming story. "and all that time," i cried reproachfully, when he had done, "you gave your mother not a thought." "not a thought," he answered; and i saw that he pronounced a harsher sentence on himself than could have come from me. "all that time!" he repeated, after a moment. "it was only a few minutes, while the ten o'clock bell was ringing." "only a few minutes," i said, "but they changed the channel of the quharity, and perhaps they have done not less to you." "that may be," he answered gravely, "but it is of the present i must think just now. mr. ogilvy, what assurance have i, while lying here helpless, that the marriage at the spittal is not going on?" "none, i hope," i said to myself, and listened longingly for the cannon. but to him i only pointed out that no woman need go through a form of marriage against her will. "rintoul carried her off with no possible purport," he said, "but to set my marriage at defiance, and she has had a conviction always that to marry me would be to ruin me. it was only in the shiver lord rintoul's voice in the darkness sent through her that she yielded to my wishes. if she thought that marriage last night could be annulled by another to-day, she would consent to the second, i believe, to save me from the effects of the first. you are incredulous, sir; but you do not know of what sacrifices love is capable." something of that i knew, but i did not tell him. i had seen from his manner rather than his words that he doubted the validity of the gypsy marriage, which the king had only consented to celebrate because babbie was herself an egyptian. the ceremony had been interrupted in the middle. "it was no marriage," i said, with a confidence i was far from feeling. "in the sight of god," he replied excitedly, "we took each other for man and wife." i had to hold him down in bed. "you are too weak to stand, man," i said, "and yet you think you could start off this minute for the spittal." "i must go," he cried. "she is my wife. that impious marriage may have taken place already." "oh, that it had!" was my prayer. "it has not," i said to him. "a cannon is to be fired immediately after the ceremony, and all the glen will hear it." i spoke on the impulse, thinking to allay his desire to be off; but he said, "then i may yet be in time." somewhat cruelly i let him rise, that he might realize his weakness. every bone in him cried out at his first step, and he sank into a chair. "you will go to the spittal for me?" he implored. "i will not," i told him. "you are asking me to fling away my life." to prove my words i opened the door, and he saw what the flood was doing. nevertheless, he rose and tottered several times across the room, trying to revive his strength. though every bit of him was aching, i saw that he would make the attempt. "listen to me," i said. "lord rintoul can maintain with some reason that it was you rather than he who abducted babbie. nevertheless, there will not, i am convinced, be any marriage at the spittal to-day, when he carried her off from the toad's-hole, he acted under impulses not dissimilar to those that took you to it. then, i doubt not, he thought possession was all the law, but that scene on the hill has staggered him by this morning. even though she thinks to save you by marrying him, he will defer his wedding until he learns the import of yours." i did not believe in my own reasoning, but i would have said anything to detain him until that cannon was fired. he seemed to read my purpose, for he pushed my arguments from him with his hands, and continued to walk painfully to and fro. "to defer the wedding," he said, "would be to tell all his friends of her gypsy origin, and of me. he will risk much to avoid that." "in any case," i answered, "you must now give some thought to those you have forgotten, your mother and your church." "that must come afterwards," he said firmly. "my first duty is to my wife." the door swung to sharply just then, and he started. he thought it was the cannon. "i wish to god it had been!" i cried, interpreting his thoughts. "why do you wish me ill?" he asked. "mr. dishart," i said solemnly, rising and facing him, and disregarding his question, "if that woman is to be your wife, it will be at a cost you cannot estimate till you return to thrums. do you think that if your congregation knew of this gypsy marriage they would have you for their minister for another day? do you enjoy the prospect of taking one who might be an earl's wife into poverty--ay, and disgraceful poverty? do you know your mother so little as to think she could survive your shame? let me warn you, sir, of what i see. i see another minister in the auld licht kirk, i see you and your wife stoned through our wynds, stoned from thrums, as malefactors have--been chased out of it ere now; and as certainly as i see these things i see a hearse standing at the manse door, and stern men denying a son's right to help to carry his mother's coffin to it. go your way, sir; but first count the cost." his face quivered before these blows, but all he said was, "i must dree my dreed." "god is merciful," i went on, "and these things need not be. he is more merciful to you, sir, than to some, for the storm that he sent to save you is ruining them. and yet the farmers are to-day thanking him for every pound of wool, every blade of corn he has left them, while you turn from him because he would save you, not in your way, but in his. it was his hand that stayed your marriage. he meant babbie for the earl; and if it is on her part a loveless match, she only suffers for her own sins. of that scene on the hill no one in. thrums, or in the glen, need ever know. rintoul will see to it that the gypsies vanish from these parts forever, and you may be sure the spittal will soon be shut up. he and mckenzie have as much reason as yourself to be silent. you, sir, must go back to your congregation, who have heard as yet only vague rumors that your presence will dispel. even your mother will remain ignorant of what has happened. your absence from the prayer-meeting you can leave to me to explain." he was so silent that i thought him mine, but his first words undeceived me. "i thought i had nowhere so keen a friend," he said; "but, mr. ogilvy, it is devil's work you are pleading. am i to return to my people to act a living lie before them to the end of my days? do you really think that god devastated a glen to give me a chance of becoming a villain? no, sir, i am in his hands, and i will do what i think right." "you will be dishonored," i said, "in the sight of god and man." "not in god's sight," he replied. "it was a sinless marriage, mr. ogilvy, and i do not regret it. god ordained that she and i should love each other, and he put it into my power to save her from that man. i took her as my wife before him, and in his eyes i am her husband. knowing that, sir, how could i return to thrums without her?" i had no answer ready for him. i knew that in my grief for margaret i had been advocating an unworthy course, but i would not say so. i went gloomily to the door, and there, presently, his hand fell on my shoulder. "your advice came too late, at any rate," he said. "you forget that the precentor was on the hill and saw everything." it was he who had forgotten to tell me this, and to me it was the most direful news of all. "my god!" i cried. "he will have gone to your mother and told her." and straightway i began to lace my boots. "where are you going?" he asked, staring at me. "to thrums," i answered harshly. "you said that to venture out into the glen was to court death," he reminded me. "what of that?" i said, and hastily put on my coat. "mr. ogilvy," he cried, "i will not allow you to do this for me." "for you?" i said bitterly. "it is not for you." i would have gone at once, but he got in front of me, asking, "did you ever know my mother?" "long ago," i answered shortly, and he said no more, thinking, i suppose, that he knew all. he limped to the door with me, and i had only advanced a few steps when i understood better than before what were the dangers i was to venture into. since i spoke to waster lunny the river had risen several feet, and even the hillocks in his turnip-field were now submerged. the mist was creeping down the hills. but what warned me most sharply that the flood was not satisfied yet was the top of the school-house dike; it was lined with field-mice. i turned back, and gavin, mistaking my meaning, said i did wisely. "i have not changed my mind," i told him, and then had some difficulty in continuing. "i expect," i said, "to reach thrums safely, even though i should be caught in the mist, but i shall have to go round by the kelpie brig in order to get across the river, and it is possible that--that something may befall me." i have all my life been something of a coward, and my voice shook when i said this, so that gavin again entreated me to remain at the school-house, saying that if i did not he would accompany me. "and so increase my danger tenfold?" i pointed out. "no, no, mr. dishart, i go alone; and if i can do nothing with the congregation, i can at least send your mother word that you still live. but if anything should happen to me, i want you--" but i could not say what i had come back to say. i had meant to ask him, in the event of my death, to take a hundred pounds which were the savings of my life; but now i saw that this might lead to margaret's hearing of me, and so i stayed my words. it was bitter to me this, and yet, after all, a little thing when put beside the rest. "good-by, mr. dishart," i said abruptly. i then looked at my desk, which contained some trifles that were once margaret's. "should anything happen to me," i said, "i want that old desk to be destroyed unopened." "mr. ogilvy," he answered gently, "you are venturing this because you loved my mother. if anything does befall you, be assured that i will tell her what you attempted for her sake." i believe he thought it was to make some such request that i had turned back. "you must tell her nothing about me," i exclaimed, in consternation. "swear that my name will never cross your lips before her. no, that is not enough. you must forget me utterly, whether i live or die, lest some time you should think of me and she should read your thoughts. swear, man!" "must this be?" he said, gazing at me. "yes," i answered more calmly, "it must be. for nearly a score of years i have been blotted out of your mother's life, and since she came to thrums my one care has been to keep my existence from her. i have changed my burying-ground even from thrums to the glen, lest i should die before her, and she, seeing the hearse go by the tenements, might ask, 'whose funeral is this?'" in my anxiety to warn him, i had said too much. his face grew haggard, and there was fear to speak on it; and i saw, i knew, that some damnable suspicion of margaret--- "she was my wife!" i cried sharply. "we were married by the minister of harvie. you are my son." chapter xxxvi. story of the dominie. when i spoke next, i was back in the school-house, sitting there with my bonnet on my head, gavin looking at me. we had forgotten the cannon at last. in that chair i had anticipated this scene more than once of late. i had seen that a time might come when gavin would have to be told all, and i had even said the words aloud, as if he were indeed opposite me. so now i was only repeating the tale, and i could tell it without emotion, because it was nigh nineteen years old; and i did not look at gavin, for i knew that his manner of taking it could bring no change to me. "did you never ask your mother," i said, addressing the fire rather than him, "why you were called gavin?" "yes," he answered, "it was because she thought gavin a prettier name than adam." "no," i said slowly, "it was because gavin is my name. you were called after your father. do you not remember my taking you one day to the shore at harvie to see the fishermen carried to their boats upon their wives' backs, that they might start dry on their journey?" "no," he had to reply. "i remember the women carrying the men through the water to the boats, but i thought it was my father who--i mean---" "i know whom you mean," i said. "that was our last day together, but you were not three years old. yet you remembered me when you came to thrums. you shake your head, but it is true. between the diets of worship that first sabbath i was introduced to you, and you must have had some shadowy recollection of my face, for you asked, 'surely i saw you in church in the forenoon, mr. ogilvy?' i said 'yes,' but i had not been in the church in the forenoon. you have forgotten even that, and yet i treasured it." i could hear that he was growing impatient, though so far he had been more indulgent than i had any right to expect. "it can all be put into a sentence," i said calmly. "margaret married adam dishart, and afterwards, believing herself a widow, she married me. you were born, and then adam dishart came back." that is my whole story, and here was i telling it to my son, and not a tear between us. it ended abruptly, and i fell to mending the fire. "when i knew your mother first," i went on, after gavin had said some boyish things that were of no avail to me, "i did not think to end my days as a dominie. i was a student at aberdeen, with the ministry in my eye, and sometimes on saturdays i walked forty miles to harvie to go to church with her. she had another lover, adam dishart, a sailor turned fisherman; and while i lingered at corners, wondering if i could dare to meet her and her mother on their way to church, he would walk past with them. he was accompanied always by a lanky black dog, which he had brought from a foreign country. he never signed for any ship without first getting permission to take it with him, and in harvie they said it did not know the language of the native dogs. i have never known a man and dog so attached to each other." "i remember that black dog," gavin said. "i have spoken of it to my mother, and she shuddered, as if it had once bitten her." "while adam strutted by with them," i continued. "i would hang back, raging at his assurance or my own timidity; but i lost my next chance in the same way. in margaret's presence something came over me, a kind of dryness in the throat, that made me dumb. i have known divinity students stricken in the same way, just as they were giving out their first text. it is no aid in getting a kirk or wooing a woman. "if any one in harvie recalls me now, it is as a hobbledehoy who strode along the cliffs, shouting homer at the sea-mews. with all my learning, i, who gave margaret the name of lalage, understood women less than any fisherman who bandied words with them across a boat. i remember a yule night when both adam and i were at her mother's cottage, and, as we were leaving, he had the audacity to kiss margaret. she ran out of the room, and adam swaggered off, and when i recovered from my horror, i apologized for what he had done. i shall never forget how her mother looked at me, and said, 'ay, gavin, i see they dinna teach everything at aberdeen.' you will not believe it, but i walked away doubting her meaning. i thought more of scholarship then than i do now. adam dishart taught me its proper place. "well, that is the dull man i was; and yet, though adam was always saying and doing the things i was making up my mind to say and do, i think margaret cared more for me. nevertheless, there was something about him that all women seemed to find lovable, a dash that made them send him away and then well-nigh run after him. at any rate, i could have got her after her mother's death if i had been half a man. but i went back to aberdeen to write a poem about her, and while i was at it adam married her." i opened my desk and took from it a yellow manuscript. "here," i said, "is the poem. you see, i never finished it." i was fingering the thing grimly when gavin's eye fell on something else in the desk. it was an ungainly clasp-knife, as rusty as if it had spent a winter beneath a hedge. "i seem to remember that knife," he said. "yes," i answered, "you should remember it. well, after three months adam tired of his wife." i stopped again. this was a story in which only the pauses were eloquent. "perhaps i have no right to say he tired of her. one day, however, he sauntered away from harvie whistling, his dog at his heels as ever, and was not seen again for nearly six years. when i heard of his disappearance i packed my books in that kist and went to harvie, where i opened a school. you see, every one but margaret believed that adam had fallen over the cliffs and been drowned." "but the dog?" said gavin. "we were all sure that, if he had fallen over, it had jumped after him. the fisher-folk said that he could have left his shadow behind as easily as it. yet margaret thought for long that he had tired of harvie merely and gone back to sea, and not until two years had passed would she marry me. we lived in adam's house. it was so near the little school that when i opened the window in summer-time she could hear the drone of our voices. during the weeks before you were born i kept that window open all day long, and often i went to it and waved my hand to her. "sometimes, when she was washing or baking, i brought you to the school. the only quarrel she and i ever had was about my teaching you the lord's prayer in greek as soon as you could say father and mother. it was to be a surprise for her on your second birthday. on that day, while she was ironing, you took hold of her gown to steady yourself, and began, 'iiater haemon ho en tois ohuranois,' and to me, behind the door, it was music. but at agiasthaeto, of which you made two syllables, you cried, and margaret snatched you up, thinking this was some new ailment. after i had explained to her that it was the lord's prayer in greek, she would let me take you to the school-house no more. "not much longer could i have taken you in any case, for already we are at the day when adam dishart came back. it was the th of september, and all the week most of the women in harvie had been setting off at dawn to the harvest fields and straggling home at nights, merry and with yellow corn in their hair. i had sat on in the school-house that day after my pupils were gone. i still meant to be a minister, and i was studying hebrew, and so absorbed in my book that as the daylight went, i followed it step by step as far as my window, and there i read, without knowing, until i chanced to look up, that i had left my desk. i have not opened that book since. "from the window i saw you on the waste ground that separated the school from our home. you were coming to me on your hands and feet, and stopping now and again to look back at your mother, who was at the door, laughing and shaking her fist at you. i beckoned to you, and took the book back to my desk to lock it up. while my head was inside the desk i heard the school-house door pushed open, and thinking it was you i smiled, without looking up. then something touched my hand, and i still thought it was you; but i looked down, and i saw adam dishart's black dog. "i did not move. it looked up at me and wagged its tail. then it drew back--i suppose because i had no words for it. i watched it run half-round the room and stop and look at me again. then it slunk out. "all that time one of my hands had been holding the desk open. now the lid fell. i put on my bonnet and went to the door. you were only a few yards away, with flowers in your fist. margaret was laughing still. i walked round the school and there was no dog visible. margaret nodded to me, meaning that i should bring you home. you thrust the flowers into my hand, but they fell. i stood there, dazed. "i think i walked with you some way across the waste ground. then i dropped your hand and strode back to the school. i went down on my knees, looking for marks of a dog's paws, and i found them. "when i came out again your mother was no longer at our door, and you were crying because i had left you. i passed you and walked straight to the house. margaret was skinning rushes for wicks. there must have been fear in my face, for as soon as she saw it she ran to the door to see if you were still alive. she brought you in with her, and so had strength to cry, 'what is it? speak!' "'come away,' i said, 'come away,' and i was drawing her to the door, but she pressed me into a chair. i was up again at once. "'margaret,' i said, 'ask no questions. put on your bonnet, give me the boy, and let us away.' "i could not take my eyes off the door, and she was walking to it to look out when i barred the way with my arm. "'what have you seen?' she cried; and then, as i only pointed to her bonnet, she turned to you, and you said, 'was it the black dog, father?' "gavin, then she knew; and i stood helpless and watched my wife grow old. in that moment she lost the sprightliness i loved the more because i had none of it myself, and the bloom went from her face never to return. "'he has come back,' she said. "i told her what i had seen, and while i spoke she put on her bonnet, and i exulted, thinking--and then she took off her bonnet, and i knew she would not go away with me. "'margaret,' i cried, 'i am that bairn's father.' "'adam's my man,' she said, and at that i gave her a look for which god might have struck me dead. but instead of blaming me she put her arms round my neck. "after that we said very little. we sat at opposite sides of the fire, waiting for him, and you played on the floor. the harvesters trooped by, and there was a fiddle; and when it stopped, long stillness, and then a step. it was not adam. you fell asleep, and we could hear nothing but the sea. there was a harvest moon. "once a dog ran past the door, and we both rose. margaret pressed her hands on her breast. sometimes she looked furtively at me, and i knew her thoughts. to me it was only misery that had come, but to her it was shame, so that when you woke and climbed into her lap she shivered at your touch. i could not look at her after that, for there was a horror of me growing in her face. "ten o'clock struck, and then again there was no sound but the sea pouring itself out on the beach. it was long after this, when to me there was still no other sound, that margaret screamed, and you hid behind her. then i heard it. "'gavin,' margaret said to me, 'be a good man all your life.' "it was louder now, and then it stopped. above the wash of the sea we heard another sound--a sharp tap, tap. you said, 'i know what sound that is; it's a man knocking the ashes out of his pipe against his boot.' "then the dog pushed the door off the latch, and adam lurched in. he was not drunk, but he brought the smell of drink into the room with him. he was grinning like one bringing rare news, and before she could shrink back or i could strike him he had margaret in his arms. "'lord, lass,' he said, with many jovial oaths, 'to think i'm back again! there, she's swounded. what folks be women, to be sure.' "'we thought you were dead, adam," she said, coming to. '"bless your blue eyes," he answered gleefully; 'often i says to myself, "meggy will be thinking i'm with the fishes," and then i chuckles.' "'where have you been all this time?' i demanded sternly. "'gavin,' he said effusively, 'your hand. and don't look so feared, man; i bear no malice for what you've done. i heard all about it at the cross anchors.' "'where have you been these five years and a half?' i repeated. "'where have i no been, lad?' he replied. "'at harvie,' i said. "'right you are,' said he good-naturedly. 'meggie, i had no intention of leaving you that day, though i was yawning myself to death in harvie; but i sees a whaler, and i thinks, "that's a tidy boat, and i'm a tidy man, and if they'll take me and the dog, off we go."' "'you never wrote to me,' margaret said." '"i meant to send you some scrapes,' he answered, 'but it wasna till i changed ships that i had the chance, and then i minds, "meggy kens i'm no hand with the pen." but i swear i often thought of you, lass; and look you here, that's better than letters, and so is that, and every penny of it is yours.'" "he flung two bags of gold upon the table, and their chink brought you out from behind your mother. "'hallo!' adam cried. "'he is mine,' i said. 'gavin, come here.' but margaret held you back. "'here's a go,' adam muttered, and scratched his head. then he slapped his thigh. 'gavin,' he said, in his friendliest way, 'we'll toss for him.' "he pulled the knife that is now in my desk from his pocket, spat on it, and flung it up. 'dry, the kid's ours, meggy,' he explained; 'wet, he goes to gavin,' i clinched my fist to---but what was the use? he caught the knife, and showed it to me. "'dry,' he said triumphantly; 'so he is ours, meggy. kiddy, catch the knife. it is yours; and, mind, you have changed dads. and now that we have settled that, gavin, there's my hand again.' "i went away and left them, and i never saw margaret again until the day you brought her to thrums. but i saw you once, a few days after adam came back. i was in the school-house, packing my books, and you were playing on the waste ground. i asked you how your mother was, and you said, 'she's fleid to come to the door till you gang awa, and my father's buying a boat.' "'i'm your father,' i said; but you answered confidently: "'you're no a living man. you're just a man i dreamed about; and i promised my mother no to dream about you again.' "'i am your father,' i repeated. "'my father's awa buying a fishing-boat,' you insisted; 'and when i speir at my mother whaur my first father is, she says i'm havering.' "'gavin ogilvy is your name,' i said. 'no,' you answered, 'i have a new name. my mother telled me my name is aye to be gavin dishart now. she telled me, too, to fling awa this knife my father gave me, and i've flung it awa a lot o' times, but i aye pick it up again.' "'give it to me,' i said, with the wicked thoughts of a fool in my head. "that is how your knife came into my possession. i left harvie that night in the carrier's cart, but i had not the heart to return to college. accident brought me here, and i thought it a fitting place in which to bury myself from margaret." chapter xxxvii second journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours. here was a nauseous draught for me. having finished my tale, i turned to gavin for sympathy; and, behold, he had been listening for the cannon instead of to my final words. so, like an old woman at her hearth, we warm our hands at our sorrows and drop in faggots, and each thinks his own fire a sun, in presence of which all other fires should go out. i was soured to see gavin prove this, and then i could have laughed without mirth, for had not my bitterness proved it too? "and now," i said, rising, "whether margaret is to hold up her head henceforth lies no longer with me, but with you." it was not to that he replied. "you have suffered long, mr. ogilvy," he said. "father," he added, wringing my hand. i called him son; but it was only an exchange of musty words that we had found too late. a father is a poor estate to come into at two and twenty. "i should have been told of this," he said. "your mother did right, sir," i answered slowly, but he shook his head. "i think you have misjudged her," he said. "doubtless while my fa- -, while adam dishart lived, she could only think of you with pain; but after his death--" "after his death," i said quietly, "i was still so horrible to her that she left harvie without letting a soul know whither she was bound. she dreaded my following her." "stranger to me," he said, after a pause, "than even your story is her being able to keep it from me. i believed no thought ever crossed her mind that she did not let me share." "and none, i am sure, ever did," i answered, "save that, and such thoughts as a woman has with god only. it was my lot to bring disgrace on her. she thought it nothing less, and she has hidden it all these years for your sake, until now it is not burdensome. i suppose she feels that god has taken the weight off her. now you are to put a heavier burden in its place." he faced me boldly, and i admire him for it now. "i cannot admit," he said, "that i did wrong in forgetting my mother for that fateful quarter of an hour. babbie and i loved each other, and i was given the opportunity of making her mine or losing her forever. have you forgotten that all this tragedy you have told me of only grew out of your own indecision? i took the chance that you let slip by." "i had not forgotten," i replied. "what else made me tell you last night that babbie was in nanny's house?" "but now you are afraid--now when the deed is done, when for me there can be no turning back. whatever be the issue, i should be a cur to return to thrums without my wife. every minute i feel my strength returning, and before you reach thrums i will have set out to the spittal." there was nothing to say after that. he came with me in the rain as far as the dike, warning me against telling his people what was not true. "my first part," i answered, "will be to send word to your mother that you are in safety. after that i must see whamond. much depends on him." "you will not go to my mother?" "not so long as she has a roof over her head," i said, "but that may not be for long." so, i think, we parted--each soon to forget the other in a woman. but i had not gone far when i heard something that stopped me as sharply as if it had been mckenzie's hand once more on my shoulder. for a second the noise appalled me, and then, before the echo began, i knew it must be the spittal cannon. my only thought was one of thankfulness. now gavin must see the wisdom of my reasoning. i would wait for him until he was able to come with me to thrums. i turned back, and in my haste i ran through water i had gone round before. i was too late. he was gone, and into the rain i shouted his name in vain. that he had started for the spittal there could be no doubt; that he would ever reach it was less certain. the earl's collie was still crouching by the fire, and, thinking it might be a guide to him, i drove the brute to the door, and chased it in the direction he probably had taken. not until it had run from me did i resume my own journey. i do not need to be told that you who read would follow gavin now rather than me; but you must bear with the dominie for a little while yet, as i see no other way of making things clear. in some ways i was not ill-equipped for my attempt. i do not know any one of our hillsides as it is known to the shepherd, to whom every rabbit-hole and glimmer of mica is a landmark; but he, like his flock, has only to cross a dike to find himself in a strange land, while i have been everywhere in the glen. in the foreground the rain slanted, transparent till it reached the ground, where a mist seemed to blow it along as wind ruffles grass. in the distance all was a driving mist. i have been out for perhaps an hour in rains as wetting, and i have watched floods from my window, but never since have i known the fifth part of a season's rainfall in eighteen hours; and if there should be the like here again, we shall be found better prepared for it. men have been lost in the glen in mists so thick that they could plunge their fingers out of sight in it as into a meal girnel; but this mist never came within twenty yards of me. i was surrounded by it, however, as if i was in a round tent; and out of this tent i could not walk, for it advanced with me. on the other side of this screen were horrible noises, at whose cause i could only guess, save now and again when a tongue of water was shot at my feet, or great stones came crashing through the canvas of mist. then i ran wherever safety prompted, and thus tangled my bearings until i was like that one in the child's game who is blindfolded and turned round three times that he may not know east from west. once i stumbled over a dead sheep and a living lamb; and in a clump of trees which puzzled me--for they were where i thought no trees should be--a wood-pigeon flew to me, but struck my breast with such force that i picked it up dead. i saw no other living thing, though half a dozen times i must have passed within cry of farmhouses. at one time i was in a cornfield, where i had to lift my hands to keep them out of water, and a dread filled me that i had wandered in a circle, and was still on waster lunny's land. i plucked some corn and held it to my eyes to see if it was green; but it was yellow, and so i knew that at last i was out of the glen. people up here will complain if i do not tell how i found the farmer of green brae's fifty pounds. it is one of the best- remembered incidents of the flood, and happened shortly after i got out of the cornfield. a house rose suddenly before me, and i was hastening to it when as suddenly three of its walls fell. before my mind could give a meaning to what my eyes told it, the water that had brought down the house had lifted me off my feet and flung me among waves. that would have been the last of the dominie had i not struck against a chest, then half-way on its voyage to the sea. i think the lid gave way tinder me; but that is surmise, for from the time the house fell till i was on the river in a kist that was like to be my coffin, is almost a blank. after what may have been but a short journey, though i had time in it to say my prayers twice, we stopped, jammed among fallen trees; and seeing a bank within reach, i tried to creep up it. in this there would have been little difficulty had not the contents of the kist caught in my feet and held on to them, like living things afraid of being left behind. i let down my hands to disentangle my feet, but failed; and then, grown desperate, i succeeded in reaching firm ground, dragging i knew not what after me. it proved to be a pillow-slip. green brae still shudders when i tell him that my first impulse was to leave the pillow-slip unopened. however, i ripped it up, for to undo the wet strings that had ravelled round my feet would have wearied even a man with a needle to pick open the knots; and among broken gimlets, the head of a grape, and other things no beggar would have stolen, i found a tin canister containing fifty pounds. waster lunny says that this should have made a religious man of green brae, and it did to this extent, that he called the fall of the cotter's house providential. otherwise the cotter, at whose expense it may be said the money was found, remains the more religious man of the two. at last i came to the kelpie's brig, and i could have wept in joy (and might have been better employed), when, like everything i saw on that journey, it broke suddenly through the mist, and seemed to run at me like a living monster. next moment i ran back, for as i stepped upon the bridge i saw that i had been about to walk into the air. what was left of the kelpie's brig ended in mid-stream. instead of thanking god for the light without which i should have gone abruptly to my death, i sat down miserable and hopeless. presently i was up and trudging to the loups of malcolm. at the loups the river runs narrow and deep between cliffs, and the spot is so called because one malcolm jumped across it when pursued by wolves. next day he returned boastfully to look at his jump, and gazing at it turned dizzy and fell into the river. since that time chains have been hung across the loups to reduce the distance between the farms of carwhimple and keep-what-you-can from a mile to a hundred yards. you must cross the chains on your breast. they were suspended there by rob angus, who was also the first to breast them. but i never was a rob angus. when my pupils practise what they call the high jump, two small boys hold a string aloft, and the bigger ones run at it gallantly until they reach it, when they stop meekly and creep beneath. they will repeat this twenty times, and yet never, when they start for the string, seem to know where their courage will fail. nay, they will even order the small boys to hold the string higher. i have smiled at this, but it was the same courage while the difficulty is far off that took me to the loups. at sight of them i turned away. i prayed to god for a little of the mettle of other men, and he heard me, for with my eyes shut i seemed to see margaret beckoning from across the abyss as if she had need of me. then i rose calmly and tested the chains, and crossed them on my breast. many have done it with the same danger, at which they laugh, but without that vision i should have held back. i was now across the river, and so had left the chance of drowning behind, but i was farther from thrums than when i left the school-house, and this countryside was almost unknown to me. the mist had begun to clear, so that i no longer wandered into fields; but though i kept to the roads, i could not tell that they led toward thrums, and in my exhaustion i had often to stand still. then to make a new start in the mud was like pulling stakes out of the ground. so long as the rain faced me i thought i could not be straying far; but after an hour i lost this guide, for a wind rose that blew it in all directions. in another hour, when i should have been drawing near thrums, i found myself in a wood, and here i think my distress was greatest; nor is this to be marvelled at, for instead of being near thrums, i was listening to the monotonous roar of the sea. i was too spent to reason, but i knew that i must have travelled direct east, and must be close to the german ocean. i remember putting my back against a tree and shutting my eyes, and listening to the lash of the waves against the beach, and hearing the faint toll of a bell, and wondering listlessly on what lighthouse it was ringing. doubtless i would have lain down to sleep forever had i not heard another sound near at hand. it was the knock of a hammer on wood, and might have been a fisherman mending his boat. the instinct of self-preservation carried me to it, and presently i was at a little house. a man was standing in the rain, hammering new hinges to the door; and though i did not recognize him, i saw with bewilderment that the woman at his side was nanny. "it's the dominie," she cried, and her brother added: "losh, sir, you hinna the look o' a living man." "nanny," i said, in perplexity, "what are you doing here?" "whaur else should i be?" she asked. i pressed my hands over my eyes, crying, "where am i?" nanny shrank from me, but sanders said, "has the rain driven you gyte, man? you're in thrums." "but the sea," i said, distrusting him. "i hear it, listen!" "that's the wind in windyghoul," sanders answered, looking at me queerly. "come awa into the house." thrums during the twenty-four hours-defence of the manse. hardly had i crossed the threshold of the mudhouse when such a sickness came over me that i could not have looked up, though nanny's voice had suddenly changed to margaret's. vaguely i knew that nanny had put the kettle on the fire--a woman's first thought when there is illness in the house--and as i sat with my hands over my face i heard the water dripping from my clothes to the floor. "why is that bell ringing?" i asked at last, ignoring all questions and speaking through my fingers. an artist, i suppose, could paint all expression out of a human face. the sickness was having that effect on my voice. "it's the auld licht bell." sanders said; "and it's almost as fearsome to listen to as last nicht's rain. i wish i kent what they're ringing it for." "wish no sic things," said nanny nervously. "there's things it's best to put off kenning as lang as we can." "it's that ill-cleakit witch, erne mcbean, that makes nanny speak so doleful," sanders told me. "there was to be a prayer-meeting last nicht, but mr. dishart never came to 't, though they rang till they wraxed their arms; and now effie says it'll ring on by itsel' till he's brocht hame a corp. the hellicat says the rain's a dispensation to drown him in for neglect o' duty. sal, i would think little o' the lord if he needed to create a new sea to drown one man in. nanny, yon cuttie, that's no swearing; i defy you to find a single lonely oath in what i've said." "never mind effie mcbean," i interposed. "what are the congregation saying about the minister's absence?" "we ken little except what effie telled us," nanny answered. "i was at tilliedrum yestreen, meeting sanders as he got out o' the gaol, and that awfu onding began when we was on the bellies braes. we focht our way through it, but not a soul did we meet; and wha would gang out the day that can bide at hame? ay, but effie says it's kent in thrums that mr. dishart has run off wi'--wi' an egyptian." "you're waur than her, nanny," sanders said roughly, "for you hae twa reasons for kenning better. in the first place, has mr. dishart no keeped you in siller a' the time i was awa? and for another, have i no been at the manse?" my head rose now. "he gaed to the manse," nanny explained, "to thank mr. dishart for being so good to me. ay, but jean wouldna let him in. i'm thinking that looks gey gray." "whatever was her reason," sanders admitted, "jean wouldna open the door; but i keeked in at the parlor window, and saw mrs. dishart in't looking very cosy-like and lauching; and do you think i would hae seen that if i had come ower the minister?" "not if margaret knew of it," i said to myself, and wondered at whamond's forbearance. "she had a skein o' worsted stretched out on her hands," sanders continued, "and a young leddy was winding it. i didna see her richt, but she wasna a thrums leddy." "effie mcbean says she's his intended, come to call him to account," nanny said; but i hardly listened, for i saw that i must hurry to tammas whamond's. nanny followed me to the gate with her gown pulled over her head, and said excitedly: "oh, dominie, i warrant it's true. it'll be babbie. sanders doesna suspect, because i've telled him nothing about her. oh, what's to be done? they were baith so good to me." i could only tell her to keep what she knew to herself. "has rob dow come back?" i called out after i had started. "whaur frae?" she replied; and then i remembered that all these things had happened while nanny was at tilliedrum. in this life some of the seven ages are spread over two decades, and others pass as quickly as a stage play. though a fifth of a season's rain had fallen in a night and a day, it had scarcely kept pace with gavin. i hurried to the town by the roods. that brae was as deserted as the country roads, except where children had escaped from their mothers to wade in it. here and there dams were keeping the water away from one door to send it with greater volume to another, and at points the ground had fallen in. but this i noticed without interest. i did not even realize that i was holding my head painfully to the side where it had been blown by the wind and glued by the rain. i have never held my head straight since that journey. only a few looms were going, their pedals in water. i was addressed from several doors and windows, once by charles yuill. "dinna pretend," he said, "that you've walked in frae the school- house alane. the rain chased me into this house yestreen, and here it has keeped me, though i bide no further awa than tillyloss." "charles," i said in a low voice, "why is the auld licht bell ringing?" "hae you no heard about mr. dishart?" he asked. "ob, man! that's lang tammas in the kirk by himsel', tearing at the bell to bring the folk thegither to depose the minister." instead of going to whamond's house in the school wynd i hastened down the banker's close to the kirk, and had almost to turn back, so choked was the close with floating refuse. i could see the bell swaying, but the kirk was locked, and i battered on the door to no purpose. then, remembering that henry munn lived in coutt's trance, i set off for his house. he saw me crossing the square, but would not open his door until i was close to it. "when i open," he cried, "squeeze through quick"; but though i did his bidding, a rush of water darted in before me. hendry reclosed the door by flinging himself against it. "when i saw you crossing the square," he said, "it was surprise enough to cure the hiccup." "hendry," i replied instantly, "why is the auld licht bell ringing?" he put his finger to his lip. "i see," he said imperturbably, "you've met our folk in the glen and heard frae them about the minister." "what folk?" "mair than half the congregation," he replied, "i started for glen quharity twa hours syne to help the farmers. you didna see them?" "no; they must have been on the other side of the river." again that question forced my lips, "why is the bell ringing?" "canny, dominie," he said, "till we're up the stair. mysy moncur's lug's at her keyhole listening to you." "you lie, hendry munn," cried an invisible woman. the voice became more plaintive: "i ken a heap, hendry, so you may as well tell me a'." "lick away at the bone you hae," the shoemaker replied heartlessly, and conducted me to his room up one of the few inside stairs then in thrums. hendry's oddest furniture was five boxes, fixed to the wait at such a height that children could climb into them from a high stool. in these his bairns slept, and so space was economized. i could never laugh at the arrangement, as i knew that betty had planned it on her deathbed for her man's sake. five little heads bobbed up in their beds as i entered, but more vexing to me was wearyworld on a stool. "in by, dominie," he said sociably. "sal, you needna fear burning wi' a' that water on you, you're in mair danger o' coming a-boil." "i want to speak to you alone, hendry," i said bluntly. "you winna put me out, hendry?" the alarmed policeman entreated. "mind, you said in sic weather you would be friendly to a brute beast. ay, ay, dominie, what's your news? it's welcome, be it good or bad. you would meet the townsfolk in the glen, and they would tell you about mr. dishart. what, you hinna heard? oh, sirs, he's a lost man. there would hae been a meeting the day to depose him if so many hadna gaen to the glen. but the morn'll do as weel. the very women is cursing him, and the laddies has begun to gather stanes. he's married on an egyp--" "hendry!" i cried, like one giving an order. "wearyworld, step!" said hendry sternly, and then added soft- heartedly: "here's a bit news that'll open mysy moncur's door to you. you can tell her frae me that the bell's ringing just because i forgot to tie it up last nicht, and the wind's shaking it, and i winna gang out in the rain to stop it." "ay," the policeman said, looking at me sulkily, "she may open her door for that, but it'll no let me in. tell me mair. tell me wha the leddy at the manse is." "out you go," answered hendry. "once she opens the door, you can shove your foot in, and syne she's in your power." he pushed wearyworld out, and came back to me, saying, "it was best to tell him the truth, to keep him frae making up lies." "but is it the truth? i was told lang tammas--" "ay, i ken that story; but tammas has other work on hand." "then tie up the bell at once, hendry," i urged. "i canna," he answered gravely. "tammas took the keys o' the kirk fram me yestreen, and winna gie them up. he says the bell's being rung by the hand o' god." "has he been at the manse? does mrs. dishart know--?" "he's been at the manse twa or three times, but jean barred him out. she'll let nobody in till the minister comes back, and so the mistress kens nothing. but what's the use o' keeping it frae her ony langer?" "every use," i said. "none," answered hendry sadly. "dominie, the minister was married to the egyptian on the hill last nicht, and tammas was witness. not only were they married, but they've run aff thegither." "you are wrong, hendry," i assured him, telling as much as i dared. "i left mr. dishart in my house." "what! but if that is so, how did he no come back wi' you?" "because he was nearly drowned in the flood." "she'll be wi' him?" "he was alone." hendry's face lit up dimly with joy, and then he shook his head. "tammas was witness," he said. "can you deny the marriage?" "all i ask of you," i answered guardedly, "is to suspend judgment until the minister returns." "there can be nothing done, at ony rate," he said, "till the folk themsel's come back frae the glen; and i needna tell you how glad we would a' be to be as fond o' him as ever. but tammas was witness." "have pity on his mother, man." "we've done the best for her we could," he replied. "we prigged wi' tammas no to gang to the manse till we was sure the minister was living. 'for if he has been drowned, "we said, 'his mother need never ken what we were thinking o' doing.' ay, and we're sorry for the young leddy, too." "what young lady is this you all talk of?" i asked. "she's his intended. ay, you needna start. she has come a' the road frae glasgow to challenge him about the gypsy. the pitiful thing is that mrs. dishart lauched awa her fears, and now they're baith waiting for his return, as happy as ignorance can make them." "there is no such lady," i said. "but there is," he answered doggedly, "for she came in a machine late last nicht, and i was ane o' a dozen that baith heard and saw it through my window. it stopped at the manse near half an hour. what's mair, the lady hersel' was at sam'l farquharson's in the tenements the day for twa hours." i listened in bewilderment and fear. "sam'l's bairn's down wi' scarlet fever and like to die, and him being a widow-man he has gone useless. you mauna blame the wives in the tenements for hauding back. they're fleid to smit their ain litlins; and as it happens, sam'l's friends is a' aff to the glen. weel, he ran greeting to the manse for mr. dishart, and the lady heard him crying to jean through the door, and what does she do but gang straucht to the tenements wi' sam'l. her goodness has naturally put the folk on her side against the minister." "this does not prove her his intended," i broke in. "she was heard saying to sam'l," answered the kirk officer," that the minister being awa, it was her duty to take his place. yes, and though she little kent it, he was already married." "hendry," i said, rising, "i must see this lady at once. is she still at farquharson's house?" "she may be back again by this time. tammas set off for sam'l's as soon as he heard she was there, but he just missed her, i left him there an hour syne. he was waiting for her, determined to tell her all." i set off for the tenements at once, declining hendry's company. the wind had fallen, so that the bell no longer rang, but the rain was falling doggedly. the streets were still deserted. i pushed open the precentor's door in the school wynd, but there was no one in the house. tibbie birse saw me, and shouted from her door: "hae you heard o' mr. dishart? he'll never daur show face in thrums again." without giving her a word i hastened to the tenements. "the leddy's no here," sam'l farquharson told me, "and tammas is back at the manse again, trying to force his way in." from sam'l, too, i turned, with no more than a groan; but he cried after me, "perdition on the man that has played that leddy false." had margaret been at her window she must have seen me, so recklessly did i hurry up the minister's road, with nothing in me but a passion to take whamond by the throat. he was not in the garden. the kitchen door was open. jean was standing at it with her apron to her eyes. "tammas whamond?" i demanded, and my face completed the question. "you're ower late," she wailed. "he's wi' her. oh, dominie, whaur's the minister?" "you base woman!" i cried, "why did you unbar the door?" "it was the mistress," she answered. "she heard him shaking it, and i had to tell her wha it was. dominie, it's a' my wite! he tried to get in last nicht, and roared threats through the door, and after he had gone awa she speired wha i had been speaking to. i had to tell her, but i said he had come to let her ken that the minister was taking shelter frae the rain in a farmhouse. ay, i said he was to bide there till the flood gaed down, and that's how she has been easy a day. i acted for the best, but i'm sair punished now; for when she heard tammas at the door twa or three minutes syne, she ordered me to let him in, so that she could thank him for bringing--the news last nicht, despite the rain. they're in the parlor. oh, dominie, gang in and stop his mouth." this was hard. i dared not go to the parlor. margaret might have died at sight of me. i turned my face from jean. "jean," said some one, opening the inner kitchen door, "why did you--?" she stopped, and that was what turned me round. as she spoke i thought it was the young lady; when i looked i saw it was babbie, though no longer in a gypsy's dress. then i knew that the young lady and babbie were one. how babbie spent the night of august fourth. how had the egyptian been spirited here from the spittal? i did not ask the question. to interest myself in babbie at that dire hour of margaret's life would have been as impossible to me as to sit down to a book. to others, however, it is only an old woman on whom the parlor door of the manse has closed, only a garrulous dominie that is in pain outside it. your eyes are on the young wife. when babbie was plucked off the hill, she thought as little as gavin that her captor was rob dow. close as he was to her, he was but a shadow until she screamed the second time, when he pressed her to the ground and tied his neckerchief over her mouth. then, in the moment that power of utterance was taken from her, she saw the face that had startled her at nanny's window. half-carried, she was borne forward rapidly, until some one seemed to rise out of the broom and strike them both. they had only run against the doctor's trap; and huddling her into it, dow jumped up beside her. he tied her hands together with a cord. for a time the horse feared the darkness in front more than the lash behind; but when the rains became terrific, it rushed ahead wildly--probably with its eyes shut. in three minutes babbie went through all the degrees of fear. in the first she thought lord rintoul had kidnapped her; but no sooner had her captor resolved himself into dow, drunk with the events of the day and night, than in the earl's hands would have lain safety. next, dow was forgotten in the dread of a sudden death which he must share. and lastly, the rain seemed to be driving all other horrors back, that it might have her for its own. her perils increased to the unbearable as quickly as an iron in the fire passes through the various stages between warmth and white heat. then she had to do something; and as she could not cry out, she flung herself from the dogcart. she fell heavily in caddani wood, but the rain would not let her lie there stunned. it beat her back to consciousness, and she sat up on her knees and listened breathlessly, staring in the direction the trap had taken, as if her eyes could help her ears. all night, i have said, the rain poured, but those charges only rode down the deluge at intervals, as now and again one wave greater than the others stalks over the sea. in the first lull it appeared to babbie that the storm had swept by, leaving her to dow. now she heard the rubbing of the branches, and felt the torn leaves falling on her gown. she rose to feel her way out of the wood with her bound hands, then sank in terror, for some one had called her name. next moment she was up again, for the voice was gavin's, who was hurrying after her, as he thought, down windyghoul. he was no farther away than a whisper might have carried on a still night, but she dared not pursue him, for already dow was coming back. she could not see him, but she heard the horse whinny and the rocking of the dogcart. dow was now at the brute's head, and probably it tried to bite him, for he struck it, crying: "would you? stand still till i find her. i heard her move this minute." babbie crouched upon a big stone and sat motionless while he groped for her. her breathing might have been tied now, as well as her mouth. she heard him feeling for her, first with his feet and then with his hands, and swearing when his head struck against a tree. "i ken you're within hearing," he muttered, "and i'll hae you yet. i have a gully-knife in my hand. listen!" he severed a whin-stalk with the knife, and babbie seemed to see the gleam of the blade. "what do i mean by wanting to kill you?" he said, as if she had asked the question. "do you no ken wha said to me, 'kill this woman?' it was the lord. 'i winna kill her,' i said, 'but i'll cart her out o' the country.' 'kill her,' says he; 'why encumbereth she the ground?'" he resumed his search, but with new tactics. "i see you now," he would cry, and rush forward perhaps within a yard of her. then she must have screamed had she had the power. when he tied that neckerchief round her mouth he prolonged her life. then came the second hurricane of rain, so appalling that had babbie's hands been free she would have pressed them to her ears. for a full minute she forgot dow's presence. a living thing touched her face. the horse had found her. she recoiled from it, but its frightened head pressed heavily on her shoulder. she rose and tried to steal away, but the brute followed, and as the rain suddenly exhausted itself she heard the dragging of the dogcart. she had to halt. again she heard dow's voice. perhaps he had been speaking throughout the roar of the rain. if so, it must have made him deaf to his own words. he groped for the horse's head, and presently his hand touched babbie's dress, then jumped from it, so suddenly had he found her. no sound escaped him, and she was beginning to think it possible that he had mistaken her for a bush when his hand went over her face. he was making sure of his discovery. "the lord has delivered you into my hands," he said in a low voice, with some awe in it. then he pulled her to the ground, and, sitting down beside her, rocked himself backward and forward, his hands round his knees. she would have bartered the world for power to speak to him. "he wouldna hear o' my just carting you to some other countryside," he said confidentially. "'the devil would just blaw her back again, says he, 'therefore kill her.' 'and if i kill her,' i says, 'they'll hang me.' 'you can hang yoursel',' says he. 'what wi'?' i speirs. 'wi' the reins o' the dogcart,' says he. 'they would break,' says i. 'weel, weel,' says he, 'though they do hang you, nobody'll miss you.' 'that's true,' says i, 'and you are a just god.'" he stood up and confronted her. "prisoner at the bar," he said, "hae ye onything to say why sentence of death shouldna be pronounced against you? she doesna answer. she kens death is her deserts." by this time he had forgotten probably why his victim was dumb. "prisoner at the bar, hand back to me the soul o' gavin dishart. you winna? did the devil, your master, summon you to him and say, 'either that noble man or me maun leave thrums?' he did. and did you, or did you no, drag that minister, when under your spell, to the hill, and there marry him ower the tongs? you did. witnesses, rob dow and tammas whamond." she was moving from him on her knees, meaning when out of arm's reach to make a dash for life. "sit down," he grumbled, "or how can you expect a fair trial? prisoner at the bar, you have been found guilty of witchcraft." for the first time his voice faltered. "that's the difficulty, for witches canna die, except by burning or drowning. there's no blood in you for my knife, and your neck wouldna twist. your master has brocht the rain to put out a' the fires, and we'll hae to wait till it runs into a pool deep enough to drown you. "i wonder at you, god. do you believe her master'll mak' the pool for her? he'll rather stop his rain. mr. dishart said you was mair powerful than the devil, but--it doesna look like it. if you had the power, how did you no stop this woman working her will on the minister? you kent what she was doing, for you ken a' things. mr. dishart says you ken a' things. if you do, the mair shame to you. would a shepherd, that could help it. let dogs worry his sheep? kill her! it's fine to cry 'kill her,' but whaur's the bonfire, whaur's the pool? you that made the heaven and the earth and all that in them is, can you no set fire to some wet whins, or change this stane into a mill-dam?" he struck the stone with his fist, and then gave a cry of exultation. he raised the great slab in his arms and flung it from him. in that moment babbie might have run away, but she fainted. almost simultaneously with dow she knew this was the stone which covered the caddam well. when she came to, dow was speaking, and his voice had become solemn. "you said your master was mair powerful than mine, and i said it too, and all the time you was sitting here wi' the very pool aneath you that i have been praying for. listen!" he dropped a stone into the well, and she heard it strike the water. "what are you shaking at?" he said in reproof. "was it no yoursel' that chose the spot? lassie, say your prayers. are you saying them?" he put his hand over her face, to feel if her lips were moving, and tore off the neckerchief. and then again the rain came between them. in that rain one could not think. babbie did not know that she had bitten through the string that tied her hands. she planned no escape. but she flung herself at the place where dow had been standing. he was no longer there, and she fell heavily, and was on her feet again in an instant and running recklessly. trees intercepted her, and she thought they were dow, and wrestled with them. by and by she fell into windyghoul, and there she crouched until all her senses were restored to her, when she remembered that she had been married lately. how long dow was in discovering that she had escaped, and whether he searched for her, no one knows. after a time he jumped into the dogcart again, and drove aimlessly through the rain. that wild journey probably lasted two hours, and came to an abrupt end only when a tree fell upon the trap. the horse galloped off, but one of dow's legs was beneath the tree, and there he had to lie helpless, for though the leg was little injured, he could not extricate himself. a night and day passed, and he believed that he must die; but even in this plight he did not forget the man he loved. he found a piece of slate, and in the darkness cut these words on it with his knife: "me being about to die, i solemnly swear i didna see the minister marrying an egyptian on the hill this nicht. may i burn in hell if this is no true." (signed) "rob dow." this document he put in his pocket, and so preserved proof of what he was perjuring himself to deny. chapter xl. babbie and margaret--defence of the manse continued. the egyptian was mournful in windyghoul, up which she had once danced and sung; but you must not think that she still feared dow. i felt mckenzie's clutch on any arm for hours after he left me, but she was far braver than i; indeed, dangers at which i should have shut my eyes only made hers gleam, and i suppose it was sheer love of them that first made her play the coquette with gavin. if she cried now, it was not for herself; it was because she thought she had destroyed him. could i have gone to her then and said that gavin wanted to blot out the gypsy wedding, that throbbing little breast would have frozen at once, and the drooping head would have been proud again, and she would have gone away forever without another tear. what do i say? i am doing a wrong to the love these two bore each other. babbie would not have taken so base a message from my lips. he would have had to say the words to her himself before she believed them his. what would he want her to do now? was the only question she asked herself. to follow him was useless, for in that rain and darkness two people might have searched for each other all night in a single field. that he would go to the spittal, thinking her in rintoul's dogcart, she did not doubt; and his distress was painful to her to think of. but not knowing that the burns were in flood, she underestimated his danger. remembering that the mudhouse was near, she groped her way to it, meaning to pass the night there; but at the gate she turned away hastily, hearing from the door the voice of a man she did not know to be nanny's brother. she wandered recklessly a short distance, until the rain began to threaten again, and then, falling on her knees in the broom, she prayed to god for guidance. when she rose she set off for the manse. the rain that followed the flash of lightning had brought margaret to the kitchen. "jean, did you ever hear such a rain? it is trying to break into the manse." "i canna hear you, ma'am; is it the rain you're feared at?" "what else could it be?" jean did not answer. "i hope the minister won't leave the church, jean, till this is over?" "nobody would daur, ma'am. the rain'll turn the key on them all." jean forced out these words with difficulty, for she knew that the church had been empty and the door locked for over an hour. "this rain has come as if in answer to the minister's prayer, jean." "it wasna rain like this they wanted." "jean, you would not attempt to guide the lord's hand. the minister will have to reprove the people for thinking too much of him again, for they will say that he induced god to send the rain. to-night's meeting will be remembered long in thrums." jean shuddered, and said, "it's mair like an ordinary rain now, ma'am." "but it has put out your fire, and i wanted another heater. perhaps the one i have is hot enough, though.'" margaret returned to the parlor, and from the kitchen jean could hear the heater tilted backward and forward in the box-iron--a pleasant, homely sound when there is happiness in the house. soon she heard a step outside, however, and it was followed by a rough shaking of the barred door. "is it you, mr. dishart?" jean asked nervously. "it's me, tammas whamond," the precentor answered. "unbar the door." "what do you want? speak low." "i winna speak low. let me in. i hae news for the minister's mother." "what news?" demanded jean. "jean proctor, as chief elder of the kirk i order you to let me do my duty." "whaur's the minister?" "he's a minister no longer. he's married a gypsy woman and run awa wi' her." "you lie, tammas whamond. i believe--" "your belief's of no consequence. open the door, and let me in to tell your mistress what i hae seen." "she'll hear it first frae his ain lips if she hears it ava. i winna open the door." "then i'll burst it open," whamond flung himself at the door, and jean, her fingers rigid with fear, stood waiting for its fall. but the rain came to her rescue by lashing the precentor until even he was forced to run from it. "i'll be back again," he cried. "woe to you, jean proctor, that hae denied your god this nicht." "who was that speaking to you, jean?" asked margaret, re-entering the kitchen. until the rain abated jean did not attempt to answer. "i thought it was the precentor's voice," margaret said. jean was a poor hand at lying, and she stuttered in her answer. "there is nothing wrong, is there?" cried margaret, in sudden fright. "my son--" "nothing, nothing." the words jumped from jean to save margaret from falling. now she could not take them back. "i winna believe it o' him," said jean to herself. "let them say what they will, i'll be true to him; and when he comes back he'll find her as he left her." "it was lang tammas," she answered her mistress; "but he just came to say that--" "quick, jean! what?" "mr. dishart has been called to a sick-bed in the country, ma'am-- to the farm o' look-about-you; and as it's sic a rain, he's to bide there a' nicht." "and whamond came through that rain to tell me this? how good of him. was there any other message?" "just that the minister hoped you would go straight to your bed, ma'am," said jean, thinking to herself, "there can be no great sin in giving her one mair happy nicht; it may be her last." the two women talked for a short time, and then read verse about in the parlor from the third chapter of mark. "this is the first night we have been left alone in the manse," margaret said, as she was retiring to her bedroom," and we must not grudge the minister to those who have sore need of him. i notice that you have barred the doors." "ay, they're barred. nobody can win in the nicht." "nobody will want in, jean," margaret said, smiling. "i dinna ken about that," answered jean below her breath. "ay, ma'am, may you sleep for baith o' us this nicht, for i daurna gang to my bed." jean was both right and wrong, for two persons wanted in within the next half-hour, and she opened the door to both of them. the first to come was babbie. so long as women sit up of nights listening for a footstep, will they flatten their faces at the window, though all without be black. jean had not been back in the kitchen for two minutes before she raised the blind. her eyes were close to the glass, when she saw another face almost meet hers, as you may touch your reflection in a mirror. but this face was not her own. it was white and sad. jean suppressed a cry, and let the blind fall, as if shutting the lid on some uncanny thing. "won't you let me in?" said a voice that might have been only the sob of a rain-beaten wind; "i am nearly drowned." jean stood like death; but her suppliant would not pass on. "you are not afraid?" the voice continued. "raise the blind again, and you will see that no one need fear me." at this request jean's hands sought each other's company behind her back. "wha are you?" she asked, without stirring. "are you--the woman?" "yes." "whaur's the minister?" the rain again became wild, but this time it only tore by the manse as if to a conflict beyond. "are you aye there? i daurna let you in till i'm sure the mistress is bedded. gang round to the front, and see if there's ony licht burning in the high west window." "there was a light," the voice said presently, "but it was turned out as i looked." "then i'll let you in, and god kens i mean no wrang by it." babbie entered shivering, and jean rebarred the door. then she looked long at the woman whom her master loved. babbie was on her knees at the hearth, holding out her hands to the dead fire. "what a pity it's a fause face." "do i look so false?" "is it true? you're no married to him?" "yes, it is true." "and yet you look as if you was fond o' him. if you cared for him, how could you do it?" "that was why i did it." "and him could hae had wha he liked." "i gave up lord rintoul for him." "what? na, na; you're the egyptian." "you judge me by my dress." "and soaking it is. how you're shivering--what neat fingers--what bonny little feet. i could near believe what you tell me. aff wi' these rags, an i'll gie you on my black frock, if--if you promise me no to gang awa wi't." so babbie put on some clothes of jean's, including the black frock, and stockings and shoes. "mr. dishart cannot be back, jean," she said, "before morning, and i don't want his mother to see me till he comes." "i wouldna let you near her the nicht though you gaed on your knees to me. but whaur is he?" babbie explained why gavin had set off for the spittal; but jean shook her head incredulously, saying, "i canna believe you're that grand leddy, and yet ilka time i look at you i could near believe it." in another minute jean had something else to think of, for there came a loud rap upon the front door. "it's tammas whamond back again," she moaned; "and if the mistress hears, she'll tell me to let him in." "you shall open to me," cried a hoarse voice. "that's no tammas' word," jean said in bewilderment. "it is lord rintoul," babbie whispered. "what? then it's truth you telled me." the knocking continued; a door upstairs opened, and margaret spoke over the banisters. "have you gone to bed, jean? some one is knocking at the door, and a minute ago i thought i heard a carriage stop close by. perhaps the farmer has driven mr. dishart home." "i'm putting on my things, ma'am," jean answered; then whispered to babbie, "what's to be done?" "he won't go away," babbie answered, "you will have to let him into the parlor, jean. can she see the door from up there?" "no; but though he was in the parlor?" "i shall go to him there." "make haste, jean," margaret called. "if it is any persons wanting shelter, we must give it them on such a night." "a minute, ma'am," jean answered. to babbie she whispered, "what shall i say to her?" "i--i don't know," answered babbie ruefully. "think of something, jean. but open the door now. stop, let me into the parlor first." the two women stole into the parlor. "tell me what will be the result o' his coming here," entreated jean. "the result," babbie said firmly, "will be that he shall go away and leave me here." margaret heard jean open the front door and speak to some person or persons whom she showed, into the parlor. chapter xli. rintoul and babbie--breakdown of the defence of the manse. "you dare to look me in the face!" they were rintoul's words. yet babbie had only ventured to look up because he was so long in speaking. his voice was low but harsh, like a wheel on which the brake is pressed sharply. "it seems to be more than the man is capable of," he added sourly. "do you think," babbie exclaimed, taking fare, "that he is afraid of you?" "so it seems; but i will drag him into the light, wherever he is skulking." lord rintoul strode to the door, and the brake was off his tongue already. "go," said babbie coldly, "and shout and stamp through the house; you may succeed in frightening the women, who are the only persons in it." "where is he?" "he has gone to the spittal to see you." "he knew i was on the hill." "he lost me in the darkness, and thought you had run away with me in your trap." "ha! so he is off to the spittal to ask me to give you back to him." "to compel you," corrected babbie. "pooh!" said the earl nervously, "that was but mummery on the hill." "it was a marriage." "with gypsies for witnesses. their word would count for less than nothing. babbie, i am still in time to save you." "i don't want to be saved. the marriage had witnesses no court could discredit." "what witnesses?" "mr. mckenzie and yourself." she heard his teeth meet. when next she looked at him, there were tears in his eyes as well as in her own. it was perhaps the first time these two had, ever been in close sympathy. both were grieving for rintoul. "i am so sorry," babbie began in a broken voice; then stopped, because they seemed such feeble words. "if you are sorry," the earl answered eagerly, "it is not yet too late. mckenzie and i saw nothing. come away with me, babbie, if only in pity for yourself." "ah, but i don't pity myself." "because this man has blinded you." "no, he has made me see." "this mummery on the hill--" "why do you call it so? i believe god approved of that marriage, as he could never have countenanced yours and mine." "god! i never heard the word on your lips before." "i know that." "it is his teaching, doubtless?" "yes." "and he told you that to do to me as you have done was to be pleasing in god's sight?" "no; he knows that it was so evil in god's sight that i shall suffer for it always." "but he has done no wrong, so there is no punishment for him?" "it is true that he has done no wrong, but his punishment will be worse, probably, than mine." "that," said the earl, scoffing, "is not just." "it is just. he has accepted responsibility for my sins by marrying me." "and what form is his punishment to take?" "for marrying me he will be driven from his church and dishonored in all men's eyes, unless--unless god is more merciful to us than we can expect." her sincerity was so obvious that the earl could no longer meet it with sarcasm. "it is you i pity now," he said, looking wonderingly at her. "do you not see that this man has deceived you? where was his boasted purity in meeting you by stealth, as he must have been doing, and plotting to take you from me?" "if you knew him," babbie answered, "you would not need to be told that he is incapable of that. he thought me an ordinary gypsy until an hour ago." "and you had so little regard for me that you waited until the eve of what was to be our marriage, and then, laughing at my shame, ran off to marry him." "i am not so bad as that," babbie answered, and told him what had brought her to thrums. "i had no thought but of returning to you, nor he of keeping me from you. we had said good-by at the mudhouse door--and then we heard your voice." "and my voice was so horrible to you that it drove you to this?" "i--i love him so much." what more could babbie answer? these words told him that, if love commands, home, the friendships of a lifetime, kindnesses incalculable, are at once as naught. nothing is so cruel as love if a rival challenges it to combat. "why could you not love me, babbie?" said the earl sadly. "i have done so much for you." it was little he had done for her that was not selfish. men are deceived curiously in such matters. when, they add a new wing to their house, they do not call the action virtue; but if they give to a fellow-creature for their own gratification, they demand of god a good mark for it. babbie, however, was in no mood to make light of the earl's gifts, and at his question she shook her head sorrowfully. "is it because i am too--old?" this was the only time he ever spoke of his age to her. "oh no, it is not that," she replied hastily, "i love mr. dishart- -because he loves me, i think." "have i not loved you always?" "never," babbie answered simply. "if you had, perhaps then i should have loved you." "babbie," he exclaimed, "if ever man loved woman, and showed it by the sacrifices he made for her, i--" "no," babbie said, "you don't understand what it is. ah! i did not mean to hurt you." "if i don't know what it is, what is it?" he asked, almost humbly. "i scarcely know you now." "that is it," said babbie. she gave him back his ring, and then he broke down pitifully. doubtless there was good in him, but i saw him only once; and with nothing to contrast against it, i may not now attempt to breathe life into the dust of his senile passion. these were the last words that passed between him and babbie: "there was nothing," he said wistfully, "in this wide world that you could not have had by asking me for it. was not that love?" "no," she answered. "what right have i to everything i cry for?" "you should never have had a care had you married me. that is love." "it is not. i want to share my husband's cares, as i expect him to share mine." "i would have humored you in everything." "you always did: as if a woman's mind were for laughing at, like a baby's passions." "you had your passions, too, babbie. yet did i ever chide you for them? that was love." "no, it was contempt. oh," she cried passionately, "what have not you men to answer for who talk of love to a woman when her face is all you know of her; and her passions, her aspirations, are for kissing to sleep, her very soul a plaything? i tell you, lord rintoul, and it is all the message i send back to the gentlemen at the spittal who made love to me behind your back, that this is a poor folly, and well calculated to rouse the wrath of god." now, jean's ear had been to the parlor keyhole for a time, but some message she had to take to margaret, and what she risked saying was this: "it's lord rintoul and a party that has been catched in the rain, and he would be obliged to you if you could gie his bride shelter for the nicht." thus the distracted servant thought to keep margaret's mind at rest until gavin came back. "lord rintoul!" exclaimed margaret. "what a pity gavin has missed him. of course she can stay here. did you say i bad gone to bed? i should not know what to say to a lord. but ask her to come up to me after he has gone--and, jean, is the parlor looking tidy?" lord rintoul having departed, jean told babbie how she had accounted to margaret for his visit. "and she telled me to gie you dry claethes and her compliments, and would you gang up to the bedroom and see her?" very slowly babbie climbed the stairs. i suppose she is the only person who was ever afraid of margaret. her first knock on the bedroom door was so soft that margaret, who was sitting up in bed, did not hear it. when babbie entered the room, margaret's first thought was that there could be no other so beautiful as this, and her second was that the stranger seemed even more timid than herself. after a few minutes' talk she laid aside her primness, a weapon she had drawn in self-defence lest this fine lady should not understand the grandeur of a manse, and at a "call me babbie, won't you?" she smiled. "that is what some other person calls you," said margaret archly. "do you know that he took twenty minutes to say good-night? my dear," she added hastily, misinterpreting babbie's silence, "i should have been sorry had he taken one second less. every tick of the clock was a gossip, telling me how he loves you." in the dim light a face that begged for pity was turned to margaret. "he does love you, babbie?" she asked, suddenly doubtful. babbie turned away her face, then shook her head. "but you love him?" again babbie shook her head. "oh, my dear," cried margaret, in distress, "if this is so, are you not afraid to marry him?" she knew now that babbie was crying, but she did not know why babbie could not look her in the face. "there may be times," babbie said, most woeful that she had not married rintoul, "when it is best to marry a man though we do not love him." "you are wrong, babbie," margaret answered gravely; "if i know anything at all, it is that." "it may be best for others." "do you mean for one other?" margaret asked, and the girl bowed her head. "ah, babbie, you speak like a child." "you do not understand." "i do not need to be told the circumstances to know this--that if two people love each other, neither has any right to give the other up." babbie turned impulsively to cast herself on the mercy of gavin's mother, but no word could she say; a hot tear fell from her eyes "upon the coverlet, and then she looked at the door, as if to run away. "but i have been too inquisitive," margaret began; whereupon babbie cried, "oh no, no, no: you are very good. i have no one who cares whether i do right or wrong." "your parents--" "i have had none since i was a child." "it is the more reason why i should be your friend," margaret said, taking the girl's hand. "you do not know what you are saying. you cannot be my friend." "yes, dear, i love you already. you have a good face, babbie, as well as a beautiful one." babbie could remain in the room no longer. she bade margaret good- night and bent forward to kiss her; then drew back, like a judas ashamed. "why did you not kiss me?" margaret asked in surprise, but poor babbie walked out of the room without answering. of what occurred at the manse on the following day until i reached it, i need tell little more. when babbie was tending sam'l farquharson's child in the tenements she learned of the flood in glen quharity, and that the greater part of the congregation had set off to the assistance of the farmers; but fearful as this made her for gavin's safety, she kept the new anxiety from his mother. deceived by another story of jean's, margaret was the one happy person in the house. "i believe you had only a lover's quarrel with lord rintoul last night," she said to babbie in the afternoon. "ah, you see i can guess what is taking you to the window so often. you must not think him long in coming for you. i can assure you that the rain which keeps my son from me must be sufficiently severe to separate even true lovers. take an old woman's example, babbie. if i thought the minister's absence alarming, i should be in anguish; but as it is, my mind is so much at ease that, see, i can thread my needle." it was in less than an hour after margaret spoke thus tranquilly to babbie that the precentor got into the manse. chapter xlii. margaret, the precentor. and god between. unless andrew luke, who went to canadas be still above ground, i am now the only survivor of the few to whom lang tammas told what passed in the manse parlor after the door closed on him and margaret. with the years the others lost the details, but before i forget them the man who has been struck by lightning will look at his arm without remembering what shrivelled it. there even came a time when the scene seemed more vivid to me than to the precentor, though that was only after he began to break up. "she was never the kind o' woman," whamond said, "that a body need be nane feared at. you can see she is o' the timid sort. i couldna hae selected a woman easier to speak bold out to, though i had ha'en my pick o' them." he was a gaunt man, sour and hard, and he often paused in his story with a puzzled look on his forbidding face. "but, man, she was so michty windy o' him. if he had wanted to put a knife into her, i believe that woman would just hae telled him to take care no to cut his hands. ay, and what innocent-like she was! if she had heard enough, afore i saw her, to make her uneasy, i could hae begun at once; but here she was, shaking my hand and smiling to me, so that aye when i tried to speak i gaed through ither. nobody can despise me for it, i tell you, mair than i despise mysel'. "i thocht to mysel', 'let her hae her smile out, tammas whamond; it's her hinmost,' syne wi' shame at my cowardliness, i tried to yoke to my duty as chief elder o' the kirk, and i said to her, as thrawn as i could speak, 'dinna thank me; i've done nothing for you.' "'i ken it wasna for me you did it,' she said, 'but for him; but, oh, mr. whamond, will that make me think the less o' you? he's my all,' she says, wi' that smile back in her face, and a look mixed up wi't that said as plain, 'and i need no more.' i thocht o' saying that some builds their house upon the sand, but--dagont, dominie, it's a solemn thing the pride mithers has in their laddies. i mind aince my ain mither--what the devil are you glowering at, andrew luke? do you think i'm greeting? "'you'll sit down, mr. whamond,' she says next." '"no, i winna,' i said, angry-like. 'i didna come here to sit.'" "i could see she thocht i was shy at being in the manse parlor; ay, and i thocht she was pleased at me looking shy. weel, she took my hat out o' my hand, and she put it on the chair at the door, whaur there's aye an auld chair in grand houses for the servant to sit on at family exercise. "'you're a man, mr. whamond,' says she, 'that the minister delights to honor, and so you'll oblige me by sitting in his own armchair.'" gavin never quite delighted to honor the precentor, of whom he was always a little afraid, and perhaps margaret knew it. but you must not think less of her for wanting to gratify her son's chief elder. she thought, too, that he had just done her a service. i never yet knew a good woman who did not enjoy flattering men she liked. "i saw my chance at that," whamond went on, "and i says to her sternly, 'in worldly position,' i says, 'i'm a common man, and it's no for the like o' sic to sit in a minister's chair; but it has been god's will,' i says,' to wrap around me the mantle o' chief elder o' the kirk, and if the minister falls awa frae grace, it becomes my duty to take his place.' "if she had been looking at me, she maun hae grown feared at that, and syne i could hae gone on though my ilka word was a knockdown blow. but she was picking some things aff the chair to let me down on't. "'it's a pair o' mittens i'm working for the minister,' she says, and she handed them to me. ay, i tried no to take them, but--oh, lads, it's queer to think how saft i was. "'he's no to ken about them till they're finished,' she says, terrible fond-like. "the words came to my mouth, 'they'll never be finished,' and i could hae cursed mysel' for no saying them. i dinna ken how it was, but there was something; pitiful in seeing her take up the mittens and begin working cheerily at one, and me kenning all the time that they would never be finished. i watched her fingers, and i said to mysel', 'another stitch, and that maun be your last.' i said that to mysel' till i thocht it was the needle that said it, and i wondered at her no hearing. "in the tail o' the day i says, 'you needna bother; he'll never wear them,' and they sounded sic words o' doom that i rose up off the chair. ay, but she took me up wrang, and she said, 'i see you have noticed how careless o' his ain comforts he is, and that in his zeal he forgets to put on his mittens, though they may be in his pocket a' the time. ay,' says she, confident-like, 'but he winna forget these mittens, mr. whamond, and i'll tell you the reason: it's because they're his mother's work.' "i stamped my foot, and she gae me an apologetic look, and she says, 'i canna help boasting about his being so fond o' me.' "ay, but here was me saying to mysel', 'do your duty, tammas whamond; you sluggard, your duty, and without lifting my een frae her fingers i said sternly, 'the chances are,' i said, 'that these mittens will never be worn by the hands they are worked for.' "'you mean,' says she,' that he'll gie them awa to some ill-off body, as he gies near a' thing he has? ay, but there's one thing he never parts wi', and that's my work. there's a young lady in the manse the now,' says she, 'that offered to finish the mittens for me, but he would value them less if i let ony other body put a stitch into them.' "i thocht to mysel', 'tammas whamond, the lord has opened a door to you, and you'll be disgraced forever if you dinna walk straucht in.' so i rose again, and i says, boldly this time, 'whaur's that young leddy? i hae something to say to her that canna be kept waiting.' "'she's up the stair,' she says, surprised, 'but you canna ken her, mr. whamond, for she just came last nicht.'" '"i ken mair o' her than you think,' says i; 'i ken what brocht her here, and ken wha she thinks she is to be married to, and i've come to tell her that she'll never get him.'" '"how no?' she said, amazed like. "'because,' said i, wi' my teeth thegither, 'he is already married.' "lads, i stood waiting to see her fall, and when she didna fall i just waited langer, thinking she was slow in taking it a' in. "'i see you ken wha she is,' she said, looking at me, 'and yet i canna credit your news.' "'they're true,' i cries. "'even if they are,' says she, considering, 'it may be the best thing that could happen to baith o' them.' "i sank back in the chair in fair bewilderment, for i didna ken at that time, as we a' ken now, that she was thinking o' the earl when i was thinking o' her son. dominie, it looked to me as if the lord had opened a door to me, and syne shut it in my face. "syne wi' me sitting there in a kind o' awe o' the woman's simpleness, she began to tell me what the minister was like when he was a bairn, and i was saying a' the time to mysel', 'you're chief elder o' the kirk, tammas whamond, and you maun speak out the next time she stops to draw breath.' they were terrible sma', common things she telled me, sic as near a' mithers minds about their bairns, but the kind o' holy way she said them drove my words down my throat, like as if i was some infidel man trying to break out wi' blasphemy in a--kirk. "'i'll let you see something,' says she, 'that i ken will interest you .' she brocht it out o' a drawer, and what do you thitik it was? as sure as death it was no more than some o' his hair when he was a litlin, and it was tied up sic carefully in paper that you would hae thocht it was some valuable thing. "'mr. whamond,' she says solemnly, 'you've come thrice to the manse to keep me frae being uneasy about my son's absence, and you was the chief instrument under god in bringing him to thrums, and i'll gie you a little o' that hair.' "dagont, what did i care about his hair? and yet to see her fondling it! i says to myself, 'mrs. dishart,' i says to mysel', 'i was the chief instrument under god in bringing him to thrums, and i've come here to tell you that i'm to be the chief instrument under god in driving him out o't.' ay, but when i focht to bring out these words, my mouth snecked like a box. "'dinna gie me his hair,' was a' i could say, and i wouldna take it frae her; but she laid it in my hand, and--and syne what could i do? ay, it's easy to speak about thae things now, and to wonder how i could hae so disgraced the position o' chief elder o' the kirk, but i tell you i was near greeting for the woman. call me names, dominie; i deserve them all." i did not call whamond names for being reluctant to break margaret's heart. here is a confession i may make. sometimes i say my prayers at night in a hurry, going on my knees indeed, but with as little reverence as i take a drink of water before jumping into bed, and for the same reason, because it is my nightly habit. i am only pattering words i have by heart to a chair then, and should be as well employed writing a comic bible. at such times i pray for the earthly well-being of the precentor, though he has been dead for many years. he crept into my prayers the day he told me this story, and was part of them for so long that when they are only a recitation he is part of them still. "she said to me," whamond continued, "that the women o' the congregation would be fond to handle the hair. could i tell her that the women was waur agin him than the men? i shivered to hear her. "'syne when they're a'sitting breathless listening to his preaching,' she says, 'they'll be able to picture him as a bairn, just as i often do in the kirk mysel'.' "andrew luke, you're sneering at me, but i tell you if you had been there and had begun to say, 'he'll preach in our kirk no more,' i would hae struck you. and i'm chief elder o' the kirk. "she says, 'oh, mr. whamond, there's times in the kirk when he is praying, and the glow on his face is hardly mortal, so that i fall a-shaking, wi' a mixture fear and pride, me being his mother; and sinful though i am to say it, i canna help thinking at sic times that i ken what the mother o' jesus had in her heart when she found him in the temple.' "dominie, it's sax-and-twenty years since i was made an elder o' the kirk. i mind the day as if it was yestreen. mr. carfrae made me walk hame wi' him, and he took me into the manse parlor, and he set me in that very chair. it was the first time i was ever in the manse. ay, he little thocht that day in his earnestness, and i little thocht mysel' in the pride o' my lusty youth, that the time was coming when i would sweat in that reverenced parlor. i say swear, dominie, for when she had finished i jumped to my feet, and i cried, 'hell!' and i lifted up my hat. and i was chief elder. "she fell back frae my oath," he said, "and syne she took my sleeve and speired, 'what has come ower you, mr. whamond? hae you onything on your mind?' "'i've sin on it,' i roared at her. 'i have neglect o' duty on it. i am one o' them that cries "lord, lord," and yet do not the things which he commands. he has pointed out the way to me, and i hinna followed it.' "'what is it you hinna done that you should hae done?' she said. 'oh, mr. whamond, if you want my help, it's yours.' "'your son's a' the earth to you,' i cried, 'but my eldership's as muckle to me. sax-and-twenty years hae i been an elder, and now i maun gie it up.' "'wha says that?" she speirs. "'i say it,' i cried. 'i've shirked my duty. i gie ap my eldership now. tammas whamond is no langer an elder o' the kirk;' ay, and i was chief elder. "dominie, i think she began to say that when the minister came hame he wouldna accept my resignation, but i paid no heed to her. you ken what was the sound that keeped my ears frae her words; it was the sound o' a machine coming yont the tenements. you ken what was the sicht that made me glare through the window instead o' looking at her; it was the sicht o' mr. dishart in the machine. i couldna speak, but i got my body atween her and the window, for i heard shouting, and i couldna doubt that it was the folk cursing him. "but she heard too, she heard too, and she squeezed by me to the window, i couldna look out; i just walked saft-like to the parlor door, but afore i reached it she cried joyously-- "'it's my son come back, and see how fond o' him they are! they are running at the side o' the machine, and the laddies are tossing their bonnets in the air.' "'god help you, woman!' i said to mysel', 'it canna be bonnets-- it's stanes and divits mair likely that they're flinging at him.' syne i creeped out o' the manse. dominie, you mind i passed you in the kitchen, and didna say a word?" yes, i saw the precentor pass through the kitchen, with such a face on him as no man ever saw him wear again. since tammas whamond died we have had to enlarge the thrums cemetery twice; so it can matter not at all to him, and but little to me, what you who read think of him. all his life children ran from him. he was the dourest, the most unlovable man in thrums. but may my right hand wither, and may my tongue be cancer-bitten, and may my mind be gone into a dry rot, before i forget what he did for me and mine that day! chapter xliii. rain--mist--the jaws. to this day we argue in the glen about the sound mistaken by many of us for the firing of the spittal cannon, some calling it thunder and others the tearing of trees in the torrent. i think it must have been the roll of stones into the quharity from silver hill, of which a corner has been missing since that day. silver hill is all stones, as if creation had been riddled there, and in the sun the mica on them shines like many pools of water. at the roar, as they thought, of the cannon, the farmers looked up from their struggle with the flood to say, "that's rintoul married," as clocks pause simultaneously to strike the hour. then every one in the glen save gavin and myself was done with rintoul. before the hills had answered the noise, gavin was on his way to the spittal. the dog must have been ten minutes in overtaking him, yet he maintained afterward that it was with him from the start. from this we see that the shock he had got carried him some distance before he knew that he had left the school-house. it also gave him a new strength, that happily lasted longer than his daze of mind. gavin moved northward quicker than i came south, climbing over or wading through his obstacles, while i went round mine. after a time, too, the dog proved useful, for on discovering that it was going homeward it took the lead, and several times drew him to the right road to the spittal by refusing to accompany him on the wrong road. yet in two hours he had walked perhaps nine miles without being four miles nearer the spittal. in that flood the glen milestones were three miles apart. for some time he had been following the dog doubtfully, for it seemed to be going too near the river. when they struck a cart- track, however, he concluded rightly that they were nearing a bridge. his faith in his guide was again tested before they had been many minutes on this sloppy road. the dog stopped, whined, looked irresolute, and then ran to the right, disappearing into the mist in an instant. he shouted to it to come back, and was surprised to hear a whistle in reply. this was sufficient to make him dash after the dog, and in less than a minute he stopped abruptly by the side of a shepherd. "have you brocht it?" the man cried almost into gavin's ear; yet the roar of the water was so tremendous that the words came faintly, as if from a distance. "wae is me; is it only you, mr. dishart?" "is it only you!" no one in the glen would have addressed a minister thus except in a matter of life of death, and gavin knew it. "he'll be ower late," the shepherd exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in distress. "i'm speaking o' whinbusses' grieve. he has run for ropes, but he'll be ower late." "is there some one in danger?" asked gavin, who stood, he knew not where, with this man, enveloped in mist. "is there no? look!" "there is nothing to be seen but mist; where are we?" "we're on the high bank o' the quharity. take care, man; you was stepping ower into the roaring water. lie down and tell me if he's there yet. maybe i just think that i see him, for the sicht is painted on my een." gavin lay prone and peered at the river, but the mist came up to his eyes. he only knew that the river was below from the sound. "is there a man down there?" he asked, shuddering. "there was a minute syne; on a bit island." "why does he not speak?" "he is senseless. dinna move; the mist's clearing, and you'll see if he's there syne. the mist has been lifting and falling that way ilka minute since me and the grieve saw him." the mist did not rise. it only shook like a blanket, and then again remained stationary. but in that movement gavin had seen twice, first incredulously. and then with conviction. "shepherd," he said, rising, "it is lord rintoul." "ay, it's him; and you saw his feet was in the water. they were dry when the grieve left me. mr. dishart, the ground he is on is being washed awa bit by bit. i tell you, the flood's greedy for him, and it'll hae him---look, did you see him again?" "is he living?" "we saw him move. hst! was that a cry?" it was only the howling of the dog, which had recognized its master and was peering over the bank, the body quivering to jump, but the legs restless with indecision. "if we were down there," gavin said, "we could hold him secure till rescue comes. it is no great jump." "how far would you make it? i saw him again!" "it looked further that time." "that's it! sometimes the ground he is on looks so near that you think you could almost drop on it, and the next time it's yards and yards awa. i've stood ready for the spring, mr. dishart, a dozen times, but i aye sickened. i daurna do it. look at the dog; just when it's starting to jump, it pulls itsel' back." as if it had heard the shepherd, the dog jumped at that instant. "it sprang too far," gavin said. "it didna spring far enough." they waited, and presently the mist thinned for a moment, as if it was being drawn out. they saw the earl, but there was no dog. "poor brute," said the shepherd, and looked with awe at gavin. "rintotil is slipping into the water," gavin answered. "you won't jump?" "no, i'm wae for him, and--" "then i will," gavin was about to say, but the shepherd continued, "and him only married twa hours syne." that kept the words in gavin's mouth for half a minute, and then he spoke them. "dinna think o't," cried the shepherd, taking him by the coat. "the ground he is on is slippery. i've flung a dozen stanes at it, and them that hit it slithered off. though you landed in the middle o't, you would slide into the water." "he shook himsel' free o' me," the shepherd told afterward, "and i saw him bending down and measuring the distance wi' his een as cool as if he was calculating a drill o' tatties. syne i saw his lips moving in prayer. it wasna spunk he needed to pray for, though. next minute there was me, my very arms prigging wi' him to think better o't, and him standing ready to loup, has knees bent, and not a tremble in them. the mist lifted, and i---lads, i couldna gie a look to the earl. mr. dishart jumped; i hardly saw him, but i kent, i kent, for i was on the bank alane. what did i do? i flung mysel' down in a sweat, and if een could bore mist mine would hae done it. i thocht i heard the minister's death-cry, and may i be struck if i dinna believe now that it was a skirl o' my ain. after that there was no sound but the jaw o' the water; and i prayed, but no to god, to the mist to rise, and after an awful time it rose, and i saw the minister was safe; he had pulled the earl into the middle o' the bit island and was rubbing him back to consciousness. i sweat when i think o't yet." the little minister's jump is always spoken of as a brave act in the glen, but at such times i am silent. this is not because, being timid myself, i am without admiration for courage. my little maid says that three in every four of my poems are to the praise of prowess, and she has not forgotten how i carried her on my shoulder once to tilliedrum to see a soldier who had won the victoria cross, and made her shake hands with him, though he was very drunk. only last year one of my scholars declared to me that nelson never said "england expects every man this day to do his duty," for which i thrashed the boy and sent him to the cooling- stone. but was it brave of gavin to jump? i have heard some maintain that only misery made him so bold, and others that he jumped because it seemed a fine thing to risk his life for an enemy. but these are really charges of cowardice, and my boy was never a coward. of the two kinds of courage, however, he did not then show the nobler. i am glad that he was ready for such an act, but he should have remembered margaret and babbie. as it was, he may be said to have forced them to jump with him. not to attempt a gallant deed for which one has the impulse, may be braver than the doing of it. "though it seemed as lang time," the shepherd says, "as i could hae run up a hill in, i dinna suppose it was many minutes afore i saw rintoul opening and shutting his een. the next glint i had o' them they were speaking to ane another; ay, and mair than speaking. they were quarrelling. i couldna hear their words, but there was a moment when i thocht they were to grapple. lads, the memory o' that'll hing about deathbed. there was twa men, edicated to the highest pitch, ane a lord and the other a minister, and the flood was taking awa a mouthful o' their footing ilka minute, and the jaws o' destruction was gaping for them, and yet they were near fechting. we ken now it was about a woman. ay, but does that make it less awful?" no, that did not make it less awful. it was even awful that gavin's first words when rintoul opened his eyes and closed them hastily were, "where is she?" the earl did not answer; indeed, for the moment the words had no meaning to him. "how did i come here?" he asked feebly. "you should know better than i. where is my wife?" "i remember now," rintoul repeated several times. "yes, i had left the spittal to look for you--you were so long in coming. how did i find you?" "it was i who found you," gavin answered. "you must have been swept away by the flood." "and you too?" in a few words gavin told how he came to be beside the earl. "i suppose they will say you have saved my life," was rintoul's commentary. "it is not saved yet. if help does not come, we shall be dead men in an hour. what have you done with my wife?" rintoul ceased to listen to him, and shouted sums of money to the shepherd, who shook his head and bawled an answer that neither gavin nor the earl heard. across that thundering water only gavin's voice could carry, the most powerful ever heard in a thrums pulpit, the one voice that could be heard all over the commonty during the time of the tent-preaching. yet he never roared, as some preachers do of whom we say, "ah, if they could hear the little minister's word!" gavin caught the gesticulating earl by the sleeve. and said, "another man has gone for ropes. now, listen to me; how dared you go through a marriage ceremony with her, knowing her already to be my wife?" rintoul did listen this time. "how do you know i married her?" he asked sharply, "i heard the cannon." now the earl understood, and the shadow on his face shook and lifted, and his teeth gleamed. his triumph might be short-lived, but he would enjoy it while he could. "well," he answered, picking the pebbles for his sling with care, "you must know that i could not have married her against her will. the frolic on the hill amused her, but she feared you might think it serious, and so pressed me to proceed with her marriage to-day despite the flood." this was the point at which the shepherd saw the minister raise his fist. it fell, however, without striking. "do you really think that i could doubt her?" gavin, said compassionately, and for the second time in twenty-four hours the earl learned that he did not know what love is. for a full minute they had forgotten where they were. now, again, the water seemed to break loose, so that both remembered their danger simultaneously and looked up. the mist parted for long enough to show them that where had only been the shepherd was now a crowd of men, with here and there a woman. before the mist again came between the minister had recognized many members of his congregation. in his unsuccessful attempt to reach whinbusses. the grieve had met the relief party from thrums. already the weavers had helped waster lunny to stave off ruin, and they were now on their way to whinbusses, keeping together through fear of mist and water. every few minutes snecky hobart rang his bell to bring in stragglers. "follow me," was all the panting grieve could say at first, but his agitation told half his story. they went with turn patiently, only stopping once, and then excitedly, for they come suddenly on rob dow. rob was still lying a prisoner beneath the tree, and the grieve now remembered that he had fallen over this tree, and neither noticed the man under it nor been noticed by the man. fifty hands released poor dow, and two men were commissioned to bring him along slowly while the others hurried to the rescue of the earl. they were amazed to learn from the shepherd that mr. dishart also was in danger, and after" is there a woman wi' him?" some cried," he'll get off cheap wi' drowning," and "it's the judgment o' god." the island on which the two men stood was now little bigger than the round tables common in thrums, and its centre was some feet farther from the bank than when gavin jumped. a woman, looking down at it, sickened, and would have toppled into the water, had not john spens clutched her. others were so stricken with awe that they forgot they had hands. peter tosh, the elder, cast a rope many times, but it would not carry. the one end was then weighted with a heavy stone, and the other tied round the waists of two men. but the force of the river had been underestimated. the stone fell short into the torrent, which rushed off with it so furiously that the men were flung upon their faces and trailed to the verge of the precipice. a score of persons sprang to their rescue, and the rope snapped. there was only one other rope, and its fate was not dissimilar. this time the stone fell into the water beyond the island, and immediately rushed down stream. gavin seized the rope, but it pressed against his body, and would have pushed him off his feet had not tosh cut it. the trunk of the tree that had fallen on rob dow was next dragged to the bank and an endeavor made to form a sloping bridge of it. the island, however, was now soft and unstable, and, though the trunk was successfully lowered, it only knocked lumps off the island, and finally it had to be let go, as the weavers could not pull it back. it splashed into the water, and was at once whirled out of sight. some of the party on the bank began hastily to improvise a rope of cravats and the tags of the ropes still left, but the mass stood helpless and hopeless. "you may wonder that we could have stood still, waiting to see the last o' them," birse, the post, has said to me in the school- house, "but, dominie, i couldna hae moved, magre my neck. i'm a hale man, but if this minute we was to hear the voice o' the almighty saying solemnly, 'afore the clock strikes again, birse, the post, will fall down dead of heart disease,' what do you think you would do? i'll tell you. you would stand whaur you are, and stare, tongue-tied, at me till i dropped. how do i ken? by the teaching o' that nicht. ay, but there's a mair important thing i dinna ken, and that is whether i would be palsied wi' fear like the earl, or face death with the calmness o' the minister." indeed, the contrast between rintoul and gavin was now impressive. when tosh signed that the weavers had done their all and failed, the two men looked in each other's faces, and gavin's face was firm and the earl's working convulsively. the people had given up attempting to communicate with gavin save by signs, for though they heard his sonorous voice, when he pitched it at them, they saw that he caught few words of theirs. "he heard our skirls," birse said, "but couldna grip the words ony mair than we could hear the earl. and yet we screamed, and the minister didna. i've heard o' highlandmen wi' the same gift, so that they could be heard across a glen." "we must prepare for death," gavin said solemnly to the earl, "and it is for your own sake that i again ask you to tell me the truth. worldly matters are nothing to either of us now, but i implore you not to carry a lie into your maker's presence." "i will not give up hope," was all rintoul's answer, and he again tried to pierce the mist with offers of reward. after that he became doggedly silent, fixing his eyes on the ground at his feet. i have a notion that he had made up his mind to confess the truth about babbie when the water had eaten the island as far as the point at which he was now looking. chapter xliv. end of the twenty-four hours. out of the mist came the voice of gavin, clear and strong-- "if you hear me, hold up your hands as a sign." they heard, and none wondered at his voice crossing the chasm while theirs could not. when the mist cleared, they were seen to have done as he bade them. many hands remained up for a time because the people did not remember to bring them down, so great was the awe that had fallen on all, as if the lord was near. gavin took his watch from his pocket, and he said-- "i am to fling this to you. you will give it to mr. ogilvy, the schoolmaster, as a token of the love i bear him." the watch was caught by james langlands, and handed to peter tosh, the chief elder present. "to mr. ogilvy," gavin continued, "you will also give the chain. you will take it off my neck when you find the body. "to each of my elders, and to hendry munn, kirk officer, and to my servant jean, i leave a book, and they will go to my study and choose it for themselves. "i also leave a book for nanny webster, and i charge you, peter tosh, to take it to her, though she be not a member of my church. "the pictorial bible with 'to my son on his sixth birthday' on it, i bequeath to rob dow. no, my mother will want to keep that. i give to rob dow my bible with the brass clasp. "it is my wish that every family in the congregation should have some little thing to remember me by. this you will tell my mother. "to my successor i leave whatsoever of my papers he may think of any value to him, including all my notes on revelation, of which i meant to make a book. i hope he will never sing the paraphrases. "if mr. carfrae's health permits, you will ask him to preach the funeral sermon; but if he be too frail, then you will ask mr. trail, under whom i sat in glasgow. the illustrated 'pilgrim's progress' on the drawers in my bedroom belongs to mr. trail, and you will return it to him with my affection and compliments. "i owe five shillings to hendry munn for mending my boots, and a smaller sum to baxter, the mason. i have two pounds belonging to rob dow, who asked me to take charge of them for him. i owe no other man anything, and this you will bear in mind if matthew cargill, the flying stationer, again brings forward a claim for the price of whiston's 'josephus,' which i did not buy from him. "mr. moncur, of aberbrothick, had agreed to assist me at the sacrament, and will doubtless still lend his services. mr. carfrae or mr. trail will take my place if my successor is not elected by that time. the sacrament cups are in the vestry press, of which you will find the key beneath the clock in my parlor. the tokens are in the topmost drawer in my bedroom. "the weekly prayer-meeting will be held as usual on thursday at eight o'clock, and the elders will officiate. "it is my wish that the news of my death be broken to my mother by mr. ogilvy, the schoolmaster, and by no other. you will say to him that this is my solemn request, and that i bid him discharge it without faltering and be of good cheer. "but if mr. ogilvy be not now alive, the news of my death will be broken to my mother by my beloved wife. last night i was married on the hill, over the tongs, but with the sanction of god, to her whom you call the egyptian, and despite what has happened since then, of which you will soon have knowledge, i here solemnly declare that she is my wife, and you will seek for her at the spittal or elsewhere till you find her, and you will tell her to go to my mother and remain with her always, for these are the commands of her husband." it was then that gavin paused, for lord rintoul had that to say to him which no longer could be kept back. all the women were crying sore, and also some men whose eyes had been dry at the coffining of their children. "now i ken," said cruickshanks, who had been an atheist, "that it's only the fool wha' says in his heart, 'there is no god.'" another said, "that's a man." another said, "that man has a religion to last him all through." a fourth said, "behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand." a fifth said, "that's our minister. he's the minister o' the auld licht kirk o' thrums. woe is me, we're to lose him." many cried, "our hearts was set hard against him. o lord, are you angry wi' your servants that you're taking him frae us just when we ken what he is?" gavin did not hear them, and again he spoke: "my brethren, god is good. i have just learned that my wife is with my dear mother at the manse. i leave them in your care and in his." no more he said of babbie, for the island was become very small. "the lord calls me hence. it is only for a little time i have been with you, and now i am going away, and you will know me no more. too great has been my pride because i was your minister, but he who sent me to labor among you is slow to wrath; and he ever bore in mind that you were my first charge. my people, i must say to you, 'farewell.'" then, for the first time, his voice faltered, and wanting--to go on he could not. "let us read," he said, quickly, "in the word of god in the fourteenth of matthew, from the twenty-eighth verse." he repeated these four verses:-- "'and peter answered him and said, lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. "'and he said, come. and when peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to jesus. "'but when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, lord, save me. "'and immediately jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said unto him, o thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?'" after this gavin's voice was again steady, and he said, "the sand- glass is almost run out. dearly beloved, with what words shall i bid you good-by?" many thought that these were to be the words, for the mist parted, and they saw the island tremble and half of it sink. "my people," said the voice behind the mist, "this is the text i leave with you: 'lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.' that text i read in the flood, where the hand of god has written it. all the pound-notes in the world would not dam this torrent for a moment, so that we might pass over to you safely. yet it is but a trickle of water, soon to be dried up. verily, i say unto you, only a few hours ago the treasures of earth stood between you and this earl, and what are they now compared to this trickle of water? god only can turn rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground. let his word be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path; may he be your refuge and your strength. amen." this amen he said quickly, thinking death was now come. he was seen to raise his hands, but whether to heaven or involuntarily to protect his face as he fell none was sure, for the mist again filled the chasm. then came a clap of stillness. no one breathed. but the two men were not yet gone, and gavin spoke once more. "let us sing in the twenty-third psalm." he himself raised the tune and so long as they heard ms voice they sang-- "the lord's my shepherd, i'll not want; he makes me down to lie in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters by. "my soul he doth restore again; and me to walk doth make within the paths of righteousness ev'n for his own name's sake. "yea, though i walk in death's dark vale, yet will i fear none ill; for thou art with me; and thy rod and staff--" but some had lost the power to sing in the first verse, and others at "death's dark vale," and when one man found himself singing alone he stopped abruptly. this was because they no longer heard the minister. "o lord!" peter tosh cried, "lift the mist, for it's mair than we can bear." the mist rose slowly, and those who had courage to look saw gavin praying with the earl. many could not look, and some of them did not even see rob dow jump. for it was dow, the man with the crushed leg, who saved gavin's life, and flung away his own for it. suddenly he was seen on the edge of the bank, holding one end of the improvised rope in his hand. as tosh says-- "it all happened in the opening and shutting o' an eye. it's a queer thing to say, but though i prayed to god to take awa the mist, when he did raise it i couldna look. i shut my een tight, and held my arm afore my face, like ane feared o' being struck. even when i daured to look, my arm was shaking so that i could see rob both above it and below it. he was on the edge, crouching to leap. i didna see wha had haud o' the other end o' the rope. i heard the minister cry, 'no, dow, no!' and it gae through me as quick as a stab that if rob jumped he would knock them both into the water. but he did jump, and you ken how it was that he didna knock them off." it was because he had no thought of saving his own life. he jumped, not at the island, now little bigger than the seat of a chair, but at the edge of it, into the foam, and with his arm outstretched. for a second the hand holding the rope was on the dot of land. gavin tried to seize the hand; rintoul clutched the rope. the earl and the minister were dragged together into safety, and both left the water senseless. gavin was never again able to lift his left hand higher than his head. dow's body was found next day near the school-house. talk of a little maid since grown tall, my scholars have a game they call "the little minister," in which the boys allow the girls as a treat to join. some of the characters in the real drama are omitted as of no importance--the dominie, for instance--and the two best fighters insist on being dow and gavin. i notice that the game is finished when dow dives from a haystack, and gavin and the earl are dragged to the top of it by a rope. though there should be another scene, it is only a marriage, which the girls have, therefore, to go through without the help of the boys. this warns me that i have come to an end of my story for all except my little maid. in the days when she sat on my knee and listened it had no end, for after i told her how her father and mother were married a second time she would say, "and then i came, didn't i? oh, tell me about me!" so it happened that when she was no higher than my staff she knew more than i could write in another book, and many a time she solemnly told me what i had told her, as-- "would you like me to tell you a story? well, it's about a minister, and the people wanted to be bad to him, and then there was a flood, and a flood is lochs falling instead of rain, and so of course he was nearly drownded, and he preached to them till they liked him again, and so they let him marry her, and they like her awful too, and, just think! it was my father; and that's all. now tell me about grandmother when father came home." i told her once again that margaret never knew how nearly gavin was driven from his kirk. for margaret was as one who goes to bed in the daytime and wakes in it, and is not told that there has been a black night while she slept. she had seen her son leave the manse the idol of his people, and she saw them rejoicing as they brought him back. of what occurred at the jaws, as the spot where dow had saved two lives is now called, she learned, but not that these jaws snatched him and her from an ignominy more terrible than death, for she never knew that the people had meditated driving him from his kirk. this thrums is bleak and perhaps forbidding, but there is a moment of the day when a setting sun dyes it pink, and the people are like their town. thrums was never colder in times of snow than were his congregation to their minister when the great rain began, but his fortitude rekindled their hearts. he was an obstinate minister, and love had led him a dance, but in the hour of trial he had proved himself a man. when gavin reached the manse, and saw not only his mother but babbie, he would have kissed them both; but babbie could only say, "she does not know," and then run away crying. gavin put his arm round his mother, and drew her into the parlor, where he told her who babbie was. now margaret had begun to love babbie already, and had prayed to see gavin happily married; but it was a long time before she went upstairs to look for his wife and kiss her and bring her down. "why was it a long time?" my little maid would ask, and i had to tell her to wait until she was old, and had a son, when she would find out for herself. while gavin and the earl were among the waters, two men were on their way to mr. carfrae's home, to ask him to return with them and preach the auld licht kirk of thrums vacant; and he came, though now so done that he had to be wheeled about in a little coach. he came in sorrow, yet resolved to perform what was asked of him if it seemed god's will; but, instead of banishing gavin, all he had to do was to remarry him and kirk him, both of which things he did, sitting in his coach, as many can tell. lang tammas spoke no more against gavin, but he would not go to the marriage, and he insisted on resigning his eldership for a year and a day. i think he only once again spoke to margaret. she was in the manse garden when he was passing, and she asked him if he would tell her now why he had been so agitated when he visited her on the day of the flood. he answered gruffly, "it's no business o' yours." dr. mcqueen was gavin's best man. he died long ago of scarlet fever. so severe was the epidemic that for a week he was never in bed. he attended fifty cases without suffering, but as soon as he had bent over hendry munn's youngest boys, who both had it, he said, "i'm smitted," and went home to die. you may be sure that gavin proved a good friend to micah dow. i have the piece of slate on which rob proved himself a good friend to gavin; it was in his pocket when we found the body. lord rintoul returned to his english estates, and never revisited the spittal. the last thing i heard of him was that he had been offered the lord-lieutenantship of a county, and had accepted it in a long letter, in which he began by pointing out his unworthiness. this undid him, for the queen, or her councillors, thinking from his first page that he had declined the honor, read no further, and appointed another man. waster lunny is still alive, but has gone to another farm. sanders webster, in his gratitude, wanted nanny to become an auld licht, but she refused, saying, "mr. dishart is worth a dozen o' mr. duthie, and i'm terrible fond o' mrs. dishart, but established i was born and established i'll remain till i'm carried out o' this house feet foremost." "but nanny went to heaven for all that," my little maid told me. "jean says people can go to heaven though they are not auld lichts, but she says it takes them all their time. would you like me to tell you a story about my mother putting glass on the manse dike? well, my mother and my father is very fond of each other, and once they was in the garden, and my father kissed my mother, and there was a woman watching them over the dike, and she cried out--something naughty." "it was tibbie birse," i said, "and what she cried was, 'mercy on us, that's the third time in half an hour!' so your mother, who heard her, was annoyed, and put glass on the wall." "but it's me that is telling you the story. you are sure you don't know it? well, they asked father to take the glass away, and he wouldn't; but he once preached at mother for having a white feather in her bonnet, and another time he preached at her for being too fond of him. jean told me. that's all." no one seeing babbie going to church demurely on gavin's arm could guess her history. sometimes i wonder whether the desire to be a gypsy again ever comes over her for a mad hour, and whether, if so, gavin takes such measures to cure her as he threatened in caddam wood. i suppose not; but here is another story: "when i ask mother to tell me about her once being a gypsy she says i am a bad 'quisitive little girl, and to put on my hat and come with her to the prayer-meeting; and when i asked father to let me see mother's gypsy frock he made me learn psalm forty-eight by heart. but once i see'd it, and it was a long time ago, as long as a week ago. micah dow gave me rowans to put in my hair, and i like micah because he calls me miss, and so i woke in my bed because there was noises, and i ran down to the parlor, and there was my mother in her gypsy frock, and my rowans was in her hair, and my father was kissing her, and when they saw me they jumped; and that's all." "would you like me to tell you another story? it is about a little girl. well, there was once a minister and his wife, and they hadn't no little girls, but just little boys, and god was sorry for them, so he put a little girl in a cabbage in the garden, and when they found her they were glad. would you like me to tell you who the little girl was? well, it was me, and, ugh! i was awful cold in the cabbage. do you like that story?" "yes; i like it best of all the stories i know." "so do i like it, too. couldn't nobody help loving me, 'cause i'm so nice? why am i so fearful nice?" "because you are like your grandmother." "it was clever of my father to know when he found me in the cabbage that my name was margaret. are you sorry grandmother is dead?" "i am glad your mother and father were so good to her and made her so happy." "are you happy?" "yes." "but when i am happy i laugh." "i am old, you see, and you are young." "i am nearly six. did you love grandmother? then why did you never come to see her? did grandmother know you was here? why not? why didn't i not know about you till after grandmother died?" "i'll tell you when you are big." "shall i be big enough when i am six?" "no, not till your eighteenth birthday." "but birthdays comes so slow. will they come quicker when i am big?" "much quicker." on her sixth birthday micah dow drove my little maid to the school-house in the doctor's gig, and she crept beneath the table and whispered-- "grandfather!" "father told me to call you that if i liked, and i like," she said when i had taken her upon my knee. "i know why you kissed me just now. it was because i looked like grandmother. why do you kiss me when i look like her?" "who told you i did that?" "nobody didn't tell me. i just found out. i loved grandmother too. she told me all the stories she knew." "did she ever tell you a story about a black dog?" "no. did she know one?" "yes, she knew it," "perhaps she had forgotten it?" "no, she remembered it." "tell it to me." "not till you are eighteen." "but will you not be dead when i am eighteen? when you go to heaven, will you see grandmother?" "yes." "will she be glad to see you?" my little maid's eighteenth birthday has come, and i am still in thrums, which i love, though it is beautiful to none, perhaps, save to the very done, who lean on their staves and look long at it, having nothing else to do till they die. i have lived to rejoice in the happiness of gavin and babbie: and if at times i have suddenly had to turn away my head after looking upon them in their home surrounded by their children, it was but a moment's envy that i could not help. margaret never knew of the dominie in the glen. they wanted to tell her of me, but i would not have it. she has been long gone from this world; but sweet memories of her still grow, like honeysuckle, up the white walls of the manse, smiling in at the parlor window and beckoning from the door, and for some filling all the air with fragrance. it was not she who raised the barrier between her and me, but god himself; and to those who maintain otherwise, i say they do not understand the purity of a woman's soul. during the years she was lost to me her face ever came between me and ungenerous thoughts; and now i can say, all that is carnal in me is my own, and all that is good i got from her. only one bitterness remains. when i found gavin in the rain, when i was fighting my way through the flood, when i saw how the hearts of the people were turned against him--above all, when i found whamond in the manse--i cried to god, making promises to him, if he would spare the lad for margaret's sake, and he spared him; but these promises i have not kept. the end the woman in white by wilkie collins contents first epoch the story begun by walter hartright the story continued by vincent gilmore the story continued by marian halcombe second epoch the story continued by marian halcombe. the story continued by frederick fairlie, esq. the story continued by eliza michelson the story continued in several narratives the narrative of hester pinhorn the narrative of the doctor the narrative of jane gould the narrative of the tombstone the narrative of walter hartright third epoch the story continued by walter hartright. the story continued by mrs. catherick the story continued by walter hartright the story continued by isidor, ottavio, baldassare fosco the story concluded by walter hartright the story begun by walter hartright (of clement's inn, teacher of drawing) this is the story of what a woman's patience can endure, and what a man's resolution can achieve. if the machinery of the law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a court of justice. but the law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. as the judge might once have heard it, so the reader shall hear it now. no circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. when the writer of these introductory lines (walter hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. when his experience fails, he will retire from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them. thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in court by more than one witness--with the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events, by making the persons who have been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate their own experience, word for word. let walter hartright, teacher of drawing, aged twenty-eight years, be heard first. ii it was the last day of july. the long hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the london pavement, were beginning to think of the cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the sea-shore. for my own poor part, the fading summer left me out of health, out of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well. during the past year i had not managed my professional resources as carefully as usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the prospect of spending the autumn economically between my mother's cottage at hampstead and my own chambers in town. the evening, i remember, was still and cloudy; the london air was at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great heart of the city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. i roused myself from the book which i was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs. it was one of the two evenings in every week which i was accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. so i turned my steps northward in the direction of hampstead. events which i have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in this place that my father had been dead some years at the period of which i am now writing; and that my sister sarah and i were the sole survivors of a family of five children. my father was a drawing-master before me. his exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labours had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than most men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. thanks to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and sister were left, after his death, as independent of the world as they had been during his lifetime. i succeeded to his connection, and had every reason to feel grateful for the prospect that awaited me at my starting in life. the quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of london below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when i stood before the gate of my mother's cottage. i had hardly rung the bell before the house door was opened violently; my worthy italian friend, professor pesca, appeared in the servant's place; and darted out joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign parody on an english cheer. on his own account, and, i must be allowed to add, on mine also, the professor merits the honour of a formal introduction. accident has made him the starting-point of the strange family story which it is the purpose of these pages to unfold. i had first become acquainted with my italian friend by meeting him at certain great houses where he taught his own language and i taught drawing. all i then knew of the history of his life was, that he had once held a situation in the university of padua; that he had left italy for political reasons (the nature of which he uniformly declined to mention to any one); and that he had been for many years respectably established in london as a teacher of languages. without being actually a dwarf--for he was perfectly well proportioned from head to foot--pesca was, i think, the smallest human being i ever saw out of a show-room. remarkable anywhere, by his personal appearance, he was still further distinguished among the rank and file of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of his character. the ruling idea of his life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his gratitude to the country which had afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence by doing his utmost to turn himself into an englishman. not content with paying the nation in general the compliment of invariably carrying an umbrella, and invariably wearing gaiters and a white hat, the professor further aspired to become an englishman in his habits and amusements, as well as in his personal appearance. finding us distinguished, as a nation, by our love of athletic exercises, the little man, in the innocence of his heart, devoted himself impromptu to all our english sports and pastimes whenever he had the opportunity of joining them; firmly persuaded that he could adopt our national amusements of the field by an effort of will precisely as he had adopted our national gaiters and our national white hat. i had seen him risk his limbs blindly at a fox-hunt and in a cricket-field; and soon afterwards i saw him risk his life, just as blindly, in the sea at brighton. we had met there accidentally, and were bathing together. if we had been engaged in any exercise peculiar to my own nation i should, of course, have looked after pesca carefully; but as foreigners are generally quite as well able to take care of themselves in the water as englishmen, it never occurred to me that the art of swimming might merely add one more to the list of manly exercises which the professor believed that he could learn impromptu. soon after we had both struck out from shore, i stopped, finding my friend did not gain on me, and turned round to look for him. to my horror and amazement, i saw nothing between me and the beach but two little white arms which struggled for an instant above the surface of the water, and then disappeared from view. when i dived for him, the poor little man was lying quietly coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of shingle, looking by many degrees smaller than i had ever seen him look before. during the few minutes that elapsed while i was taking him in, the air revived him, and he ascended the steps of the machine with my assistance. with the partial recovery of his animation came the return of his wonderful delusion on the subject of swimming. as soon as his chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled vacantly, and said he thought it must have been the cramp. when he had thoroughly recovered himself, and had joined me on the beach, his warm southern nature broke through all artificial english restraints in a moment. he overwhelmed me with the wildest expressions of affection--exclaimed passionately, in his exaggerated italian way, that he would hold his life henceforth at my disposal--and declared that he should never be happy again until he had found an opportunity of proving his gratitude by rendering me some service which i might remember, on my side, to the end of my days. i did my best to stop the torrent of his tears and protestations by persisting in treating the whole adventure as a good subject for a joke; and succeeded at last, as i imagined, in lessening pesca's overwhelming sense of obligation to me. little did i think then--little did i think afterwards when our pleasant holiday had drawn to an end--that the opportunity of serving me for which my grateful companion so ardently longed was soon to come; that he was eagerly to seize it on the instant; and that by so doing he was to turn the whole current of my existence into a new channel, and to alter me to myself almost past recognition. yet so it was. if i had not dived for professor pesca when he lay under water on his shingle bed, i should in all human probability never have been connected with the story which these pages will relate--i should never, perhaps, have heard even the name of the woman who has lived in all my thoughts, who has possessed herself of all my energies, who has become the one guiding influence that now directs the purpose of my life. iii pesca's face and manner, on the evening when we confronted each other at my mother's gate, were more than sufficient to inform me that something extraordinary had happened. it was quite useless, however, to ask him for an immediate explanation. i could only conjecture, while he was dragging me in by both hands, that (knowing my habits) he had come to the cottage to make sure of meeting me that night, and that he had some news to tell of an unusually agreeable kind. we both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt and undignified manner. my mother sat by the open window laughing and fanning herself. pesca was one of her especial favourites and his wildest eccentricities were always pardonable in her eyes. poor dear soul! from the first moment when she found out that the little professor was deeply and gratefully attached to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly, and took all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for granted, without so much as attempting to understand any one of them. my sister sarah, with all the advantages of youth, was, strangely enough, less pliable. she did full justice to pesca's excellent qualities of heart; but she could not accept him implicitly, as my mother accepted him, for my sake. her insular notions of propriety rose in perpetual revolt against pesca's constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was always more or less undisguisedly astonished at her mother's familiarity with the eccentric little foreigner. i have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders. i constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. are we, i wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up? without attempting to answer those questions decisively, i may at least record that i never saw my mother and my sister together in pesca's society, without finding my mother much the younger woman of the two. on this occasion, for example, while the old lady was laughing heartily over the boyish manner in which we tumbled into the parlour, sarah was perturbedly picking up the broken pieces of a teacup, which the professor had knocked off the table in his precipitate advance to meet me at the door. "i don't know what would have happened, walter," said my mother, "if you had delayed much longer. pesca has been half mad with impatience, and i have been half mad with curiosity. the professor has brought some wonderful news with him, in which he says you are concerned; and he has cruelly refused to give us the smallest hint of it till his friend walter appeared." "very provoking: it spoils the set," murmured sarah to herself, mournfully absorbed over the ruins of the broken cup. while these words were being spoken, pesca, happily and fussily unconscious of the irreparable wrong which the crockery had suffered at his hands, was dragging a large arm-chair to the opposite end of the room, so as to command us all three, in the character of a public speaker addressing an audience. having turned the chair with its back towards us, he jumped into it on his knees, and excitedly addressed his small congregation of three from an impromptu pulpit. "now, my good dears," began pesca (who always said "good dears" when he meant "worthy friends"), "listen to me. the time has come--i recite my good news--i speak at last." "hear, hear!" said my mother, humouring the joke. "the next thing he will break, mamma," whispered sarah, "will be the back of the best arm-chair." "i go back into my life, and i address myself to the noblest of created beings," continued pesca, vehemently apostrophising my unworthy self over the top rail of the chair. "who found me dead at the bottom of the sea (through cramp); and who pulled me up to the top; and what did i say when i got into my own life and my own clothes again?" "much more than was at all necessary," i answered as doggedly as possible; for the least encouragement in connection with this subject invariably let loose the professor's emotions in a flood of tears. "i said," persisted pesca, "that my life belonged to my dear friend, walter, for the rest of my days--and so it does. i said that i should never be happy again till i had found the opportunity of doing a good something for walter--and i have never been contented with myself till this most blessed day. now," cried the enthusiastic little man at the top of his voice, "the overflowing happiness bursts out of me at every pore of my skin, like a perspiration; for on my faith, and soul, and honour, the something is done at last, and the only word to say now is--right-all-right!" it may be necessary to explain here that pesca prided himself on being a perfect englishman in his language, as well as in his dress, manners, and amusements. having picked up a few of our most familiar colloquial expressions, he scattered them about over his conversation whenever they happened to occur to him, turning them, in his high relish for their sound and his general ignorance of their sense, into compound words and repetitions of his own, and always running them into each other, as if they consisted of one long syllable. "among the fine london houses where i teach the language of my native country," said the professor, rushing into his long-deferred explanation without another word of preface, "there is one, mighty fine, in the big place called portland. you all know where that is? yes, yes--course-of-course. the fine house, my good dears, has got inside it a fine family. a mamma, fair and fat; three young misses, fair and fat; two young misters, fair and fat; and a papa, the fairest and the fattest of all, who is a mighty merchant, up to his eyes in gold--a fine man once, but seeing that he has got a naked head and two chins, fine no longer at the present time. now mind! i teach the sublime dante to the young misses, and ah!--my-soul-bless-my-soul!--it is not in human language to say how the sublime dante puzzles the pretty heads of all three! no matter--all in good time--and the more lessons the better for me. now mind! imagine to yourselves that i am teaching the young misses to-day, as usual. we are all four of us down together in the hell of dante. at the seventh circle--but no matter for that: all the circles are alike to the three young misses, fair and fat,--at the seventh circle, nevertheless, my pupils are sticking fast; and i, to set them going again, recite, explain, and blow myself up red-hot with useless enthusiasm, when--a creak of boots in the passage outside, and in comes the golden papa, the mighty merchant with the naked head and the two chins.--ha! my good dears, i am closer than you think for to the business, now. have you been patient so far? or have you said to yourselves, 'deuce-what-the-deuce! pesca is long-winded to-night?'" we declared that we were deeply interested. the professor went on: "in his hand, the golden papa has a letter; and after he has made his excuse for disturbing us in our infernal region with the common mortal business of the house, he addresses himself to the three young misses, and begins, as you english begin everything in this blessed world that you have to say, with a great o. 'o, my dears,' says the mighty merchant, 'i have got here a letter from my friend, mr.----'(the name has slipped out of my mind; but no matter; we shall come back to that; yes, yes--right-all-right). so the papa says, 'i have got a letter from my friend, the mister; and he wants a recommend from me, of a drawing-master, to go down to his house in the country.' my-soul-bless-my-soul! when i heard the golden papa say those words, if i had been big enough to reach up to him, i should have put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to my bosom in a long and grateful hug! as it was, i only bounced upon my chair. my seat was on thorns, and my soul was on fire to speak but i held my tongue, and let papa go on. 'perhaps you know,' says this good man of money, twiddling his friend's letter this way and that, in his golden fingers and thumbs, 'perhaps you know, my dears, of a drawing-master that i can recommend?' the three young misses all look at each other, and then say (with the indispensable great o to begin) "o, dear no, papa! but here is mr. pesca' at the mention of myself i can hold no longer--the thought of you, my good dears, mounts like blood to my head--i start from my seat, as if a spike had grown up from the ground through the bottom of my chair--i address myself to the mighty merchant, and i say (english phrase) 'dear sir, i have the man! the first and foremost drawing-master of the world! recommend him by the post to-night, and send him off, bag and baggage (english phrase again--ha!), send him off, bag and baggage, by the train to-morrow!' 'stop, stop,' says papa; 'is he a foreigner, or an englishman?' 'english to the bone of his back,' i answer. 'respectable?' says papa. 'sir,' i say (for this last question of his outrages me, and i have done being familiar with him--) 'sir! the immortal fire of genius burns in this englishman's bosom, and, what is more, his father had it before him!' 'never mind,' says the golden barbarian of a papa, 'never mind about his genius, mr. pesca. we don't want genius in this country, unless it is accompanied by respectability--and then we are very glad to have it, very glad indeed. can your friend produce testimonials--letters that speak to his character?' i wave my hand negligently. 'letters?' i say. 'ha! my-soul-bless-my-soul! i should think so, indeed! volumes of letters and portfolios of testimonials, if you like!' 'one or two will do,' says this man of phlegm and money. 'let him send them to me, with his name and address. and--stop, stop, mr. pesca--before you go to your friend, you had better take a note.' 'bank-note!' i say, indignantly. 'no bank-note, if you please, till my brave englishman has earned it first.' 'bank-note!' says papa, in a great surprise, 'who talked of bank-note? i mean a note of the terms--a memorandum of what he is expected to do. go on with your lesson, mr. pesca, and i will give you the necessary extract from my friend's letter.' down sits the man of merchandise and money to his pen, ink, and paper; and down i go once again into the hell of dante, with my three young misses after me. in ten minutes' time the note is written, and the boots of papa are creaking themselves away in the passage outside. from that moment, on my faith, and soul, and honour, i know nothing more! the glorious thought that i have caught my opportunity at last, and that my grateful service for my dearest friend in the world is as good as done already, flies up into my head and makes me drunk. how i pull my young misses and myself out of our infernal region again, how my other business is done afterwards, how my little bit of dinner slides itself down my throat, i know no more than a man in the moon. enough for me, that here i am, with the mighty merchant's note in my hand, as large as life, as hot as fire, and as happy as a king! ha! ha! ha! right-right-right-all-right!" here the professor waved the memorandum of terms over his head, and ended his long and voluble narrative with his shrill italian parody on an english cheer." my mother rose the moment he had done, with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes. she caught the little man warmly by both hands. "my dear, good pesca," she said, "i never doubted your true affection for walter--but i am more than ever persuaded of it now!" "i am sure we are very much obliged to professor pesca, for walter's sake," added sarah. she half rose, while she spoke, as if to approach the arm-chair, in her turn; but, observing that pesca was rapturously kissing my mother's hands, looked serious, and resumed her seat. "if the familiar little man treats my mother in that way, how will he treat me?" faces sometimes tell truth; and that was unquestionably the thought in sarah's mind, as she sat down again. although i myself was gratefully sensible of the kindness of pesca's motives, my spirits were hardly so much elevated as they ought to have been by the prospect of future employment now placed before me. when the professor had quite done with my mother's hand, and when i had warmly thanked him for his interference on my behalf, i asked to be allowed to look at the note of terms which his respectable patron had drawn up for my inspection. pesca handed me the paper, with a triumphant flourish of the hand. "read!" said the little man majestically. "i promise you my friend, the writing of the golden papa speaks with a tongue of trumpets for itself." the note of terms was plain, straightforward, and comprehensive, at any rate. it informed me, first, that frederick fairlie, esquire, of limmeridge house. cumberland, wanted to engage the services of a thoroughly competent drawing-master, for a period of four months certain. secondly, that the duties which the master was expected to perform would be of a twofold kind. he was to superintend the instruction of two young ladies in the art of painting in water-colours; and he was to devote his leisure time, afterwards, to the business of repairing and mounting a valuable collection of drawings, which had been suffered to fall into a condition of total neglect. thirdly, that the terms offered to the person who should undertake and properly perform these duties were four guineas a week; that he was to reside at limmeridge house; and that he was to be treated there on the footing of a gentleman. fourthly, and lastly, that no person need think of applying for this situation unless he could furnish the most unexceptionable references to character and abilities. the references were to be sent to mr. fairlie's friend in london, who was empowered to conclude all necessary arrangements. these instructions were followed by the name and address of pesca's employer in portland place--and there the note, or memorandum, ended. the prospect which this offer of an engagement held out was certainly an attractive one. the employment was likely to be both easy and agreeable; it was proposed to me at the autumn time of the year when i was least occupied; and the terms, judging by my personal experience in my profession, were surprisingly liberal. i knew this; i knew that i ought to consider myself very fortunate if i succeeded in securing the offered employment--and yet, no sooner had i read the memorandum than i felt an inexplicable unwillingness within me to stir in the matter. i had never in the whole of my previous experience found my duty and my inclination so painfully and so unaccountably at variance as i found them now. "oh, walter, your father never had such a chance as this!" said my mother, when she had read the note of terms and had handed it back to me. "such distinguished people to know," remarked sarah, straightening herself in the chair; "and on such gratifying terms of equality too!" "yes, yes; the terms, in every sense, are tempting enough," i replied impatiently. "but before i send in my testimonials, i should like a little time to consider----" "consider!" exclaimed my mother. "why, walter, what is the matter with you?" "consider!" echoed my sister. "what a very extraordinary thing to say, under the circumstances!" "consider!" chimed in the professor. "what is there to consider about? answer me this! have you not been complaining of your health, and have you not been longing for what you call a smack of the country breeze? well! there in your hand is the paper that offers you perpetual choking mouthfuls of country breeze for four months' time. is it not so? ha! again--you want money. well! is four golden guineas a week nothing? my-soul-bless-my-soul! only give it to me--and my boots shall creak like the golden papa's, with a sense of the overpowering richness of the man who walks in them! four guineas a week, and, more than that, the charming society of two young misses! and, more than that, your bed, your breakfast, your dinner, your gorging english teas and lunches and drinks of foaming beer, all for nothing--why, walter, my dear good friend--deuce-what-the-deuce!--for the first time in my life i have not eyes enough in my head to look, and wonder at you!" neither my mother's evident astonishment at my behaviour, nor pesca's fervid enumeration of the advantages offered to me by the new employment, had any effect in shaking my unreasonable disinclination to go to limmeridge house. after starting all the petty objections that i could think of to going to cumberland, and after hearing them answered, one after another, to my own complete discomfiture, i tried to set up a last obstacle by asking what was to become of my pupils in london while i was teaching mr. fairlie's young ladies to sketch from nature. the obvious answer to this was, that the greater part of them would be away on their autumn travels, and that the few who remained at home might be confided to the care of one of my brother drawing-masters, whose pupils i had once taken off his hands under similar circumstances. my sister reminded me that this gentleman had expressly placed his services at my disposal, during the present season, in case i wished to leave town; my mother seriously appealed to me not to let an idle caprice stand in the way of my own interests and my own health; and pesca piteously entreated that i would not wound him to the heart by rejecting the first grateful offer of service that he had been able to make to the friend who had saved his life. the evident sincerity and affection which inspired these remonstrances would have influenced any man with an atom of good feeling in his composition. though i could not conquer my own unaccountable perversity, i had at least virtue enough to be heartily ashamed of it, and to end the discussion pleasantly by giving way, and promising to do all that was wanted of me. the rest of the evening passed merrily enough in humorous anticipations of my coming life with the two young ladies in cumberland. pesca, inspired by our national grog, which appeared to get into his head, in the most marvellous manner, five minutes after it had gone down his throat, asserted his claims to be considered a complete englishman by making a series of speeches in rapid succession, proposing my mother's health, my sister's health, my health, and the healths, in mass, of mr. fairlie and the two young misses, pathetically returning thanks himself, immediately afterwards, for the whole party. "a secret, walter," said my little friend confidentially, as we walked home together. "i am flushed by the recollection of my own eloquence. my soul bursts itself with ambition. one of these days i go into your noble parliament. it is the dream of my whole life to be honourable pesca, m.p.!" the next morning i sent my testimonials to the professor's employer in portland place. three days passed, and i concluded, with secret satisfaction, that my papers had not been found sufficiently explicit. on the fourth day, however, an answer came. it announced that mr. fairlie accepted my services, and requested me to start for cumberland immediately. all the necessary instructions for my journey were carefully and clearly added in a postscript. i made my arrangements, unwillingly enough, for leaving london early the next day. towards evening pesca looked in, on his way to a dinner-party, to bid me good-bye. "i shall dry my tears in your absence," said the professor gaily, "with this glorious thought. it is my auspicious hand that has given the first push to your fortune in the world. go, my friend! when your sun shines in cumberland (english proverb), in the name of heaven make your hay. marry one of the two young misses; become honourable hartright, m.p.; and when you are on the top of the ladder remember that pesca, at the bottom, has done it all!" i tried to laugh with my little friend over his parting jest, but my spirits were not to be commanded. something jarred in me almost painfully while he was speaking his light farewell words. when i was left alone again nothing remained to be done but to walk to the hampstead cottage and bid my mother and sarah good-bye. iv the heat had been painfully oppressive all day, and it was now a close and sultry night. my mother and sister had spoken so many last words, and had begged me to wait another five minutes so many times, that it was nearly midnight when the servant locked the garden-gate behind me. i walked forward a few paces on the shortest way back to london, then stopped and hesitated. the moon was full and broad in the dark blue starless sky, and the broken ground of the heath looked wild enough in the mysterious light to be hundreds of miles away from the great city that lay beneath it. the idea of descending any sooner than i could help into the heat and gloom of london repelled me. the prospect of going to bed in my airless chambers, and the prospect of gradual suffocation, seemed, in my present restless frame of mind and body, to be one and the same thing. i determined to stroll home in the purer air by the most roundabout way i could take; to follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to approach london through its most open suburb by striking into the finchley road, and so getting back, in the cool of the new morning, by the western side of the regent's park. i wound my way down slowly over the heath, enjoying the divine stillness of the scene, and admiring the soft alternations of light and shade as they followed each other over the broken ground on every side of me. so long as i was proceeding through this first and prettiest part of my night walk my mind remained passively open to the impressions produced by the view; and i thought but little on any subject--indeed, so far as my own sensations were concerned, i can hardly say that i thought at all. but when i had left the heath and had turned into the by-road, where there was less to see, the ideas naturally engendered by the approaching change in my habits and occupations gradually drew more and more of my attention exclusively to themselves. by the time i had arrived at the end of the road i had become completely absorbed in my own fanciful visions of limmeridge house, of mr. fairlie, and of the two ladies whose practice in the art of water-colour painting i was so soon to superintend. i had now arrived at that particular point of my walk where four roads met--the road to hampstead, along which i had returned, the road to finchley, the road to west end, and the road back to london. i had mechanically turned in this latter direction, and was strolling along the lonely high-road--idly wondering, i remember, what the cumberland young ladies would look like--when, in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me. i turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the handle of my stick. there, in the middle of the broad bright high-road--there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven--stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over london, as i faced her. i was far too seriously startled by the suddenness with which this extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and in that lonely place, to ask what she wanted. the strange woman spoke first. "is that the road to london?" she said. i looked attentively at her, as she put that singular question to me. it was then nearly one o'clock. all i could discern distinctly by the moonlight was a colourless, youthful face, meagre and sharp to look at about the cheeks and chin; large, grave, wistfully attentive eyes; nervous, uncertain lips; and light hair of a pale, brownish-yellow hue. there was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and self-controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion; not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life. the voice, little as i had yet heard of it, had something curiously still and mechanical in its tones, and the utterance was remarkably rapid. she held a small bag in her hand: and her dress--bonnet, shawl, and gown all of white--was, so far as i could guess, certainly not composed of very delicate or very expensive materials. her figure was slight, and rather above the average height--her gait and actions free from the slightest approach to extravagance. this was all that i could observe of her in the dim light and under the perplexingly strange circumstances of our meeting. what sort of a woman she was, and how she came to be out alone in the high-road, an hour after midnight, i altogether failed to guess. the one thing of which i felt certain was, that the grossest of mankind could not have misconstrued her motive in speaking, even at that suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place. "did you hear me?" she said, still quietly and rapidly, and without the least fretfulness or impatience. "i asked if that was the way to london." "yes," i replied, "that is the way: it leads to st. john's wood and the regent's park. you must excuse my not answering you before. i was rather startled by your sudden appearance in the road; and i am, even now, quite unable to account for it." "you don't suspect me of doing anything wrong, do you? i have done nothing wrong. i have met with an accident--i am very unfortunate in being here alone so late. why do you suspect me of doing wrong?" she spoke with unnecessary earnestness and agitation, and shrank back from me several paces. i did my best to reassure her. "pray don't suppose that i have any idea of suspecting you," i said, "or any other wish than to be of assistance to you, if i can. i only wondered at your appearance in the road, because it seemed to me to be empty the instant before i saw you." she turned, and pointed back to a place at the junction of the road to london and the road to hampstead, where there was a gap in the hedge. "i heard you coming," she said, "and hid there to see what sort of man you were, before i risked speaking. i doubted and feared about it till you passed; and then i was obliged to steal after you, and touch you." steal after me and touch me? why not call to me? strange, to say the least of it. "may i trust you?" she asked. "you don't think the worse of me because i have met with an accident?" she stopped in confusion; shifted her bag from one hand to the other; and sighed bitterly. the loneliness and helplessness of the woman touched me. the natural impulse to assist her and to spare her got the better of the judgment, the caution, the worldly tact, which an older, wiser, and colder man might have summoned to help him in this strange emergency. "you may trust me for any harmless purpose," i said. "if it troubles you to explain your strange situation to me, don't think of returning to the subject again. i have no right to ask you for any explanations. tell me how i can help you; and if i can, i will." "you are very kind, and i am very, very thankful to have met you." the first touch of womanly tenderness that i had heard from her trembled in her voice as she said the words; but no tears glistened in those large, wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which were still fixed on me. "i have only been in london once before," she went on, more and more rapidly, "and i know nothing about that side of it, yonder. can i get a fly, or a carriage of any kind? is it too late? i don't know. if you could show me where to get a fly--and if you will only promise not to interfere with me, and to let me leave you, when and how i please--i have a friend in london who will be glad to receive me--i want nothing else--will you promise?" she looked anxiously up and down the road; shifted her bag again from one hand to the other; repeated the words, "will you promise?" and looked hard in my face, with a pleading fear and confusion that it troubled me to see. what could i do? here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my mercy--and that stranger a forlorn woman. no house was near; no one was passing whom i could consult; and no earthly right existed on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if i had known how to exercise it. i trace these lines, self-distrustfully, with the shadows of after-events darkening the very paper i write on; and still i say, what could i do? what i did do, was to try and gain time by questioning her. "are you sure that your friend in london will receive you at such a late hour as this?" i said. "quite sure. only say you will let me leave you when and how i please--only say you won't interfere with me. will you promise?" as she repeated the words for the third time, she came close to me and laid her hand, with a sudden gentle stealthiness, on my bosom--a thin hand; a cold hand (when i removed it with mine) even on that sultry night. remember that i was young; remember that the hand which touched me was a woman's. "will you promise?" "yes." one word! the little familiar word that is on everybody's lips, every hour in the day. oh me! and i tremble, now, when i write it. we set our faces towards london, and walked on together in the first still hour of the new day--i, and this woman, whose name, whose character, whose story, whose objects in life, whose very presence by my side, at that moment, were fathomless mysteries to me. it was like a dream. was i walter hartright? was this the well-known, uneventful road, where holiday people strolled on sundays? had i really left, little more than an hour since, the quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my mother's cottage? i was too bewildered--too conscious also of a vague sense of something like self-reproach--to speak to my strange companion for some minutes. it was her voice again that first broke the silence between us. "i want to ask you something," she said suddenly. "do you know many people in london?" "yes, a great many." "many men of rank and title?" there was an unmistakable tone of suspicion in the strange question. i hesitated about answering it. "some," i said, after a moment's silence. "many"--she came to a full stop, and looked me searchingly in the face--"many men of the rank of baronet?" too much astonished to reply, i questioned her in my turn. "why do you ask?" "because i hope, for my own sake, there is one baronet that you don't know." "will you tell me his name?" "i can't--i daren't--i forget myself when i mention it." she spoke loudly and almost fiercely, raised her clenched hand in the air, and shook it passionately; then, on a sudden, controlled herself again, and added, in tones lowered to a whisper "tell me which of them you know." i could hardly refuse to humour her in such a trifle, and i mentioned three names. two, the names of fathers of families whose daughters i taught; one, the name of a bachelor who had once taken me a cruise in his yacht, to make sketches for him. "ah! you don't know him," she said, with a sigh of relief. "are you a man of rank and title yourself?" "far from it. i am only a drawing-master." as the reply passed my lips--a little bitterly, perhaps--she took my arm with the abruptness which characterised all her actions. "not a man of rank and title," she repeated to herself. "thank god! i may trust him." i had hitherto contrived to master my curiosity out of consideration for my companion; but it got the better of me now. "i am afraid you have serious reason to complain of some man of rank and title?" i said. "i am afraid the baronet, whose name you are unwilling to mention to me, has done you some grievous wrong? is he the cause of your being out here at this strange time of night?" "don't ask me: don't make me talk of it," she answered. "i'm not fit now. i have been cruelly used and cruelly wronged. you will be kinder than ever, if you will walk on fast, and not speak to me. i sadly want to quiet myself, if i can." we moved forward again at a quick pace; and for half an hour, at least, not a word passed on either side. from time to time, being forbidden to make any more inquiries, i stole a look at her face. it was always the same; the lips close shut, the brow frowning, the eyes looking straight forward, eagerly and yet absently. we had reached the first houses, and were close on the new wesleyan college, before her set features relaxed and she spoke once more. "do you live in london?" she said. "yes." as i answered, it struck me that she might have formed some intention of appealing to me for assistance or advice, and that i ought to spare her a possible disappointment by warning her of my approaching absence from home. so i added, "but to-morrow i shall be away from london for some time. i am going into the country." "where?" she asked. "north or south?" "north--to cumberland." "cumberland!" she repeated the word tenderly. "ah! wish i was going there too. i was once happy in cumberland." i tried again to lift the veil that hung between this woman and me. "perhaps you were born," i said, "in the beautiful lake country." "no," she answered. "i was born in hampshire; but i once went to school for a little while in cumberland. lakes? i don't remember any lakes. it's limmeridge village, and limmeridge house, i should like to see again." it was my turn now to stop suddenly. in the excited state of my curiosity, at that moment, the chance reference to mr. fairlie's place of residence, on the lips of my strange companion, staggered me with astonishment. "did you hear anybody calling after us?" she asked, looking up and down the road affrightedly, the instant i stopped. "no, no. i was only struck by the name of limmeridge house. i heard it mentioned by some cumberland people a few days since." "ah! not my people. mrs. fairlie is dead; and her husband is dead; and their little girl may be married and gone away by this time. i can't say who lives at limmeridge now. if any more are left there of that name, i only know i love them for mrs. fairlie's sake." she seemed about to say more; but while she was speaking, we came within view of the turnpike, at the top of the avenue road. her hand tightened round my arm, and she looked anxiously at the gate before us. "is the turnpike man looking out?" she asked. he was not looking out; no one else was near the place when we passed through the gate. the sight of the gas-lamps and houses seemed to agitate her, and to make her impatient. "this is london," she said. "do you see any carriage i can get? i am tired and frightened. i want to shut myself in and be driven away." i explained to her that we must walk a little further to get to a cab-stand, unless we were fortunate enough to meet with an empty vehicle; and then tried to resume the subject of cumberland. it was useless. that idea of shutting herself in, and being driven away, had now got full possession of her mind. she could think and talk of nothing else. we had hardly proceeded a third of the way down the avenue road when i saw a cab draw up at a house a few doors below us, on the opposite side of the way. a gentleman got out and let himself in at the garden door. i hailed the cab, as the driver mounted the box again. when we crossed the road, my companion's impatience increased to such an extent that she almost forced me to run. "it's so late," she said. "i am only in a hurry because it's so late." "i can't take you, sir, if you're not going towards tottenham court road," said the driver civilly, when i opened the cab door. "my horse is dead beat, and i can't get him no further than the stable." "yes, yes. that will do for me. i'm going that way--i'm going that way." she spoke with breathless eagerness, and pressed by me into the cab. i had assured myself that the man was sober as well as civil before i let her enter the vehicle. and now, when she was seated inside, i entreated her to let me see her set down safely at her destination. "no, no, no," she said vehemently. "i'm quite safe, and quite happy now. if you are a gentleman, remember your promise. let him drive on till i stop him. thank you--oh! thank you, thank you!" my hand was on the cab door. she caught it in hers, kissed it, and pushed it away. the cab drove off at the same moment--i started into the road, with some vague idea of stopping it again, i hardly knew why--hesitated from dread of frightening and distressing her--called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract the driver's attention. the sound of the wheels grew fainter in the distance--the cab melted into the black shadows on the road--the woman in white was gone. ten minutes or more had passed. i was still on the same side of the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now stopping again absently. at one moment i found myself doubting the reality of my own adventure; at another i was perplexed and distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left me confusedly ignorant of how i could have done right. i hardly knew where i was going, or what i meant to do next; i was conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when i was abruptly recalled to myself--awakened, i might almost say--by the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me. i was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some garden trees, when i stopped to look round. on the opposite and lighter side of the way, a short distance below me, a policeman was strolling along in the direction of the regent's park. the carriage passed me--an open chaise driven by two men. "stop!" cried one. "there's a policeman. let's ask him." the horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark place where i stood. "policeman!" cried the first speaker. "have you seen a woman pass this way?" "what sort of woman, sir?" "a woman in a lavender-coloured gown----" "no, no," interposed the second man. "the clothes we gave her were found on her bed. she must have gone away in the clothes she wore when she came to us. in white, policeman. a woman in white." "i haven't seen her, sir." "if you or any of your men meet with the woman, stop her, and send her in careful keeping to that address. i'll pay all expenses, and a fair reward into the bargain." the policeman looked at the card that was handed down to him. "why are we to stop her, sir? what has she done?" "done! she has escaped from my asylum. don't forget; a woman in white. drive on." v "she has escaped from my asylum!" i cannot say with truth that the terrible inference which those words suggested flashed upon me like a new revelation. some of the strange questions put to me by the woman in white, after my ill-considered promise to leave her free to act as she pleased, had suggested the conclusion either that she was naturally flighty and unsettled, or that some recent shock of terror had disturbed the balance of her faculties. but the idea of absolute insanity which we all associate with the very name of an asylum, had, i can honestly declare, never occurred to me, in connection with her. i had seen nothing, in her language or her actions, to justify it at the time; and even with the new light thrown on her by the words which the stranger had addressed to the policeman, i could see nothing to justify it now. what had i done? assisted the victim of the most horrible of all false imprisonments to escape; or cast loose on the wide world of london an unfortunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and every man's duty, mercifully to control? i turned sick at heart when the question occurred to me, and when i felt self-reproachfully that it was asked too late. in the disturbed state of my mind, it was useless to think of going to bed, when i at last got back to my chambers in clement's inn. before many hours elapsed it would be necessary to start on my journey to cumberland. i sat down and tried, first to sketch, then to read--but the woman in white got between me and my pencil, between me and my book. had the forlorn creature come to any harm? that was my first thought, though i shrank selfishly from confronting it. other thoughts followed, on which it was less harrowing to dwell. where had she stopped the cab? what had become of her now? had she been traced and captured by the men in the chaise? or was she still capable of controlling her own actions; and were we two following our widely parted roads towards one point in the mysterious future, at which we were to meet once more? it was a relief when the hour came to lock my door, to bid farewell to london pursuits, london pupils, and london friends, and to be in movement again towards new interests and a new life. even the bustle and confusion at the railway terminus, so wearisome and bewildering at other times, roused me and did me good. my travelling instructions directed me to go to carlisle, and then to diverge by a branch railway which ran in the direction of the coast. as a misfortune to begin with, our engine broke down between lancaster and carlisle. the delay occasioned by this accident caused me to be too late for the branch train, by which i was to have gone on immediately. i had to wait some hours; and when a later train finally deposited me at the nearest station to limmeridge house, it was past ten, and the night was so dark that i could hardly see my way to the pony-chaise which mr. fairlie had ordered to be in waiting for me. the driver was evidently discomposed by the lateness of my arrival. he was in that state of highly respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to english servants. we drove away slowly through the darkness in perfect silence. the roads were bad, and the dense obscurity of the night increased the difficulty of getting over the ground quickly. it was, by my watch, nearly an hour and a half from the time of our leaving the station before i heard the sound of the sea in the distance, and the crunch of our wheels on a smooth gravel drive. we had passed one gate before entering the drive, and we passed another before we drew up at the house. i was received by a solemn man-servant out of livery, was informed that the family had retired for the night, and was then led into a large and lofty room where my supper was awaiting me, in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany wilderness of dining-table. i was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink much, especially with the solemn servant waiting on me as elaborately as if a small dinner party had arrived at the house instead of a solitary man. in a quarter of an hour i was ready to be taken up to my bedchamber. the solemn servant conducted me into a prettily furnished room--said, "breakfast at nine o'clock, sir"--looked all round him to see that everything was in its proper place, and noiselessly withdrew. "what shall i see in my dreams to-night?" i thought to myself, as i put out the candle; "the woman in white? or the unknown inhabitants of this cumberland mansion?" it was a strange sensation to be sleeping in the house, like a friend of the family, and yet not to know one of the inmates, even by sight! vi when i rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened before me joyously under the broad august sunlight, and the distant coast of scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of melting blue. the view was such a surprise, and such a change to me, after my weary london experience of brick and mortar landscape, that i seemed to burst into a new life and a new set of thoughts the moment i looked at it. a confused sensation of having suddenly lost my familiarity with the past, without acquiring any additional clearness of idea in reference to the present or the future, took possession of my mind. circumstances that were but a few days old faded back in my memory, as if they had happened months and months since. pesca's quaint announcement of the means by which he had procured me my present employment; the farewell evening i had passed with my mother and sister; even my mysterious adventure on the way home from hampstead--had all become like events which might have occurred at some former epoch of my existence. although the woman in white was still in my mind, the image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint already. a little before nine o'clock, i descended to the ground-floor of the house. the solemn man-servant of the night before met me wandering among the passages, and compassionately showed me the way to the breakfast-room. my first glance round me, as the man opened the door, disclosed a well-furnished breakfast-table, standing in the middle of a long room, with many windows in it. i looked from the table to the window farthest from me, and saw a lady standing at it, with her back turned towards me. the instant my eyes rested on her, i was struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the unaffected grace of her attitude. her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays. she had not heard my entrance into the room; and i allowed myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before i moved one of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. she turned towards me immediately. the easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. she left the window--and i said to myself, the lady is dark. she moved forward a few steps--and i said to myself, the lady is young. she approached nearer--and i said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), the lady is ugly! never was the old conventional maxim, that nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted--never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. the lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. she had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. her expression--bright, frank, and intelligent--appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete. to see such a face as this set on shoulders that a sculptor would have longed to model--to be charmed by the modest graces of action through which the symmetrical limbs betrayed their beauty when they moved, and then to be almost repelled by the masculine form and masculine look of the features in which the perfectly shaped figure ended--was to feel a sensation oddly akin to the helpless discomfort familiar to us all in sleep, when we recognise yet cannot reconcile the anomalies and contradictions of a dream. "mr. hartright?" said the lady interrogatively, her dark face lighting up with a smile, and softening and growing womanly the moment she began to speak. "we resigned all hope of you last night, and went to bed as usual. accept my apologies for our apparent want of attention; and allow me to introduce myself as one of your pupils. shall we shake hands? i suppose we must come to it sooner or later--and why not sooner?" these odd words of welcome were spoken in a clear, ringing, pleasant voice. the offered hand--rather large, but beautifully formed--was given to me with the easy, unaffected self-reliance of a highly-bred woman. we sat down together at the breakfast-table in as cordial and customary a manner as if we had known each other for years, and had met at limmeridge house to talk over old times by previous appointment. "i hope you come here good-humouredly determined to make the best of your position," continued the lady. "you will have to begin this morning by putting up with no other company at breakfast than mine. my sister is in her own room, nursing that essentially feminine malady, a slight headache; and her old governess, mrs. vesey, is charitably attending on her with restorative tea. my uncle, mr. fairlie, never joins us at any of our meals: he is an invalid, and keeps bachelor state in his own apartments. there is nobody else in the house but me. two young ladies have been staying here, but they went away yesterday, in despair; and no wonder. all through their visit (in consequence of mr. fairlie's invalid condition) we produced no such convenience in the house as a flirtable, danceable, small-talkable creature of the male sex; and the consequence was, we did nothing but quarrel, especially at dinner-time. how can you expect four women to dine together alone every day, and not quarrel? we are such fools, we can't entertain each other at table. you see i don't think much of my own sex, mr. hartright--which will you have, tea or coffee?--no woman does think much of her own sex, although few of them confess it as freely as i do. dear me, you look puzzled. why? are you wondering what you will have for breakfast? or are you surprised at my careless way of talking? in the first case, i advise you, as a friend, to have nothing to do with that cold ham at your elbow, and to wait till the omelette comes in. in the second case, i will give you some tea to compose your spirits, and do all a woman can (which is very little, by-the-bye) to hold my tongue." she handed me my cup of tea, laughing gaily. her light flow of talk, and her lively familiarity of manner with a total stranger, were accompanied by an unaffected naturalness and an easy inborn confidence in herself and her position, which would have secured her the respect of the most audacious man breathing. while it was impossible to be formal and reserved in her company, it was more than impossible to take the faintest vestige of a liberty with her, even in thought. i felt this instinctively, even while i caught the infection of her own bright gaiety of spirits--even while i did my best to answer her in her own frank, lively way. "yes, yes," she said, when i had suggested the only explanation i could offer, to account for my perplexed looks, "i understand. you are such a perfect stranger in the house, that you are puzzled by my familiar references to the worthy inhabitants. natural enough: i ought to have thought of it before. at any rate, i can set it right now. suppose i begin with myself, so as to get done with that part of the subject as soon as possible? my name is marian halcombe; and i am as inaccurate as women usually are, in calling mr. fairlie my uncle, and miss fairlie my sister. my mother was twice married: the first time to mr. halcombe, my father; the second time to mr. fairlie, my half-sister's father. except that we are both orphans, we are in every respect as unlike each other as possible. my father was a poor man, and miss fairlie's father was a rich man. i have got nothing, and she has a fortune. i am dark and ugly, and she is fair and pretty. everybody thinks me crabbed and odd (with perfect justice); and everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more justice still). in short, she is an angel; and i am---- try some of that marmalade, mr. hartright, and finish the sentence, in the name of female propriety, for yourself. what am i to tell you about mr. fairlie? upon my honour, i hardly know. he is sure to send for you after breakfast, and you can study him for yourself. in the meantime, i may inform you, first, that he is the late mr. fairlie's younger brother; secondly, that he is a single man; and thirdly, that he is miss fairlie's guardian. i won't live without her, and she can't live without me; and that is how i come to be at limmeridge house. my sister and i are honestly fond of each other; which, you will say, is perfectly unaccountable, under the circumstances, and i quite agree with you--but so it is. you must please both of us, mr. hartright, or please neither of us: and, what is still more trying, you will be thrown entirely upon our society. mrs. vesey is an excellent person, who possesses all the cardinal virtues, and counts for nothing; and mr. fairlie is too great an invalid to be a companion for anybody. i don't know what is the matter with him, and the doctors don't know what is the matter with him, and he doesn't know himself what is the matter with him. we all say it's on the nerves, and we none of us know what we mean when we say it. however, i advise you to humour his little peculiarities, when you see him to-day. admire his collection of coins, prints, and water-colour drawings, and you will win his heart. upon my word, if you can be contented with a quiet country life, i don't see why you should not get on very well here. from breakfast to lunch, mr. fairlie's drawings will occupy you. after lunch, miss fairlie and i shoulder our sketch-books, and go out to misrepresent nature, under your directions. drawing is her favourite whim, mind, not mine. women can't draw--their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive. no matter--my sister likes it; so i waste paint and spoil paper, for her sake, as composedly as any woman in england. as for the evenings, i think we can help you through them. miss fairlie plays delightfully. for my own poor part, i don't know one note of music from the other; but i can match you at chess, backgammon, ecarte, and (with the inevitable female drawbacks) even at billiards as well. what do you think of the programme? can you reconcile yourself to our quiet, regular life? or do you mean to be restless, and secretly thirst for change and adventure, in the humdrum atmosphere of limmeridge house?" she had run on thus far, in her gracefully bantering way, with no other interruptions on my part than the unimportant replies which politeness required of me. the turn of the expression, however, in her last question, or rather the one chance word, "adventure," lightly as it fell from her lips, recalled my thoughts to my meeting with the woman in white, and urged me to discover the connection which the stranger's own reference to mrs. fairlie informed me must once have existed between the nameless fugitive from the asylum, and the former mistress of limmeridge house. "even if i were the most restless of mankind," i said, "i should be in no danger of thirsting after adventures for some time to come. the very night before i arrived at this house, i met with an adventure; and the wonder and excitement of it, i can assure you, miss halcombe, will last me for the whole term of my stay in cumberland, if not for a much longer period." "you don't say so, mr. hartright! may i hear it?" "you have a claim to hear it. the chief person in the adventure was a total stranger to me, and may perhaps be a total stranger to you; but she certainly mentioned the name of the late mrs. fairlie in terms of the sincerest gratitude and regard." "mentioned my mother's name! you interest me indescribably. pray go on." i at once related the circumstances under which i had met the woman in white, exactly as they had occurred; and i repeated what she had said to me about mrs. fairlie and limmeridge house, word for word. miss halcombe's bright resolute eyes looked eagerly into mine, from the beginning of the narrative to the end. her face expressed vivid interest and astonishment, but nothing more. she was evidently as far from knowing of any clue to the mystery as i was myself. "are you quite sure of those words referring to my mother?" she asked. "quite sure," i replied. "whoever she may be, the woman was once at school in the village of limmeridge, was treated with especial kindness by mrs. fairlie, and, in grateful remembrance of that kindness, feels an affectionate interest in all surviving members of the family. she knew that mrs. fairlie and her husband were both dead; and she spoke of miss fairlie as if they had known each other when they were children." "you said, i think, that she denied belonging to this place?" "yes, she told me she came from hampshire." "and you entirely failed to find out her name?" "entirely." "very strange. i think you were quite justified, mr. hartright, in giving the poor creature her liberty, for she seems to have done nothing in your presence to show herself unfit to enjoy it. but i wish you had been a little more resolute about finding out her name. we must really clear up this mystery, in some way. you had better not speak of it yet to mr. fairlie, or to my sister. they are both of them, i am certain, quite as ignorant of who the woman is, and of what her past history in connection with us can be, as i am myself. but they are also, in widely different ways, rather nervous and sensitive; and you would only fidget one and alarm the other to no purpose. as for myself, i am all aflame with curiosity, and i devote my whole energies to the business of discovery from this moment. when my mother came here, after her second marriage, she certainly established the village school just as it exists at the present time. but the old teachers are all dead, or gone elsewhere; and no enlightenment is to be hoped for from that quarter. the only other alternative i can think of----" at this point we were interrupted by the entrance of the servant, with a message from mr. fairlie, intimating that he would be glad to see me, as soon as i had done breakfast. "wait in the hall," said miss halcombe, answering the servant for me, in her quick, ready way. "mr. hartright will come out directly. i was about to say," she went on, addressing me again, "that my sister and i have a large collection of my mother's letters, addressed to my father and to hers. in the absence of any other means of getting information, i will pass the morning in looking over my mother's correspondence with mr. fairlie. he was fond of london, and was constantly away from his country home; and she was accustomed, at such times, to write and report to him how things went on at limmeridge. her letters are full of references to the school in which she took so strong an interest; and i think it more than likely that i may have discovered something when we meet again. the luncheon hour is two, mr. hartright. i shall have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister by that time, and we will occupy the afternoon in driving round the neighbourhood and showing you all our pet points of view. till two o'clock, then, farewell." she nodded to me with the lively grace, the delightful refinement of familiarity, which characterised all that she did and all that she said; and disappeared by a door at the lower end of the room. as soon as she had left me, i turned my steps towards the hall, and followed the servant, on my way, for the first time, to the presence of mr. fairlie. vii my conductor led me upstairs into a passage which took us back to the bedchamber in which i had slept during the past night; and opening the door next to it, begged me to look in. "i have my master's orders to show you your own sitting-room, sir," said the man, "and to inquire if you approve of the situation and the light." i must have been hard to please, indeed, if i had not approved of the room, and of everything about it. the bow-window looked out on the same lovely view which i had admired, in the morning, from my bedroom. the furniture was the perfection of luxury and beauty; the table in the centre was bright with gaily bound books, elegant conveniences for writing, and beautiful flowers; the second table, near the window, was covered with all the necessary materials for mounting water-colour drawings, and had a little easel attached to it, which i could expand or fold up at will; the walls were hung with gaily tinted chintz; and the floor was spread with indian matting in maize-colour and red. it was the prettiest and most luxurious little sitting-room i had ever seen; and i admired it with the warmest enthusiasm. the solemn servant was far too highly trained to betray the slightest satisfaction. he bowed with icy deference when my terms of eulogy were all exhausted, and silently opened the door for me to go out into the passage again. we turned a corner, and entered a long second passage, ascended a short flight of stairs at the end, crossed a small circular upper hall, and stopped in front of a door covered with dark baize. the servant opened this door, and led me on a few yards to a second; opened that also, and disclosed two curtains of pale sea-green silk hanging before us; raised one of them noiselessly; softly uttered the words, "mr. hartright," and left me. i found myself in a large, lofty room, with a magnificent carved ceiling, and with a carpet over the floor, so thick and soft that it felt like piles of velvet under my feet. one side of the room was occupied by a long book-case of some rare inlaid wood that was quite new to me. it was not more than six feet high, and the top was adorned with statuettes in marble, ranged at regular distances one from the other. on the opposite side stood two antique cabinets; and between them, and above them, hung a picture of the virgin and child, protected by glass, and bearing raphael's name on the gilt tablet at the bottom of the frame. on my right hand and on my left, as i stood inside the door, were chiffoniers and little stands in buhl and marquetterie, loaded with figures in dresden china, with rare vases, ivory ornaments, and toys and curiosities that sparkled at all points with gold, silver, and precious stones. at the lower end of the room, opposite to me, the windows were concealed and the sunlight was tempered by large blinds of the same pale sea-green colour as the curtains over the door. the light thus produced was deliciously soft, mysterious, and subdued; it fell equally upon all the objects in the room; it helped to intensify the deep silence, and the air of profound seclusion that possessed the place; and it surrounded, with an appropriate halo of repose, the solitary figure of the master of the house, leaning back, listlessly composed, in a large easy-chair, with a reading-easel fastened on one of its arms, and a little table on the other. if a man's personal appearance, when he is out of his dressing-room, and when he has passed forty, can be accepted as a safe guide to his time of life--which is more than doubtful--mr. fairlie's age, when i saw him, might have been reasonably computed at over fifty and under sixty years. his beardless face was thin, worn, and transparently pale, but not wrinkled; his nose was high and hooked; his eyes were of a dim greyish blue, large, prominent, and rather red round the rims of the eyelids; his hair was scanty, soft to look at, and of that light sandy colour which is the last to disclose its own changes towards grey. he was dressed in a dark frock-coat, of some substance much thinner than cloth, and in waistcoat and trousers of spotless white. his feet were effeminately small, and were clad in buff-coloured silk stockings, and little womanish bronze-leather slippers. two rings adorned his white delicate hands, the value of which even my inexperienced observation detected to be all but priceless. upon the whole, he had a frail, languidly-fretful, over-refined look--something singularly and unpleasantly delicate in its association with a man, and, at the same time, something which could by no possibility have looked natural and appropriate if it had been transferred to the personal appearance of a woman. my morning's experience of miss halcombe had predisposed me to be pleased with everybody in the house; but my sympathies shut themselves up resolutely at the first sight of mr. fairlie. on approaching nearer to him, i discovered that he was not so entirely without occupation as i had at first supposed. placed amid the other rare and beautiful objects on a large round table near him, was a dwarf cabinet in ebony and silver, containing coins of all shapes and sizes, set out in little drawers lined with dark purple velvet. one of these drawers lay on the small table attached to his chair; and near it were some tiny jeweller's brushes, a wash-leather "stump," and a little bottle of liquid, all waiting to be used in various ways for the removal of any accidental impurities which might be discovered on the coins. his frail white fingers were listlessly toying with something which looked, to my uninstructed eyes, like a dirty pewter medal with ragged edges, when i advanced within a respectful distance of his chair, and stopped to make my bow. "so glad to possess you at limmeridge, mr. hartright," he said in a querulous, croaking voice, which combined, in anything but an agreeable manner, a discordantly high tone with a drowsily languid utterance. "pray sit down. and don't trouble yourself to move the chair, please. in the wretched state of my nerves, movement of any kind is exquisitely painful to me. have you seen your studio? will it do?" "i have just come from seeing the room, mr. fairlie; and i assure you----" he stopped me in the middle of the sentence, by closing his eyes, and holding up one of his white hands imploringly. i paused in astonishment; and the croaking voice honoured me with this explanation-- "pray excuse me. but could you contrive to speak in a lower key? in the wretched state of my nerves, loud sound of any kind is indescribable torture to me. you will pardon an invalid? i only say to you what the lamentable state of my health obliges me to say to everybody. yes. and you really like the room?" "i could wish for nothing prettier and nothing more comfortable," i answered, dropping my voice, and beginning to discover already that mr. fairlie's selfish affectation and mr. fairlie's wretched nerves meant one and the same thing. "so glad. you will find your position here, mr. hartright, properly recognised. there is none of the horrid english barbarity of feeling about the social position of an artist in this house. so much of my early life has been passed abroad, that i have quite cast my insular skin in that respect. i wish i could say the same of the gentry--detestable word, but i suppose i must use it--of the gentry in the neighbourhood. they are sad goths in art, mr. hartright. people, i do assure you, who would have opened their eyes in astonishment, if they had seen charles the fifth pick up titian's brush for him. do you mind putting this tray of coins back in the cabinet, and giving me the next one to it? in the wretched state of my nerves, exertion of any kind is unspeakably disagreeable to me. yes. thank you." as a practical commentary on the liberal social theory which he had just favoured me by illustrating, mr. fairlie's cool request rather amused me. i put back one drawer and gave him the other, with all possible politeness. he began trifling with the new set of coins and the little brushes immediately; languidly looking at them and admiring them all the time he was speaking to me. "a thousand thanks and a thousand excuses. do you like coins? yes. so glad we have another taste in common besides our taste for art. now, about the pecuniary arrangements between us--do tell me--are they satisfactory?" "most satisfactory, mr. fairlie." "so glad. and--what next? ah! i remember. yes. in reference to the consideration which you are good enough to accept for giving me the benefit of your accomplishments in art, my steward will wait on you at the end of the first week, to ascertain your wishes. and--what next? curious, is it not? i had a great deal more to say: and i appear to have quite forgotten it. do you mind touching the bell? in that corner. yes. thank you." i rang; and a new servant noiselessly made his appearance--a foreigner, with a set smile and perfectly brushed hair--a valet every inch of him. "louis," said mr. fairlie, dreamily dusting the tips of his fingers with one of the tiny brushes for the coins, "i made some entries in my tablettes this morning. find my tablettes. a thousand pardons, mr. hartright, i'm afraid i bore you." as he wearily closed his eyes again, before i could answer, and as he did most assuredly bore me, i sat silent, and looked up at the madonna and child by raphael. in the meantime, the valet left the room, and returned shortly with a little ivory book. mr. fairlie, after first relieving himself by a gentle sigh, let the book drop open with one hand, and held up the tiny brush with the other, as a sign to the servant to wait for further orders. "yes. just so!" said mr. fairlie, consulting the tablettes. "louis, take down that portfolio." he pointed, as he spoke, to several portfolios placed near the window, on mahogany stands. "no. not the one with the green back--that contains my rembrandt etchings, mr. hartright. do you like etchings? yes? so glad we have another taste in common. the portfolio with the red back, louis. don't drop it! you have no idea of the tortures i should suffer, mr. hartright, if louis dropped that portfolio. is it safe on the chair? do you think it safe, mr. hartright? yes? so glad. will you oblige me by looking at the drawings, if you really think they are quite safe. louis, go away. what an ass you are. don't you see me holding the tablettes? do you suppose i want to hold them? then why not relieve me of the tablettes without being told? a thousand pardons, mr. hartright; servants are such asses, are they not? do tell me--what do you think of the drawings? they have come from a sale in a shocking state--i thought they smelt of horrid dealers' and brokers' fingers when i looked at them last. can you undertake them?" although my nerves were not delicate enough to detect the odour of plebeian fingers which had offended mr. fairlie's nostrils, my taste was sufficiently educated to enable me to appreciate the value of the drawings, while i turned them over. they were, for the most part, really fine specimens of english water-colour art; and they had deserved much better treatment at the hands of their former possessor than they appeared to have received. "the drawings," i answered, "require careful straining and mounting; and, in my opinion, they are well worth----" "i beg your pardon," interposed mr. fairlie. "do you mind my closing my eyes while you speak? even this light is too much for them. yes?" "i was about to say that the drawings are well worth all the time and trouble----" mr. fairlie suddenly opened his eyes again, and rolled them with an expression of helpless alarm in the direction of the window. "i entreat you to excuse me, mr. hartright," he said in a feeble flutter. "but surely i hear some horrid children in the garden--my private garden--below?" "i can't say, mr. fairlie. i heard nothing myself." "oblige me--you have been so very good in humouring my poor nerves--oblige me by lifting up a corner of the blind. don't let the sun in on me, mr. hartright! have you got the blind up? yes? then will you be so very kind as to look into the garden and make quite sure?" i complied with this new request. the garden was carefully walled in, all round. not a human creature, large or small, appeared in any part of the sacred seclusion. i reported that gratifying fact to mr. fairlie. "a thousand thanks. my fancy, i suppose. there are no children, thank heaven, in the house; but the servants (persons born without nerves) will encourage the children from the village. such brats--oh, dear me, such brats! shall i confess it, mr. hartright?--i sadly want a reform in the construction of children. nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise. surely our delightful raffaello's conception is infinitely preferable?" he pointed to the picture of the madonna, the upper part of which represented the conventional cherubs of italian art, celestially provided with sitting accommodation for their chins, on balloons of buff-coloured cloud. "quite a model family!" said mr. fairlie, leering at the cherubs. "such nice round faces, and such nice soft wings, and--nothing else. no dirty little legs to run about on, and no noisy little lungs to scream with. how immeasurably superior to the existing construction! i will close my eyes again, if you will allow me. and you really can manage the drawings? so glad. is there anything else to settle? if there is, i think i have forgotten it. shall we ring for louis again?" being, by this time, quite as anxious, on my side, as mr. fairlie evidently was on his, to bring the interview to a speedy conclusion, i thought i would try to render the summoning of the servant unnecessary, by offering the requisite suggestion on my own responsibility. "the only point, mr. fairlie, that remains to be discussed," i said, "refers, i think, to the instruction in sketching which i am engaged to communicate to the two young ladies." "ah! just so," said mr. fairlie. "i wish i felt strong enough to go into that part of the arrangement--but i don't. the ladies who profit by your kind services, mr. hartright, must settle, and decide, and so on, for themselves. my niece is fond of your charming art. she knows just enough about it to be conscious of her own sad defects. please take pains with her. yes. is there anything else? no. we quite understand each other--don't we? i have no right to detain you any longer from your delightful pursuit--have i? so pleasant to have settled everything--such a sensible relief to have done business. do you mind ringing for louis to carry the portfolio to your own room?" "i will carry it there myself, mr. fairlie, if you will allow me." "will you really? are you strong enough? how nice to be so strong! are you sure you won't drop it? so glad to possess you at limmeridge, mr. hartright. i am such a sufferer that i hardly dare hope to enjoy much of your society. would you mind taking great pains not to let the doors bang, and not to drop the portfolio? thank you. gently with the curtains, please--the slightest noise from them goes through me like a knife. yes. good morning!" when the sea-green curtains were closed, and when the two baize doors were shut behind me, i stopped for a moment in the little circular hall beyond, and drew a long, luxurious breath of relief. it was like coming to the surface of the water after deep diving, to find myself once more on the outside of mr. fairlie's room. as soon as i was comfortably established for the morning in my pretty little studio, the first resolution at which i arrived was to turn my steps no more in the direction of the apartments occupied by the master of the house, except in the very improbable event of his honouring me with a special invitation to pay him another visit. having settled this satisfactory plan of future conduct in reference to mr. fairlie, i soon recovered the serenity of temper of which my employer's haughty familiarity and impudent politeness had, for the moment, deprived me. the remaining hours of the morning passed away pleasantly enough, in looking over the drawings, arranging them in sets, trimming their ragged edges, and accomplishing the other necessary preparations in anticipation of the business of mounting them. i ought, perhaps, to have made more progress than this; but, as the luncheon-time drew near, i grew restless and unsettled, and felt unable to fix my attention on work, even though that work was only of the humble manual kind. at two o'clock i descended again to the breakfast-room, a little anxiously. expectations of some interest were connected with my approaching reappearance in that part of the house. my introduction to miss fairlie was now close at hand; and, if miss halcombe's search through her mother's letters had produced the result which she anticipated, the time had come for clearing up the mystery of the woman in white. viii when i entered the room, i found miss halcombe and an elderly lady seated at the luncheon-table. the elderly lady, when i was presented to her, proved to be miss fairlie's former governess, mrs. vesey, who had been briefly described to me by my lively companion at the breakfast-table, as possessed of "all the cardinal virtues, and counting for nothing." i can do little more than offer my humble testimony to the truthfulness of miss halcombe's sketch of the old lady's character. mrs. vesey looked the personification of human composure and female amiability. a calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in drowsy smiles on her plump, placid face. some of us rush through life, and some of us saunter through life. mrs. vesey sat through life. sat in the house, early and late; sat in the garden; sat in unexpected window-seats in passages; sat (on a camp-stool) when her friends tried to take her out walking; sat before she looked at anything, before she talked of anything, before she answered yes, or no, to the commonest question--always with the same serene smile on her lips, the same vacantly-attentive turn of the head, the same snugly-comfortable position of her hands and arms, under every possible change of domestic circumstances. a mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth. nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. starting from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that nature was absorbed in making cabbages when mrs. vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the mother of us all. "now, mrs. vesey," said miss halcombe, looking brighter, sharper, and readier than ever, by contrast with the undemonstrative old lady at her side, "what will you have? a cutlet?" mrs. vesey crossed her dimpled hands on the edge of the table, smiled placidly, and said, "yes, dear." "what is that opposite mr. hartright? boiled chicken, is it not? i thought you liked boiled chicken better than cutlet, mrs. vesey?" mrs. vesey took her dimpled hands off the edge of the table and crossed them on her lap instead; nodded contemplatively at the boiled chicken, and said, "yes, dear." "well, but which will you have, to-day? shall mr. hartright give you some chicken? or shall i give you some cutlet?" mrs. vesey put one of her dimpled hands back again on the edge of the table; hesitated drowsily, and said, "which you please, dear." "mercy on me! it's a question for your taste, my good lady, not for mine. suppose you have a little of both? and suppose you begin with the chicken, because mr. hartright looks devoured by anxiety to carve for you." mrs. vesey put the other dimpled hand back on the edge of the table; brightened dimly one moment; went out again the next; bowed obediently, and said, "if you please, sir." surely a mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady! but enough, perhaps, for the present, of mrs. vesey. all this time, there were no signs of miss fairlie. we finished our luncheon; and still she never appeared. miss halcombe, whose quick eye nothing escaped, noticed the looks that i cast, from time to time, in the direction of the door. "i understand you, mr. hartright," she said; "you are wondering what has become of your other pupil. she has been downstairs, and has got over her headache; but has not sufficiently recovered her appetite to join us at lunch. if you will put yourself under my charge, i think i can undertake to find her somewhere in the garden." she took up a parasol lying on a chair near her, and led the way out, by a long window at the bottom of the room, which opened on to the lawn. it is almost unnecessary to say that we left mrs. vesey still seated at the table, with her dimpled hands still crossed on the edge of it; apparently settled in that position for the rest of the afternoon. as we crossed the lawn, miss halcombe looked at me significantly, and shook her head. "that mysterious adventure of yours," she said, "still remains involved in its own appropriate midnight darkness. i have been all the morning looking over my mother's letters, and i have made no discoveries yet. however, don't despair, mr. hartright. this is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a woman for your ally. under such conditions success is certain, sooner or later. the letters are not exhausted. i have three packets still left, and you may confidently rely on my spending the whole evening over them." here, then, was one of my anticipations of the morning still unfulfilled. i began to wonder, next, whether my introduction to miss fairlie would disappoint the expectations that i had been forming of her since breakfast-time. "and how did you get on with mr. fairlie?" inquired miss halcombe, as we left the lawn and turned into a shrubbery. "was he particularly nervous this morning? never mind considering about your answer, mr. hartright. the mere fact of your being obliged to consider is enough for me. i see in your face that he was particularly nervous; and, as i am amiably unwilling to throw you into the same condition, i ask no more." we turned off into a winding path while she was speaking, and approached a pretty summer-house, built of wood, in the form of a miniature swiss chalet. the one room of the summer-house, as we ascended the steps of the door, was occupied by a young lady. she was standing near a rustic table, looking out at the inland view of moor and hill presented by a gap in the trees, and absently turning over the leaves of a little sketch-book that lay at her side. this was miss fairlie. how can i describe her? how can i separate her from my own sensations, and from all that has happened in the later time? how can i see her again as she looked when my eyes first rested on her--as she should look, now, to the eyes that are about to see her in these pages? the water-colour drawing that i made of laura fairlie, at an after period, in the place and attitude in which i first saw her, lies on my desk while i write. i look at it, and there dawns upon me brightly, from the dark greenish-brown background of the summer-house, a light, youthful figure, clothed in a simple muslin dress, the pattern of it formed by broad alternate stripes of delicate blue and white. a scarf of the same material sits crisply and closely round her shoulders, and a little straw hat of the natural colour, plainly and sparingly trimmed with ribbon to match the gown, covers her head, and throws its soft pearly shadow over the upper part of her face. her hair is of so faint and pale a brown--not flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, and yet almost as glossy--that it nearly melts, here and there, into the shadow of the hat. it is plainly parted and drawn back over her ears, and the line of it ripples naturally as it crosses her forehead. the eyebrows are rather darker than the hair; and the eyes are of that soft, limpid, turquoise blue, so often sung by the poets, so seldom seen in real life. lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form--large and tender and quietly thoughtful--but beautiful above all things in the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their inmost depths, and shines through all their changes of expression with the light of a purer and a better world. the charm--most gently and yet most distinctly expressed--which they shed over the whole face, so covers and transforms its little natural human blemishes elsewhere, that it is difficult to estimate the relative merits and defects of the other features. it is hard to see that the lower part of the face is too delicately refined away towards the chin to be in full and fair proportion with the upper part; that the nose, in escaping the aquiline bend (always hard and cruel in a woman, no matter how abstractedly perfect it may be), has erred a little in the other extreme, and has missed the ideal straightness of line; and that the sweet, sensitive lips are subject to a slight nervous contraction, when she smiles, which draws them upward a little at one corner, towards the cheek. it might be possible to note these blemishes in another woman's face but it is not easy to dwell on them in hers, so subtly are they connected with all that is individual and characteristic in her expression, and so closely does the expression depend for its full play and life, in every other feature, on the moving impulse of the eyes. does my poor portrait of her, my fond, patient labour of long and happy days, show me these things? ah, how few of them are in the dim mechanical drawing, and how many in the mind with which i regard it! a fair, delicate girl, in a pretty light dress, trifling with the leaves of a sketch-book, while she looks up from it with truthful, innocent blue eyes--that is all the drawing can say; all, perhaps, that even the deeper reach of thought and pen can say in their language, either. the woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. the mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls. then, and then only, has it passed beyond the narrow region on which light falls, in this world, from the pencil and the pen. think of her as you thought of the first woman who quickened the pulses within you that the rest of her sex had no art to stir. let the kind, candid blue eyes meet yours, as they met mine, with the one matchless look which we both remember so well. let her voice speak the music that you once loved best, attuned as sweetly to your ear as to mine. let her footstep, as she comes and goes, in these pages, be like that other footstep to whose airy fall your own heart once beat time. take her as the visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the more clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine. among the sensations that crowded on me, when my eyes first looked upon her--familiar sensations which we all know, which spring to life in most of our hearts, die again in so many, and renew their bright existence in so few--there was one that troubled and perplexed me: one that seemed strangely inconsistent and unaccountably out of place in miss fairlie's presence. mingling with the vivid impression produced by the charm of her fair face and head, her sweet expression, and her winning simplicity of manner, was another impression, which, in a shadowy way, suggested to me the idea of something wanting. at one time it seemed like something wanting in her: at another, like something wanting in myself, which hindered me from understanding her as i ought. the impression was always strongest in the most contradictory manner, when she looked at me; or, in other words, when i was most conscious of the harmony and charm of her face, and yet, at the same time, most troubled by the sense of an incompleteness which it was impossible to discover. something wanting, something wanting--and where it was, and what it was, i could not say. the effect of this curious caprice of fancy (as i thought it then) was not of a nature to set me at my ease, during a first interview with miss fairlie. the few kind words of welcome which she spoke found me hardly self-possessed enough to thank her in the customary phrases of reply. observing my hesitation, and no doubt attributing it, naturally enough, to some momentary shyness on my part, miss halcombe took the business of talking, as easily and readily as usual, into her own hands. "look there, mr. hartright," she said, pointing to the sketch-book on the table, and to the little delicate wandering hand that was still trifling with it. "surely you will acknowledge that your model pupil is found at last? the moment she hears that you are in the house, she seizes her inestimable sketch-book, looks universal nature straight in the face, and longs to begin!" miss fairlie laughed with a ready good-humour, which broke out as brightly as if it had been part of the sunshine above us, over her lovely face. "i must not take credit to myself where no credit is due," she said, her clear, truthful blue eyes looking alternately at miss halcombe and at me. "fond as i am of drawing, i am so conscious of my own ignorance that i am more afraid than anxious to begin. now i know you are here, mr. hartright, i find myself looking over my sketches, as i used to look over my lessons when i was a little girl, and when i was sadly afraid that i should turn out not fit to be heard." she made the confession very prettily and simply, and, with quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to her own side of the table. miss halcombe cut the knot of the little embarrassment forthwith, in her resolute, downright way. "good, bad, or indifferent," she said, "the pupil's sketches must pass through the fiery ordeal of the master's judgment--and there's an end of it. suppose we take them with us in the carriage, laura, and let mr. hartright see them, for the first time, under circumstances of perpetual jolting and interruption? if we can only confuse him all through the drive, between nature as it is, when he looks up at the view, and nature as it is not when he looks down again at our sketch-books, we shall drive him into the last desperate refuge of paying us compliments, and shall slip through his professional fingers with our pet feathers of vanity all unruffled." "i hope mr. hartright will pay me no compliments," said miss fairlie, as we all left the summer-house. "may i venture to inquire why you express that hope?" i asked. "because i shall believe all that you say to me," she answered simply. in those few words she unconsciously gave me the key to her whole character: to that generous trust in others which, in her nature, grew innocently out of the sense of her own truth. i only knew it intuitively then. i know it by experience now. we merely waited to rouse good mrs. vesey from the place which she still occupied at the deserted luncheon-table, before we entered the open carriage for our promised drive. the old lady and miss halcombe occupied the back seat, and miss fairlie and i sat together in front, with the sketch-book open between us, fairly exhibited at last to my professional eyes. all serious criticism on the drawings, even if i had been disposed to volunteer it, was rendered impossible by miss halcombe's lively resolution to see nothing but the ridiculous side of the fine arts, as practised by herself, her sister, and ladies in general. i can remember the conversation that passed far more easily than the sketches that i mechanically looked over. that part of the talk, especially, in which miss fairlie took any share, is still as vividly impressed on my memory as if i had heard it only a few hours ago. yes! let me acknowledge that on this first day i let the charm of her presence lure me from the recollection of myself and my position. the most trifling of the questions that she put to me, on the subject of using her pencil and mixing her colours; the slightest alterations of expression in the lovely eyes that looked into mine with such an earnest desire to learn all that i could teach, and to discover all that i could show, attracted more of my attention than the finest view we passed through, or the grandest changes of light and shade, as they flowed into each other over the waving moorland and the level beach. at any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world amid which we live can gain on our hearts and minds? we go to nature for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature. as children, we none of us possess it. no uninstructed man or woman possesses it. those whose lives are most exclusively passed amid the ever-changing wonders of sea and land are also those who are most universally insensible to every aspect of nature not directly associated with the human interest of their calling. our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all learn as an art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied. how much share have the attractions of nature ever had in the pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our friends? what space do they ever occupy in the thousand little narratives of personal experience which pass every day by word of mouth from one of us to the other? all that our minds can compass, all that our hearts can learn, can be accomplished with equal certainty, equal profit, and equal satisfaction to ourselves, in the poorest as in the richest prospect that the face of the earth can show. there is surely a reason for this want of inborn sympathy between the creature and the creation around it, a reason which may perhaps be found in the widely-differing destinies of man and his earthly sphere. the grandest mountain prospect that the eye can range over is appointed to annihilation. the smallest human interest that the pure heart can feel is appointed to immortality. we had been out nearly three hours, when the carriage again passed through the gates of limmeridge house. on our way back i had let the ladies settle for themselves the first point of view which they were to sketch, under my instructions, on the afternoon of the next day. when they withdrew to dress for dinner, and when i was alone again in my little sitting-room, my spirits seemed to leave me on a sudden. i felt ill at ease and dissatisfied with myself, i hardly knew why. perhaps i was now conscious for the first time of having enjoyed our drive too much in the character of a guest, and too little in the character of a drawing-master. perhaps that strange sense of something wanting, either in miss fairlie or in myself, which had perplexed me when i was first introduced to her, haunted me still. anyhow, it was a relief to my spirits when the dinner-hour called me out of my solitude, and took me back to the society of the ladies of the house. i was struck, on entering the drawing-room, by the curious contrast, rather in material than in colour, of the dresses which they now wore. while mrs. vesey and miss halcombe were richly clad (each in the manner most becoming to her age), the first in silver-grey, and the second in that delicate primrose-yellow colour which matches so well with a dark complexion and black hair, miss fairlie was unpretendingly and almost poorly dressed in plain white muslin. it was spotlessly pure: it was beautifully put on; but still it was the sort of dress which the wife or daughter of a poor man might have worn, and it made her, so far as externals went, look less affluent in circumstances than her own governess. at a later period, when i learnt to know more of miss fairlie's character, i discovered that this curious contrast, on the wrong side, was due to her natural delicacy of feeling and natural intensity of aversion to the slightest personal display of her own wealth. neither mrs. vesey nor miss halcombe could ever induce her to let the advantage in dress desert the two ladies who were poor, to lean to the side of the one lady who was rich. when the dinner was over we returned together to the drawing-room. although mr. fairlie (emulating the magnificent condescension of the monarch who had picked up titian's brush for him) had instructed his butler to consult my wishes in relation to the wine that i might prefer after dinner, i was resolute enough to resist the temptation of sitting in solitary grandeur among bottles of my own choosing, and sensible enough to ask the ladies' permission to leave the table with them habitually, on the civilised foreign plan, during the period of my residence at limmeridge house. the drawing-room, to which we had now withdrawn for the rest of the evening, was on the ground-floor, and was of the same shape and size as the breakfast-room. large glass doors at the lower end opened on to a terrace, beautifully ornamented along its whole length with a profusion of flowers. the soft, hazy twilight was just shading leaf and blossom alike into harmony with its own sober hues as we entered the room, and the sweet evening scent of the flowers met us with its fragrant welcome through the open glass doors. good mrs. vesey (always the first of the party to sit down) took possession of an arm-chair in a corner, and dozed off comfortably to sleep. at my request miss fairlie placed herself at the piano. as i followed her to a seat near the instrument, i saw miss halcombe retire into a recess of one of the side windows, to proceed with the search through her mother's letters by the last quiet rays of the evening light. how vividly that peaceful home-picture of the drawing-room comes back to me while i write! from the place where i sat i could see miss halcombe's graceful figure, half of it in soft light, half in mysterious shadow, bending intently over the letters in her lap; while, nearer to me, the fair profile of the player at the piano was just delicately defined against the faintly-deepening background of the inner wall of the room. outside, on the terrace, the clustering flowers and long grasses and creepers waved so gently in the light evening air, that the sound of their rustling never reached us. the sky was without a cloud, and the dawning mystery of moonlight began to tremble already in the region of the eastern heaven. the sense of peace and seclusion soothed all thought and feeling into a rapt, unearthly repose; and the balmy quiet, that deepened ever with the deepening light, seemed to hover over us with a gentler influence still, when there stole upon it from the piano the heavenly tenderness of the music of mozart. it was an evening of sights and sounds never to forget. we all sat silent in the places we had chosen--mrs. vesey still sleeping, miss fairlie still playing, miss halcombe still reading--till the light failed us. by this time the moon had stolen round to the terrace, and soft, mysterious rays of light were slanting already across the lower end of the room. the change from the twilight obscurity was so beautiful that we banished the lamps, by common consent, when the servant brought them in, and kept the large room unlighted, except by the glimmer of the two candles at the piano. for half an hour more the music still went on. after that the beauty of the moonlight view on the terrace tempted miss fairlie out to look at it, and i followed her. when the candles at the piano had been lighted miss halcombe had changed her place, so as to continue her examination of the letters by their assistance. we left her, on a low chair, at one side of the instrument, so absorbed over her reading that she did not seem to notice when we moved. we had been out on the terrace together, just in front of the glass doors, hardly so long as five minutes, i should think; and miss fairlie was, by my advice, just tying her white handkerchief over her head as a precaution against the night air--when i heard miss halcombe's voice--low, eager, and altered from its natural lively tone--pronounce my name. "mr. hartright," she said, "will you come here for a minute? i want to speak to you." i entered the room again immediately. the piano stood about half-way down along the inner wall. on the side of the instrument farthest from the terrace miss halcombe was sitting with the letters scattered on her lap, and with one in her hand selected from them, and held close to the candle. on the side nearest to the terrace there stood a low ottoman, on which i took my place. in this position i was not far from the glass doors, and i could see miss fairlie plainly, as she passed and repassed the opening on to the terrace, walking slowly from end to end of it in the full radiance of the moon. "i want you to listen while i read the concluding passages in this letter," said miss halcombe. "tell me if you think they throw any light upon your strange adventure on the road to london. the letter is addressed by my mother to her second husband, mr. fairlie, and the date refers to a period of between eleven and twelve years since. at that time mr. and mrs. fairlie, and my half-sister laura, had been living for years in this house; and i was away from them completing my education at a school in paris." she looked and spoke earnestly, and, as i thought, a little uneasily as well. at the moment when she raised the letter to the candle before beginning to read it, miss fairlie passed us on the terrace, looked in for a moment, and seeing that we were engaged, slowly walked on. miss halcombe began to read as follows:-- "'you will be tired, my dear philip, of hearing perpetually about my schools and my scholars. lay the blame, pray, on the dull uniformity of life at limmeridge, and not on me. besides, this time i have something really interesting to tell you about a new scholar. "'you know old mrs. kempe at the village shop. well, after years of ailing, the doctor has at last given her up, and she is dying slowly day by day. her only living relation, a sister, arrived last week to take care of her. this sister comes all the way from hampshire--her name is mrs. catherick. four days ago mrs. catherick came here to see me, and brought her only child with her, a sweet little girl about a year older than our darling laura----'" as the last sentence fell from the reader's lips, miss fairlie passed us on the terrace once more. she was softly singing to herself one of the melodies which she had been playing earlier in the evening. miss halcombe waited till she had passed out of sight again, and then went on with the letter-- "'mrs. catherick is a decent, well-behaved, respectable woman; middle-aged, and with the remains of having been moderately, only moderately, nice-looking. there is something in her manner and in her appearance, however, which i can't make out. she is reserved about herself to the point of downright secrecy, and there is a look in her face--i can't describe it--which suggests to me that she has something on her mind. she is altogether what you would call a walking mystery. her errand at limmeridge house, however, was simple enough. when she left hampshire to nurse her sister, mrs. kempe, through her last illness, she had been obliged to bring her daughter with her, through having no one at home to take care of the little girl. mrs. kempe may die in a week's time, or may linger on for months; and mrs. catherick's object was to ask me to let her daughter, anne, have the benefit of attending my school, subject to the condition of her being removed from it to go home again with her mother, after mrs. kempe's death. i consented at once, and when laura and i went out for our walk, we took the little girl (who is just eleven years old) to the school that very day.'" once more miss fairlie's figure, bright and soft in its snowy muslin dress--her face prettily framed by the white folds of the handkerchief which she had tied under her chin--passed by us in the moonlight. once more miss halcombe waited till she was out of sight, and then went on-- "'i have taken a violent fancy, philip, to my new scholar, for a reason which i mean to keep till the last for the sake of surprising you. her mother having told me as little about the child as she told me of herself, i was left to discover (which i did on the first day when we tried her at lessons) that the poor little thing's intellect is not developed as it ought to be at her age. seeing this i had her up to the house the next day, and privately arranged with the doctor to come and watch her and question her, and tell me what he thought. his opinion is that she will grow out of it. but he says her careful bringing-up at school is a matter of great importance just now, because her unusual slowness in acquiring ideas implies an unusual tenacity in keeping them, when they are once received into her mind. now, my love, you must not imagine, in your off-hand way, that i have been attaching myself to an idiot. this poor little anne catherick is a sweet, affectionate, grateful girl, and says the quaintest, prettiest things (as you shall judge by an instance), in the most oddly sudden, surprised, half-frightened way. although she is dressed very neatly, her clothes show a sad want of taste in colour and pattern. so i arranged, yesterday, that some of our darling laura's old white frocks and white hats should be altered for anne catherick, explaining to her that little girls of her complexion looked neater and better all in white than in anything else. she hesitated and seemed puzzled for a minute, then flushed up, and appeared to understand. her little hand clasped mine suddenly. she kissed it, philip, and said (oh, so earnestly!), "i will always wear white as long as i live. it will help me to remember you, ma'am, and to think that i am pleasing you still, when i go away and see you no more." this is only one specimen of the quaint things she says so prettily. poor little soul! she shall have a stock of white frocks, made with good deep tucks, to let out for her as she grows----'" miss halcombe paused, and looked at me across the piano. "did the forlorn woman whom you met in the high-road seem young?" she asked. "young enough to be two- or three-and-twenty?" "yes, miss halcombe, as young as that." "and she was strangely dressed, from head to foot, all in white?" "all in white." while the answer was passing my lips miss fairlie glided into view on the terrace for the third time. instead of proceeding on her walk, she stopped, with her back turned towards us, and, leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, looked down into the garden beyond. my eyes fixed upon the white gleam of her muslin gown and head-dress in the moonlight, and a sensation, for which i can find no name--a sensation that quickened my pulse, and raised a fluttering at my heart--began to steal over me. "all in white?" miss halcombe repeated. "the most important sentences in the letter, mr. hartright, are those at the end, which i will read to you immediately. but i can't help dwelling a little upon the coincidence of the white costume of the woman you met, and the white frocks which produced that strange answer from my mother's little scholar. the doctor may have been wrong when he discovered the child's defects of intellect, and predicted that she would 'grow out of them.' she may never have grown out of them, and the old grateful fancy about dressing in white, which was a serious feeling to the girl, may be a serious feeling to the woman still." i said a few words in answer--i hardly know what. all my attention was concentrated on the white gleam of miss fairlie's muslin dress. "listen to the last sentences of the letter," said miss halcombe. "i think they will surprise you." as she raised the letter to the light of the candle, miss fairlie turned from the balustrade, looked doubtfully up and down the terrace, advanced a step towards the glass doors, and then stopped, facing us. meanwhile miss halcombe read me the last sentences to which she had referred-- "'and now, my love, seeing that i am at the end of my paper, now for the real reason, the surprising reason, for my fondness for little anne catherick. my dear philip, although she is not half so pretty, she is, nevertheless, by one of those extraordinary caprices of accidental resemblance which one sometimes sees, the living likeness, in her hair, her complexion, the colour of her eyes, and the shape of her face----'" i started up from the ottoman before miss halcombe could pronounce the next words. a thrill of the same feeling which ran through me when the touch was laid upon my shoulder on the lonely high-road chilled me again. there stood miss fairlie, a white figure, alone in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her face, the living image, at that distance and under those circumstances, of the woman in white! the doubt which had troubled my mind for hours and hours past flashed into conviction in an instant. that "something wanting" was my own recognition of the ominous likeness between the fugitive from the asylum and my pupil at limmeridge house. "you see it!" said miss halcombe. she dropped the useless letter, and her eyes flashed as they met mine. "you see it now, as my mother saw it eleven years since!" "i see it--more unwillingly than i can say. to associate that forlorn, friendless, lost woman, even by an accidental likeness only, with miss fairlie, seems like casting a shadow on the future of the bright creature who stands looking at us now. let me lose the impression again as soon as possible. call her in, out of the dreary moonlight--pray call her in!" "mr. hartright, you surprise me. whatever women may be, i thought that men, in the nineteenth century, were above superstition." "pray call her in!" "hush, hush! she is coming of her own accord. say nothing in her presence. let this discovery of the likeness be kept a secret between you and me. come in, laura, come in, and wake mrs. vesey with the piano. mr. hartright is petitioning for some more music, and he wants it, this time, of the lightest and liveliest kind." ix so ended my eventful first day at limmeridge house. miss halcombe and i kept our secret. after the discovery of the likeness no fresh light seemed destined to break over the mystery of the woman in white. at the first safe opportunity miss halcombe cautiously led her half-sister to speak of their mother, of old times, and of anne catherick. miss fairlie's recollections of the little scholar at limmeridge were, however, only of the most vague and general kind. she remembered the likeness between herself and her mother's favourite pupil, as something which had been supposed to exist in past times; but she did not refer to the gift of the white dresses, or to the singular form of words in which the child had artlessly expressed her gratitude for them. she remembered that anne had remained at limmeridge for a few months only, and had then left it to go back to her home in hampshire; but she could not say whether the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of afterwards. no further search, on miss halcombe's part, through the few letters of mrs. fairlie's writing which she had left unread, assisted in clearing up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. we had identified the unhappy woman whom i had met in the night-time with anne catherick--we had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably defective condition of the poor creature's intellect with the peculiarity of her being dressed all in white, and with the continuance, in her maturer years, of her childish gratitude towards mrs. fairlie--and there, so far as we knew at that time, our discoveries had ended. the days passed on, the weeks passed on, and the track of the golden autumn wound its bright way visibly through the green summer of the trees. peaceful, fast-flowing, happy time! my story glides by you now as swiftly as you once glided by me. of all the treasures of enjoyment that you poured so freely into my heart, how much is left me that has purpose and value enough to be written on this page? nothing but the saddest of all confessions that a man can make--the confession of his own folly. the secret which that confession discloses should be told with little effort, for it has indirectly escaped me already. the poor weak words, which have failed to describe miss fairlie, have succeeded in betraying the sensations she awakened in me. it is so with us all. our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. i loved her. ah! how well i know all the sadness and all the mockery that is contained in those three words. i can sigh over my mournful confession with the tenderest woman who reads it and pities me. i can laugh at it as bitterly as the hardest man who tosses it from him in contempt. i loved her! feel for me, or despise me, i confess it with the same immovable resolution to own the truth. was there no excuse for me? there was some excuse to be found, surely, in the conditions under which my term of hired service was passed at limmeridge house. my morning hours succeeded each other calmly in the quiet and seclusion of my own room. i had just work enough to do, in mounting my employer's drawings, to keep my hands and eyes pleasurably employed, while my mind was left free to enjoy the dangerous luxury of its own unbridled thoughts. a perilous solitude, for it lasted long enough to enervate, not long enough to fortify me. a perilous solitude, for it was followed by afternoons and evenings spent, day after day and week after week alone in the society of two women, one of whom possessed all the accomplishments of grace, wit, and high-breeding, the other all the charms of beauty, gentleness, and simple truth, that can purify and subdue the heart of man. not a day passed, in that dangerous intimacy of teacher and pupil, in which my hand was not close to miss fairlie's; my cheek, as we bent together over her sketch-book, almost touching hers. the more attentively she watched every movement of my brush, the more closely i was breathing the perfume of her hair, and the warm fragrance of her breath. it was part of my service to live in the very light of her eyes--at one time to be bending over her, so close to her bosom as to tremble at the thought of touching it; at another, to feel her bending over me, bending so close to see what i was about, that her voice sank low when she spoke to me, and her ribbons brushed my cheek in the wind before she could draw them back. the evenings which followed the sketching excursions of the afternoon varied, rather than checked, these innocent, these inevitable familiarities. my natural fondness for the music which she played with such tender feeling, such delicate womanly taste, and her natural enjoyment of giving me back, by the practice of her art, the pleasure which i had offered to her by the practice of mine, only wove another tie which drew us closer and closer to one another. the accidents of conversation; the simple habits which regulated even such a little thing as the position of our places at table; the play of miss halcombe's ever-ready raillery, always directed against my anxiety as teacher, while it sparkled over her enthusiasm as pupil; the harmless expression of poor mrs. vesey's drowsy approval, which connected miss fairlie and me as two model young people who never disturbed her--every one of these trifles, and many more, combined to fold us together in the same domestic atmosphere, and to lead us both insensibly to the same hopeless end. i should have remembered my position, and have put myself secretly on my guard. i did so, but not till it was too late. all the discretion, all the experience, which had availed me with other women, and secured me against other temptations, failed me with her. it had been my profession, for years past, to be in this close contact with young girls of all ages, and of all orders of beauty. i had accepted the position as part of my calling in life; i had trained myself to leave all the sympathies natural to my age in my employer's outer hall, as coolly as i left my umbrella there before i went upstairs. i had long since learnt to understand, composedly and as a matter of course, that my situation in life was considered a guarantee against any of my female pupils feeling more than the most ordinary interest in me, and that i was admitted among beautiful and captivating women much as a harmless domestic animal is admitted among them. this guardian experience i had gained early; this guardian experience had sternly and strictly guided me straight along my own poor narrow path, without once letting me stray aside, to the right hand or to the left. and now i and my trusty talisman were parted for the first time. yes, my hardly-earned self-control was as completely lost to me as if i had never possessed it; lost to me, as it is lost every day to other men, in other critical situations, where women are concerned. i know, now, that i should have questioned myself from the first. i should have asked why any room in the house was better than home to me when she entered it, and barren as a desert when she went out again--why i always noticed and remembered the little changes in her dress that i had noticed and remembered in no other woman's before--why i saw her, heard her, and touched her (when we shook hands at night and morning) as i had never seen, heard, and touched any other woman in my life? i should have looked into my own heart, and found this new growth springing up there, and plucked it out while it was young. why was this easiest, simplest work of self-culture always too much for me? the explanation has been written already in the three words that were many enough, and plain enough, for my confession. i loved her. the days passed, the weeks passed; it was approaching the third month of my stay in cumberland. the delicious monotony of life in our calm seclusion flowed on with me, like a smooth stream with a swimmer who glides down the current. all memory of the past, all thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. lulled by the syren-song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, i drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks. the warning that aroused me at last, and startled me into sudden, self-accusing consciousness of my own weakness, was the plainest, the truest, the kindest of all warnings, for it came silently from her. we had parted one night as usual. no word had fallen from my lips, at that time or at any time before it, that could betray me, or startle her into sudden knowledge of the truth. but when we met again in the morning, a change had come over her--a change that told me all. i shrank then--i shrink still--from invading the innermost sanctuary of her heart, and laying it open to others, as i have laid open my own. let it be enough to say that the time when she first surprised my secret was, i firmly believe, the time when she first surprised her own, and the time, also, when she changed towards me in the interval of one night. her nature, too truthful to deceive others, was too noble to deceive itself. when the doubt that i had hushed asleep first laid its weary weight on her heart, the true face owned all, and said, in its own frank, simple language--i am sorry for him; i am sorry for myself. it said this, and more, which i could not then interpret. i understood but too well the change in her manner, to greater kindness and quicker readiness in interpreting all my wishes, before others--to constraint and sadness, and nervous anxiety to absorb herself in the first occupation she could seize on, whenever we happened to be left together alone. i understood why the sweet sensitive lips smiled so rarely and so restrainedly now, and why the clear blue eyes looked at me, sometimes with the pity of an angel, sometimes with the innocent perplexity of a child. but the change meant more than this. there was a coldness in her hand, there was an unnatural immobility in her face, there was in all her movements the mute expression of constant fear and clinging self-reproach. the sensations that i could trace to herself and to me, the unacknowledged sensations that we were feeling in common, were not these. there were certain elements of the change in her that were still secretly drawing us together, and others that were, as secretly, beginning to drive us apart. in my doubt and perplexity, in my vague suspicion of something hidden which i was left to find by my own unaided efforts, i examined miss halcombe's looks and manner for enlightenment. living in such intimacy as ours, no serious alteration could take place in any one of us which did not sympathetically affect the others. the change in miss fairlie was reflected in her half-sister. although not a word escaped miss halcombe which hinted at an altered state of feeling towards myself, her penetrating eyes had contracted a new habit of always watching me. sometimes the look was like suppressed anger, sometimes like suppressed dread, sometimes like neither--like nothing, in short, which i could understand. a week elapsed, leaving us all three still in this position of secret constraint towards one another. my situation, aggravated by the sense of my own miserable weakness and forgetfulness of myself, now too late awakened in me, was becoming intolerable. i felt that i must cast off the oppression under which i was living, at once and for ever--yet how to act for the best, or what to say first, was more than i could tell. from this position of helplessness and humiliation i was rescued by miss halcombe. her lips told me the bitter, the necessary, the unexpected truth; her hearty kindness sustained me under the shock of hearing it; her sense and courage turned to its right use an event which threatened the worst that could happen, to me and to others, in limmeridge house. x it was on a thursday in the week, and nearly at the end of the third month of my sojourn in cumberland. in the morning, when i went down into the breakfast-room at the usual hour, miss halcombe, for the first time since i had known her, was absent from her customary place at the table. miss fairlie was out on the lawn. she bowed to me, but did not come in. not a word had dropped from my lips, or from hers, that could unsettle either of us--and yet the same unacknowledged sense of embarrassment made us shrink alike from meeting one another alone. she waited on the lawn, and i waited in the breakfast-room, till mrs. vesey or miss halcombe came in. how quickly i should have joined her: how readily we should have shaken hands, and glided into our customary talk, only a fortnight ago. in a few minutes miss halcombe entered. she had a preoccupied look, and she made her apologies for being late rather absently. "i have been detained," she said, "by a consultation with mr. fairlie on a domestic matter which he wished to speak to me about." miss fairlie came in from the garden, and the usual morning greeting passed between us. her hand struck colder to mine than ever. she did not look at me, and she was very pale. even mrs. vesey noticed it when she entered the room a moment after. "i suppose it is the change in the wind," said the old lady. "the winter is coming--ah, my love, the winter is coming soon!" in her heart and in mine it had come already! our morning meal--once so full of pleasant good-humoured discussion of the plans for the day--was short and silent. miss fairlie seemed to feel the oppression of the long pauses in the conversation, and looked appealingly to her sister to fill them up. miss halcombe, after once or twice hesitating and checking herself, in a most uncharacteristic manner, spoke at last. "i have seen your uncle this morning, laura," she said. "he thinks the purple room is the one that ought to be got ready, and he confirms what i told you. monday is the day--not tuesday." while these words were being spoken miss fairlie looked down at the table beneath her. her fingers moved nervously among the crumbs that were scattered on the cloth. the paleness on her cheeks spread to her lips, and the lips themselves trembled visibly. i was not the only person present who noticed this. miss halcombe saw it, too, and at once set us the example of rising from table. mrs. vesey and miss fairlie left the room together. the kind sorrowful blue eyes looked at me, for a moment, with the prescient sadness of a coming and a long farewell. i felt the answering pang in my own heart--the pang that told me i must lose her soon, and love her the more unchangeably for the loss. i turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her. miss halcombe was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking at me attentively. "have you any leisure time to spare," she asked, "before you begin to work in your own room?" "certainly, miss halcombe. i have always time at your service." "i want to say a word to you in private, mr. hartright. get your hat and come out into the garden. we are not likely to be disturbed there at this hour in the morning." as we stepped out on to the lawn, one of the under-gardeners--a mere lad--passed us on his way to the house, with a letter in his hand. miss halcombe stopped him. "is that letter for me?" she asked. "nay, miss; it's just said to be for miss fairlie," answered the lad, holding out the letter as he spoke. miss halcombe took it from him and looked at the address. "a strange handwriting," she said to herself. "who can laura's correspondent be? where did you get this?" she continued, addressing the gardener. "well, miss," said the lad, "i just got it from a woman." "what woman?" "a woman well stricken in age." "oh, an old woman. any one you knew?" "i canna' tak' it on mysel' to say that she was other than a stranger to me." "which way did she go?" "that gate," said the under-gardener, turning with great deliberation towards the south, and embracing the whole of that part of england with one comprehensive sweep of his arm. "curious," said miss halcombe; "i suppose it must be a begging-letter. there," she added, handing the letter back to the lad, "take it to the house, and give it to one of the servants. and now, mr. hartright, if you have no objection, let us walk this way." she led me across the lawn, along the same path by which i had followed her on the day after my arrival at limmeridge. at the little summer-house, in which laura fairlie and i had first seen each other, she stopped, and broke the silence which she had steadily maintained while we were walking together. "what i have to say to you i can say here." with those words she entered the summer-house, took one of the chairs at the little round table inside, and signed to me to take the other. i suspected what was coming when she spoke to me in the breakfast-room; i felt certain of it now. "mr. hartright," she said, "i am going to begin by making a frank avowal to you. i am going to say--without phrase-making, which i detest, or paying compliments, which i heartily despise--that i have come, in the course of your residence with us, to feel a strong friendly regard for you. i was predisposed in your favour when you first told me of your conduct towards that unhappy woman whom you met under such remarkable circumstances. your management of the affair might not have been prudent, but it showed the self-control, the delicacy, and the compassion of a man who was naturally a gentleman. it made me expect good things from you, and you have not disappointed my expectations." she paused--but held up her hand at the same time, as a sign that she awaited no answer from me before she proceeded. when i entered the summer-house, no thought was in me of the woman in white. but now, miss halcombe's own words had put the memory of my adventure back in my mind. it remained there throughout the interview--remained, and not without a result. "as your friend," she proceeded, "i am going to tell you, at once, in my own plain, blunt, downright language, that i have discovered your secret--without help or hint, mind, from any one else. mr. hartright, you have thoughtlessly allowed yourself to form an attachment--a serious and devoted attachment i am afraid--to my sister laura. i don't put you to the pain of confessing it in so many words, because i see and know that you are too honest to deny it. i don't even blame you--i pity you for opening your heart to a hopeless affection. you have not attempted to take any underhand advantage--you have not spoken to my sister in secret. you are guilty of weakness and want of attention to your own best interests, but of nothing worse. if you had acted, in any single respect, less delicately and less modestly, i should have told you to leave the house without an instant's notice, or an instant's consultation of anybody. as it is, i blame the misfortune of your years and your position--i don't blame you. shake hands--i have given you pain; i am going to give you more, but there is no help for it--shake hands with your friend, marian halcombe, first." the sudden kindness--the warm, high-minded, fearless sympathy which met me on such mercifully equal terms, which appealed with such delicate and generous abruptness straight to my heart, my honour, and my courage, overcame me in an instant. i tried to look at her when she took my hand, but my eyes were dim. i tried to thank her, but my voice failed me. "listen to me," she said, considerately avoiding all notice of my loss of self-control. "listen to me, and let us get it over at once. it is a real true relief to me that i am not obliged, in what i have now to say, to enter into the question--the hard and cruel question as i think it--of social inequalities. circumstances which will try you to the quick, spare me the ungracious necessity of paining a man who has lived in friendly intimacy under the same roof with myself by any humiliating reference to matters of rank and station. you must leave limmeridge house, mr. hartright, before more harm is done. it is my duty to say that to you; and it would be equally my duty to say it, under precisely the same serious necessity, if you were the representative of the oldest and wealthiest family in england. you must leave us, not because you are a teacher of drawing----" she waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching across the table, laid her hand firmly on my arm. "not because you are a teacher of drawing," she repeated, "but because laura fairlie is engaged to be married." the last word went like a bullet to my heart. my arm lost all sensation of the hand that grasped it. i never moved and never spoke. the sharp autumn breeze that scattered the dead leaves at our feet came as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes were dead leaves too, whirled away by the wind like the rest. hopes! betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me. would other men have remembered that in my place? not if they had loved her as i did. the pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it remained. i felt miss halcombe's hand again, tightening its hold on my arm--i raised my head and looked at her. her large black eyes were rooted on me, watching the white change on my face, which i felt, and which she saw. "crush it!" she said. "here, where you first saw her, crush it! don't shrink under it like a woman. tear it out; trample it under foot like a man!" the suppressed vehemence with which she spoke, the strength which her will--concentrated in the look she fixed on me, and in the hold on my arm that she had not yet relinquished--communicated to mine, steadied me. we both waited for a minute in silence. at the end of that time i had justified her generous faith in my manhood--i had, outwardly at least, recovered my self-control. "are you yourself again?" "enough myself, miss halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers. enough myself to be guided by your advice, and to prove my gratitude in that way, if i can prove it in no other." "you have proved it already," she answered, "by those words. mr. hartright, concealment is at an end between us. i cannot affect to hide from you what my sister has unconsciously shown to me. you must leave us for her sake, as well as for your own. your presence here, your necessary intimacy with us, harmless as it has been, god knows, in all other respects, has unsteadied her and made her wretched. i, who love her better than my own life--i, who have learnt to believe in that pure, noble, innocent nature as i believe in my religion--know but too well the secret misery of self-reproach that she has been suffering since the first shadow of a feeling disloyal to her marriage engagement entered her heart in spite of her. i don't say--it would be useless to attempt to say it after what has happened--that her engagement has ever had a strong hold on her affections. it is an engagement of honour, not of love; her father sanctioned it on his deathbed, two years since; she herself neither welcomed it nor shrank from it--she was content to make it. till you came here she was in the position of hundreds of other women, who marry men without being greatly attracted to them or greatly repelled by them, and who learn to love them (when they don't learn to hate!) after marriage, instead of before. i hope more earnestly than words can say--and you should have the self-sacrificing courage to hope too--that the new thoughts and feelings which have disturbed the old calmness and the old content have not taken root too deeply to be ever removed. your absence (if i had less belief in your honour, and your courage, and your sense, i should not trust to them as i am trusting now) your absence will help my efforts, and time will help us all three. it is something to know that my first confidence in you was not all misplaced. it is something to know that you will not be less honest, less manly, less considerate towards the pupil whose relation to yourself you have had the misfortune to forget, than towards the stranger and the outcast whose appeal to you was not made in vain." again the chance reference to the woman in white! was there no possibility of speaking of miss fairlie and of me without raising the memory of anne catherick, and setting her between us like a fatality that it was hopeless to avoid? "tell me what apology i can make to mr. fairlie for breaking my engagement," i said. "tell me when to go after that apology is accepted. i promise implicit obedience to you and to your advice." "time is every way of importance," she answered. "you heard me refer this morning to monday next, and to the necessity of setting the purple room in order. the visitor whom we expect on monday----" i could not wait for her to be more explicit. knowing what i knew now, the memory of miss fairlie's look and manner at the breakfast-table told me that the expected visitor at limmeridge house was her future husband. i tried to force it back; but something rose within me at that moment stronger than my own will, and i interrupted miss halcombe. "let me go to-day," i said bitterly. "the sooner the better." "no, not to-day," she replied. "the only reason you can assign to mr. fairlie for your departure, before the end of your engagement, must be that an unforeseen necessity compels you to ask his permission to return at once to london. you must wait till to-morrow to tell him that, at the time when the post comes in, because he will then understand the sudden change in your plans, by associating it with the arrival of a letter from london. it is miserable and sickening to descend to deceit, even of the most harmless kind--but i know mr. fairlie, and if you once excite his suspicions that you are trifling with him, he will refuse to release you. speak to him on friday morning: occupy yourself afterwards (for the sake of your own interests with your employer) in leaving your unfinished work in as little confusion as possible, and quit this place on saturday. it will be time enough then, mr. hartright, for you, and for all of us." before i could assure her that she might depend on my acting in the strictest accordance with her wishes, we were both startled by advancing footsteps in the shrubbery. some one was coming from the house to seek for us! i felt the blood rush into my cheeks and then leave them again. could the third person who was fast approaching us, at such a time and under such circumstances, be miss fairlie? it was a relief--so sadly, so hopelessly was my position towards her changed already--it was absolutely a relief to me, when the person who had disturbed us appeared at the entrance of the summer-house, and proved to be only miss fairlie's maid. "could i speak to you for a moment, miss?" said the girl, in rather a flurried, unsettled manner. miss halcombe descended the steps into the shrubbery, and walked aside a few paces with the maid. left by myself, my mind reverted, with a sense of forlorn wretchedness which it is not in any words that i can find to describe, to my approaching return to the solitude and the despair of my lonely london home. thoughts of my kind old mother, and of my sister, who had rejoiced with her so innocently over my prospects in cumberland--thoughts whose long banishment from my heart it was now my shame and my reproach to realise for the first time--came back to me with the loving mournfulness of old, neglected friends. my mother and my sister, what would they feel when i returned to them from my broken engagement, with the confession of my miserable secret--they who had parted from me so hopefully on that last happy night in the hampstead cottage! anne catherick again! even the memory of the farewell evening with my mother and my sister could not return to me now unconnected with that other memory of the moonlight walk back to london. what did it mean? were that woman and i to meet once more? it was possible, at the least. did she know that i lived in london? yes; i had told her so, either before or after that strange question of hers, when she had asked me so distrustfully if i knew many men of the rank of baronet. either before or after--my mind was not calm enough, then, to remember which. a few minutes elapsed before miss halcombe dismissed the maid and came back to me. she, too, looked flurried and unsettled now. "we have arranged all that is necessary, mr. hartright," she said. "we have understood each other, as friends should, and we may go back at once to the house. to tell you the truth, i am uneasy about laura. she has sent to say she wants to see me directly, and the maid reports that her mistress is apparently very much agitated by a letter that she has received this morning--the same letter, no doubt, which i sent on to the house before we came here." we retraced our steps together hastily along the shrubbery path. although miss halcombe had ended all that she thought it necessary to say on her side, i had not ended all that i wanted to say on mine. from the moment when i had discovered that the expected visitor at limmeridge was miss fairlie's future husband, i had felt a bitter curiosity, a burning envious eagerness, to know who he was. it was possible that a future opportunity of putting the question might not easily offer, so i risked asking it on our way back to the house. "now that you are kind enough to tell me we have understood each other, miss halcombe," i said, "now that you are sure of my gratitude for your forbearance and my obedience to your wishes, may i venture to ask who"--(i hesitated--i had forced myself to think of him, but it was harder still to speak of him, as her promised husband)--"who the gentleman engaged to miss fairlie is?" her mind was evidently occupied with the message she had received from her sister. she answered in a hasty, absent way-- "a gentleman of large property in hampshire." hampshire! anne catherick's native place. again, and yet again, the woman in white. there was a fatality in it. "and his name?" i said, as quietly and indifferently as i could. "sir percival glyde." sir--sir percival! anne catherick's question--that suspicious question about the men of the rank of baronet whom i might happen to know--had hardly been dismissed from my mind by miss halcombe's return to me in the summer-house, before it was recalled again by her own answer. i stopped suddenly, and looked at her. "sir percival glyde," she repeated, imagining that i had not heard her former reply. "knight, or baronet?" i asked, with an agitation that i could hide no longer. she paused for a moment, and then answered, rather coldly-- "baronet, of course." xi not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house. miss halcombe hastened immediately to her sister's room, and i withdrew to my studio to set in order all of mr. fairlie's drawings that i had not yet mounted and restored before i resigned them to the care of other hands. thoughts that i had hitherto restrained, thoughts that made my position harder than ever to endure, crowded on me now that i was alone. she was engaged to be married, and her future husband was sir percival glyde. a man of the rank of baronet, and the owner of property in hampshire. there were hundreds of baronets in england, and dozens of landowners in hampshire. judging by the ordinary rules of evidence, i had not the shadow of a reason, thus far, for connecting sir percival glyde with the suspicious words of inquiry that had been spoken to me by the woman in white. and yet, i did connect him with them. was it because he had now become associated in my mind with miss fairlie, miss fairlie being, in her turn, associated with anne catherick, since the night when i had discovered the ominous likeness between them? had the events of the morning so unnerved me already that i was at the mercy of any delusion which common chances and common coincidences might suggest to my imagination? impossible to say. i could only feel that what had passed between miss halcombe and myself, on our way from the summer-house, had affected me very strangely. the foreboding of some undiscoverable danger lying hid from us all in the darkness of the future was strong on me. the doubt whether i was not linked already to a chain of events which even my approaching departure from cumberland would be powerless to snap asunder--the doubt whether we any of us saw the end as the end would really be--gathered more and more darkly over my mind. poignant as it was, the sense of suffering caused by the miserable end of my brief, presumptuous love seemed to be blunted and deadened by the still stronger sense of something obscurely impending, something invisibly threatening, that time was holding over our heads. i had been engaged with the drawings little more than half an hour, when there was a knock at the door. it opened, on my answering; and, to my surprise, miss halcombe entered the room. her manner was angry and agitated. she caught up a chair for herself before i could give her one, and sat down in it, close at my side. "mr. hartright," she said, "i had hoped that all painful subjects of conversation were exhausted between us, for to-day at least. but it is not to be so. there is some underhand villainy at work to frighten my sister about her approaching marriage. you saw me send the gardener on to the house, with a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to miss fairlie?" "certainly." "the letter is an anonymous letter--a vile attempt to injure sir percival glyde in my sister's estimation. it has so agitated and alarmed her that i have had the greatest possible difficulty in composing her spirits sufficiently to allow me to leave her room and come here. i know this is a family matter on which i ought not to consult you, and in which you can feel no concern or interest----" "i beg your pardon, miss halcombe. i feel the strongest possible concern and interest in anything that affects miss fairlie's happiness or yours." "i am glad to hear you say so. you are the only person in the house, or out of it, who can advise me. mr. fairlie, in his state of health and with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not to be thought of. the clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing out of the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable, jog-trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times of trouble and danger. what i want to know is this: ought i at once to take such steps as i can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought i to wait, and apply to mr. fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? it is a question--perhaps a very important one--of gaining or losing a day. tell me what you think, mr. hartright. if necessity had not already obliged me to take you into my confidence under very delicate circumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps, be no excuse for me. but as things are i cannot surely be wrong, after all that has passed between us, in forgetting that you are a friend of only three months' standing." she gave me the letter. it began abruptly, without any preliminary form of address, as follows-- "do you believe in dreams? i hope, for your own sake, that you do. see what scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (genesis xl. , xli. ; daniel iv. - ), and take the warning i send you before it is too late. "last night i dreamed about you, miss fairlie. i dreamed that i was standing inside the communion rails of a church--i on one side of the altar-table, and the clergyman, with his surplice and his prayer-book, on the other. "after a time there walked towards us, down the aisle of the church, a man and a woman, coming to be married. you were the woman. you looked so pretty and innocent in your beautiful white silk dress, and your long white lace veil, that my heart felt for you, and the tears came into my eyes. "they were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven blesses and instead of falling from my eyes like the everyday tears that we all of us shed, they turned into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer to the man standing at the altar with you, till they touched his breast. the two rays sprang ill arches like two rainbows between me and him. i looked along them, and i saw down into his inmost heart. "the outside of the man you were marrying was fair enough to see. he was neither tall nor short--he was a little below the middle size. a light, active, high-spirited man--about five-and-forty years old, to look at. he had a pale face, and was bald over the forehead, but had dark hair on the rest of his head. his beard was shaven on his chin, but was let to grow, of a fine rich brown, on his cheeks and his upper lip. his eyes were brown too, and very bright; his nose straight and handsome and delicate enough to have done for a woman's. his hands the same. he was troubled from time to time with a dry hacking cough, and when he put up his white right hand to his mouth, he showed the red scar of an old wound across the back of it. have i dreamt of the right man? you know best, miss fairlie and you can say if i was deceived or not. read next, what i saw beneath the outside--i entreat you, read, and profit. "i looked along the two rays of light, and i saw down into his inmost heart. it was black as night, and on it were written, in the red flaming letters which are the handwriting of the fallen angel, 'without pity and without remorse. he has strewn with misery the paths of others, and he will live to strew with misery the path of this woman by his side.' i read that, and then the rays of light shifted and pointed over his shoulder; and there, behind him, stood a fiend laughing. and the rays of light shifted once more, and pointed over your shoulder; and there behind you, stood an angel weeping. and the rays of light shifted for the third time, and pointed straight between you and that man. they widened and widened, thrusting you both asunder, one from the other. and the clergyman looked for the marriage-service in vain: it was gone out of the book, and he shut up the leaves, and put it from him in despair. and i woke with my eyes full of tears and my heart beating--for i believe in dreams. "believe too, miss fairlie--i beg of you, for your own sake, believe as i do. joseph and daniel, and others in scripture, believed in dreams. inquire into the past life of that man with the scar on his hand, before you say the words that make you his miserable wife. i don't give you this warning on my account, but on yours. i have an interest in your well-being that will live as long as i draw breath. your mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart--for your mother was my first, my best, my only friend." there the extraordinary letter ended, without signature of any sort. the handwriting afforded no prospect of a clue. it was traced on ruled lines, in the cramped, conventional, copy-book character technically termed "small hand." it was feeble and faint, and defaced by blots, but had otherwise nothing to distinguish it. "that is not an illiterate letter," said miss halcombe, "and at the same time, it is surely too incoherent to be the letter of an educated person in the higher ranks of life. the reference to the bridal dress and veil, and other little expressions, seem to point to it as the production of some woman. what do you think, mr. hartright?" "i think so too. it seems to me to be not only the letter of a woman, but of a woman whose mind must be----" "deranged?" suggested miss halcombe. "it struck me in that light too." i did not answer. while i was speaking, my eyes rested on the last sentence of the letter: "your mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart--for your mother was my first, my best, my only friend." those words and the doubt which had just escaped me as to the sanity of the writer of the letter, acting together on my mind, suggested an idea, which i was literally afraid to express openly, or even to encourage secretly. i began to doubt whether my own faculties were not in danger of losing their balance. it seemed almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything strange that happened, everything unexpected that was said, always to the same hidden source and the same sinister influence. i resolved, this time, in defence of my own courage and my own sense, to come to no decision that plain fact did not warrant, and to turn my back resolutely on everything that tempted me in the shape of surmise. "if we have any chance of tracing the person who has written this," i said, returning the letter to miss halcombe, "there can be no harm in seizing our opportunity the moment it offers. i think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries in the village. but first let me ask a question. you mentioned just now the alternative of consulting mr. fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow. is there no possibility of communicating with him earlier? why not to-day?" "i can only explain," replied miss halcombe, "by entering into certain particulars, connected with my sister's marriage-engagement, which i did not think it necessary or desirable to mention to you this morning. one of sir percival glyde's objects in coming here on monday, is to fix the period of his marriage, which has hitherto been left quite unsettled. he is anxious that the event should take place before the end of the year." "does miss fairlie know of that wish?" i asked eagerly. "she has no suspicion of it, and after what has happened, i shall not take the responsibility upon myself of enlightening her. sir percival has only mentioned his views to mr. fairlie, who has told me himself that he is ready and anxious, as laura's guardian, to forward them. he has written to london, to the family solicitor, mr. gilmore. mr. gilmore happens to be away in glasgow on business, and he has replied by proposing to stop at limmeridge house on his way back to town. he will arrive to-morrow, and will stay with us a few days, so as to allow sir percival time to plead his own cause. if he succeeds, mr. gilmore will then return to london, taking with him his instructions for my sister's marriage-settlement. you understand now, mr. hartright, why i speak of waiting to take legal advice until to-morrow? mr. gilmore is the old and tried friend of two generations of fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one else." the marriage-settlement! the mere hearing of those two words stung me with a jealous despair that was poison to my higher and better instincts. i began to think--it is hard to confess this, but i must suppress nothing from beginning to end of the terrible story that i now stand committed to reveal--i began to think, with a hateful eagerness of hope, of the vague charges against sir percival glyde which the anonymous letter contained. what if those wild accusations rested on a foundation of truth? what if their truth could be proved before the fatal words of consent were spoken, and the marriage-settlement was drawn? i have tried to think since, that the feeling which then animated me began and ended in pure devotion to miss fairlie's interests, but i have never succeeded in deceiving myself into believing it, and i must not now attempt to deceive others. the feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of the man who was to marry her. "if we are to find out anything," i said, speaking under the new influence which was now directing me, "we had better not let another minute slip by us unemployed. i can only suggest, once more, the propriety of questioning the gardener a second time, and of inquiring in the village immediately afterwards." "i think i may be of help to you in both cases," said miss halcombe, rising. "let us go, mr. hartright, at once, and do the best we can together." i had the door in my hand to open it for her--but i stopped, on a sudden, to ask an important question before we set forth. "one of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter," i said, "contains some sentences of minute personal description. sir percival glyde's name is not mentioned, i know--but does that description at all resemble him?" "accurately--even in stating his age to be forty-five----" forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! men of his age married wives of her age every day--and experience had shown those marriages to be often the happiest ones. i knew that--and yet even the mention of his age, when i contrasted it with hers, added to my blind hatred and distrust of him. "accurately," miss halcombe continued, "even to the scar on his right hand, which is the scar of a wound that he received years since when he was travelling in italy. there can be no doubt that every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter." "even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if i remember right?" "yes, and mentioned correctly. he treats it lightly himself, though it sometimes makes his friends anxious about him." "i suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his character?" "mr. hartright! i hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous letter influence you?" i felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for i knew that it had influenced me. "i hope not," i answered confusedly. "perhaps i had no right to ask the question." "i am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it enables me to do justice to sir percival's reputation. not a whisper, mr. hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against him. he has fought successfully two contested elections, and has come out of the ordeal unscathed. a man who can do that, in england, is a man whose character is established." i opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. she had not convinced me. if the recording angel had come down from heaven to confirm her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording angel would not have convinced me. we found the gardener at work as usual. no amount of questioning could extract a single answer of any importance from the lad's impenetrable stupidity. the woman who had given him the letter was an elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to him, and she had gone away towards the south in a great hurry. that was all the gardener could tell us. the village lay southward of the house. so to the village we went next. xii our inquiries at limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. but nothing came of them. three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours. the course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to the end of the village at which the schools established by mrs. fairlie were situated. as we passed the side of the building appropriated to the use of the boys, i suggested the propriety of making a last inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might presume to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man in the place. "i am afraid the schoolmaster must have been occupied with his scholars," said miss halcombe, "just at the time when the woman passed through the village and returned again. however, we can but try." we entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom window to get round to the door, which was situated at the back of the building. i stopped for a moment at the window and looked in. the schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front of him, with one exception. the one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner--a forlorn little crusoe, isolated in his own desert island of solitary penal disgrace. the door, when we got round to it, was ajar, and the school-master's voice reached us plainly, as we both stopped for a minute under the porch. "now, boys," said the voice, "mind what i tell you. if i hear another word spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the worse for all of you. there are no such things as ghosts, and therefore any boy who believes in ghosts believes in what can't possibly be; and a boy who belongs to limmeridge school, and believes in what can't possibly be, sets up his back against reason and discipline, and must be punished accordingly. you all see jacob postlethwaite standing up on the stool there in disgrace. he has been punished, not because he said he saw a ghost last night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate to listen to reason, and because he persists in saying he saw the ghost after i have told him that no such thing can possibly be. if nothing else will do, i mean to cane the ghost out of jacob postlethwaite, and if the thing spreads among any of the rest of you, i mean to go a step farther, and cane the ghost out of the whole school." "we seem to have chosen an awkward moment for our visit," said miss halcombe, pushing open the door at the end of the schoolmaster's address, and leading the way in. our appearance produced a strong sensation among the boys. they appeared to think that we had arrived for the express purpose of seeing jacob postlethwaite caned. "go home all of you to dinner," said the schoolmaster, "except jacob. jacob must stop where he is; and the ghost may bring him his dinner, if the ghost pleases." jacob's fortitude deserted him at the double disappearance of his schoolfellows and his prospect of dinner. he took his hands out of his pockets, looked hard at his knuckles, raised them with great deliberation to his eyes, and when they got there, ground them round and round slowly, accompanying the action by short spasms of sniffing, which followed each other at regular intervals--the nasal minute guns of juvenile distress. "we came here to ask you a question, mr. dempster," said miss halcombe, addressing the schoolmaster; "and we little expected to find you occupied in exorcising a ghost. what does it all mean? what has really happened?" "that wicked boy has been frightening the whole school, miss halcombe, by declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening," answered the master; "and he still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that i can say to him." "most extraordinary," said miss halcombe, "i should not have thought it possible that any of the boys had imagination enough to see a ghost. this is a new accession indeed to the hard labour of forming the youthful mind at limmeridge, and i heartily wish you well through it, mr. dempster. in the meantime, let me explain why you see me here, and what it is i want." she then put the same question to the schoolmaster which we had asked already of almost every one else in the village. it was met by the same discouraging answer mr. dempster had not set eyes on the stranger of whom we were in search. "we may as well return to the house, mr. hartright," said miss halcombe; "the information we want is evidently not to be found." she had bowed to mr. dempster, and was about to leave the schoolroom, when the forlorn position of jacob postlethwaite, piteously sniffing on the stool of penitence, attracted her attention as she passed him, and made her stop good-humouredly to speak a word to the little prisoner before she opened the door. "you foolish boy," she said, "why don't you beg mr. dempster's pardon, and hold your tongue about the ghost?" "eh!--but i saw t' ghaist," persisted jacob postlethwaite, with a stare of terror and a burst of tears. "stuff and nonsense! you saw nothing of the kind. ghost indeed! what ghost----" "i beg your pardon, miss halcombe," interposed the schoolmaster a little uneasily--"but i think you had better not question the boy. the obstinate folly of his story is beyond all belief; and you might lead him into ignorantly----" "ignorantly what?" inquired miss halcombe sharply. "ignorantly shocking your feelings," said mr. dempster, looking very much discomposed. "upon my word, mr. dempster, you pay my feelings a great compliment in thinking them weak enough to be shocked by such an urchin as that!" she turned with an air of satirical defiance to little jacob, and began to question him directly. "come!" she said, "i mean to know all about this. you naughty boy, when did you see the ghost?" "yestere'en, at the gloaming," replied jacob. "oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? and what was it like?" "arl in white--as a ghaist should be," answered the ghost-seer, with a confidence beyond his years. "and where was it?" "away yander, in t' kirkyard--where a ghaist ought to be." "as a 'ghaist' should be--where a 'ghaist' ought to be--why, you little fool, you talk as if the manners and customs of ghosts had been familiar to you from your infancy! you have got your story at your fingers' ends, at any rate. i suppose i shall hear next that you can actually tell me whose ghost it was?" "eh! but i just can," replied jacob, nodding his head with an air of gloomy triumph. mr. dempster had already tried several times to speak while miss halcombe was examining his pupil, and he now interposed resolutely enough to make himself heard. "excuse me, miss halcombe," he said, "if i venture to say that you are only encouraging the boy by asking him these questions." "i will merely ask one more, mr. dempster, and then i shall be quite satisfied. well," she continued, turning to the boy, "and whose ghost was it?" "t' ghaist of mistress fairlie," answered jacob in a whisper. the effect which this extraordinary reply produced on miss halcombe fully justified the anxiety which the schoolmaster had shown to prevent her from hearing it. her face crimsoned with indignation--she turned upon little jacob with an angry suddenness which terrified him into a fresh burst of tears--opened her lips to speak to him--then controlled herself, and addressed the master instead of the boy. "it is useless," she said, "to hold such a child as that responsible for what he says. i have little doubt that the idea has been put into his head by others. if there are people in this village, mr. dempster, who have forgotten the respect and gratitude due from every soul in it to my mother's memory, i will find them out, and if i have any influence with mr. fairlie, they shall suffer for it." "i hope--indeed, i am sure, miss halcombe--that you are mistaken," said the schoolmaster. "the matter begins and ends with the boy's own perversity and folly. he saw, or thought he saw, a woman in white, yesterday evening, as he was passing the churchyard; and the figure, real or fancied, was standing by the marble cross, which he and every one else in limmeridge knows to be the monument over mrs. fairlie's grave. these two circumstances are surely sufficient to have suggested to the boy himself the answer which has so naturally shocked you?" although miss halcombe did not seem to be convinced, she evidently felt that the schoolmaster's statement of the case was too sensible to be openly combated. she merely replied by thanking him for his attention, and by promising to see him again when her doubts were satisfied. this said, she bowed, and led the way out of the schoolroom. throughout the whole of this strange scene i had stood apart, listening attentively, and drawing my own conclusions. as soon as we were alone again, miss halcombe asked me if i had formed any opinion on what i had heard. "a very strong opinion," i answered; "the boy's story, as i believe, has a foundation in fact. i confess i am anxious to see the monument over mrs. fairlie's grave, and to examine the ground about it." "you shall see the grave." she paused after making that reply, and reflected a little as we walked on. "what has happened in the schoolroom," she resumed, "has so completely distracted my attention from the subject of the letter, that i feel a little bewildered when i try to return to it. must we give up all idea of making any further inquiries, and wait to place the thing in mr. gilmore's hands to-morrow?" "by no means, miss halcombe. what has happened in the schoolroom encourages me to persevere in the investigation." "why does it encourage you?" "because it strengthens a suspicion i felt when you gave me the letter to read." "i suppose you had your reasons, mr. hartright, for concealing that suspicion from me till this moment?" "i was afraid to encourage it in myself. i thought it was utterly preposterous--i distrusted it as the result of some perversity in my own imagination. but i can do so no longer. not only the boy's own answers to your questions, but even a chance expression that dropped from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his story, have forced the idea back into my mind. events may yet prove that idea to be a delusion, miss halcombe; but the belief is strong in me, at this moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same person." she stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face. "what person?" "the schoolmaster unconsciously told you. when he spoke of the figure that the boy saw in the churchyard he called it 'a woman in white.'" "not anne catherick?" "yes, anne catherick." she put her hand through my arm and leaned on it heavily. "i don't know why," she said in low tones, "but there is something in this suspicion of yours that seems to startle and unnerve me. i feel----" she stopped, and tried to laugh it off. "mr. hartright," she went on, "i will show you the grave, and then go back at once to the house. i had better not leave laura too long alone. i had better go back and sit with her." we were close to the churchyard when she spoke. the church, a dreary building of grey stone, was situated in a little valley, so as to be sheltered from the bleak winds blowing over the moorland all round it. the burial-ground advanced, from the side of the church, a little way up the slope of the hill. it was surrounded by a rough, low stone wall, and was bare and open to the sky, except at one extremity, where a brook trickled down the stony hill-side, and a clump of dwarf trees threw their narrow shadows over the short, meagre grass. just beyond the brook and the trees, and not far from one of the three stone stiles which afforded entrance, at various points, to the churchyard, rose the white marble cross that distinguished mrs. fairlie's grave from the humbler monuments scattered about it. "i need go no farther with you," said miss halcombe, pointing to the grave. "you will let me know if you find anything to confirm the idea you have just mentioned to me. let us meet again at the house." she left me. i descended at once to the churchyard, and crossed the stile which led directly to mrs. fairlie's grave. the grass about it was too short, and the ground too hard, to show any marks of footsteps. disappointed thus far, i next looked attentively at the cross, and at the square block of marble below it, on which the inscription was cut. the natural whiteness of the cross was a little clouded, here and there, by weather stains, and rather more than one half of the square block beneath it, on the side which bore the inscription, was in the same condition. the other half, however, attracted my attention at once by its singular freedom from stain or impurity of any kind. i looked closer, and saw that it had been cleaned--recently cleaned, in a downward direction from top to bottom. the boundary line between the part that had been cleaned and the part that had not was traceable wherever the inscription left a blank space of marble--sharply traceable as a line that had been produced by artificial means. who had begun the cleansing of the marble, and who had left it unfinished? i looked about me, wondering how the question was to be solved. no sign of a habitation could be discerned from the point at which i was standing--the burial-ground was left in the lonely possession of the dead. i returned to the church, and walked round it till i came to the back of the building; then crossed the boundary wall beyond, by another of the stone stiles, and found myself at the head of a path leading down into a deserted stone quarry. against one side of the quarry a little two-room cottage was built, and just outside the door an old woman was engaged in washing. i walked up to her, and entered into conversation about the church and burial-ground. she was ready enough to talk, and almost the first words she said informed me that her husband filled the two offices of clerk and sexton. i said a few words next in praise of mrs. fairlie's monument. the old woman shook her head, and told me i had not seen it at its best. it was her husband's business to look after it, but he had been so ailing and weak for months and months past, that he had hardly been able to crawl into church on sundays to do his duty, and the monument had been neglected in consequence. he was getting a little better now, and in a week or ten days' time he hoped to be strong enough to set to work and clean it. this information--extracted from a long rambling answer in the broadest cumberland dialect--told me all that i most wanted to know. i gave the poor woman a trifle, and returned at once to limmeridge house. the partial cleansing of the monument had evidently been accomplished by a strange hand. connecting what i had discovered, thus far, with what i had suspected after hearing the story of the ghost seen at twilight, i wanted nothing more to confirm my resolution to watch mrs. fairlie's grave, in secret, that evening, returning to it at sunset, and waiting within sight of it till the night fell. the work of cleansing the monument had been left unfinished, and the person by whom it had been begun might return to complete it. on getting back to the house i informed miss halcombe of what i intended to do. she looked surprised and uneasy while i was explaining my purpose, but she made no positive objection to the execution of it. she only said, "i hope it may end well." just as she was leaving me again, i stopped her to inquire, as calmly as i could, after miss fairlie's health. she was in better spirits, and miss halcombe hoped she might be induced to take a little walking exercise while the afternoon sun lasted. i returned to my own room to resume setting the drawings in order. it was necessary to do this, and doubly necessary to keep my mind employed on anything that would help to distract my attention from myself, and from the hopeless future that lay before me. from time to time i paused in my work to look out of window and watch the sky as the sun sank nearer and nearer to the horizon. on one of those occasions i saw a figure on the broad gravel walk under my window. it was miss fairlie. i had not seen her since the morning, and i had hardly spoken to her then. another day at limmeridge was all that remained to me, and after that day my eyes might never look on her again. this thought was enough to hold me at the window. i had sufficient consideration for her to arrange the blind so that she might not see me if she looked up, but i had no strength to resist the temptation of letting my eyes, at least, follow her as far as they could on her walk. she was dressed in a brown cloak, with a plain black silk gown under it. on her head was the same simple straw hat which she had worn on the morning when we first met. a veil was attached to it now which hid her face from me. by her side trotted a little italian greyhound, the pet companion of all her walks, smartly dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to keep the sharp air from his delicate skin. she did not seem to notice the dog. she walked straight forward, with her head drooping a little, and her arms folded in her cloak. the dead leaves, which had whirled in the wind before me when i had heard of her marriage engagement in the morning, whirled in the wind before her, and rose and fell and scattered themselves at her feet as she walked on in the pale waning sunlight. the dog shivered and trembled, and pressed against her dress impatiently for notice and encouragement. but she never heeded him. she walked on, farther and farther away from me, with the dead leaves whirling about her on the path--walked on, till my aching eyes could see her no more, and i was left alone again with my own heavy heart. in another hour's time i had done my work, and the sunset was at hand. i got my hat and coat in the hall, and slipped out of the house without meeting any one. the clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew chill from the sea. far as the shore was, the sound of the surf swept over the intervening moorland, and beat drearily in my ears when i entered the churchyard. not a living creature was in sight. the place looked lonelier than ever as i chose my position, and waited and watched, with my eyes on the white cross that rose over mrs. fairlie's grave. xiii the exposed situation of the churchyard had obliged me to be cautious in choosing the position that i was to occupy. the main entrance to the church was on the side next to the burial-ground, and the door was screened by a porch walled in on either side. after some little hesitation, caused by natural reluctance to conceal myself, indispensable as that concealment was to the object in view, i had resolved on entering the porch. a loophole window was pierced in each of its side walls. through one of these windows i could see mrs. fairlie's grave. the other looked towards the stone quarry in which the sexton's cottage was built. before me, fronting the porch entrance, was a patch of bare burial-ground, a line of low stone wall, and a strip of lonely brown hill, with the sunset clouds sailing heavily over it before the strong, steady wind. no living creature was visible or audible--no bird flew by me, no dog barked from the sexton's cottage. the pauses in the dull beating of the surf were filled up by the dreary rustling of the dwarf trees near the grave, and the cold faint bubble of the brook over its stony bed. a dreary scene and a dreary hour. my spirits sank fast as i counted out the minutes of the evening in my hiding-place under the church porch. it was not twilight yet--the light of the setting sun still lingered in the heavens, and little more than the first half-hour of my solitary watch had elapsed--when i heard footsteps and a voice. the footsteps were approaching from the other side of the church, and the voice was a woman's. "don't you fret, my dear, about the letter," said the voice. "i gave it to the lad quite safe, and the lad he took it from me without a word. he went his way and i went mine, and not a living soul followed me afterwards--that i'll warrant." these words strung up my attention to a pitch of expectation that was almost painful. there was a pause of silence, but the footsteps still advanced. in another moment two persons, both women, passed within my range of view from the porch window. they were walking straight towards the grave; and therefore they had their backs turned towards me. one of the women was dressed in a bonnet and shawl. the other wore a long travelling-cloak of a dark-blue colour, with the hood drawn over her head. a few inches of her gown were visible below the cloak. my heart beat fast as i noted the colour--it was white. after advancing about half-way between the church and the grave they stopped, and the woman in the cloak turned her head towards her companion. but her side face, which a bonnet might now have allowed me to see, was hidden by the heavy, projecting edge of the hood. "mind you keep that comfortable warm cloak on," said the same voice which i had already heard--the voice of the woman in the shawl. "mrs. todd is right about your looking too particular, yesterday, all in white. i'll walk about a little while you're here, churchyards being not at all in my way, whatever they may be in yours. finish what you want to do before i come back, and let us be sure and get home again before night." with those words she turned about, and retracing her steps, advanced with her face towards me. it was the face of an elderly woman, brown, rugged, and healthy, with nothing dishonest or suspicious in the look of it. close to the church she stopped to pull her shawl closer round her. "queer," she said to herself, "always queer, with her whims and her ways, ever since i can remember her. harmless, though--as harmless, poor soul, as a little child." she sighed--looked about the burial-ground nervously--shook her head, as if the dreary prospect by no means pleased her, and disappeared round the corner of the church. i doubted for a moment whether i ought to follow and speak to her or not. my intense anxiety to find myself face to face with her companion helped me to decide in the negative. i could ensure seeing the woman in the shawl by waiting near the churchyard until she came back--although it seemed more than doubtful whether she could give me the information of which i was in search. the person who had delivered the letter was of little consequence. the person who had written it was the one centre of interest, and the one source of information, and that person i now felt convinced was before me in the churchyard. while these ideas were passing through my mind i saw the woman in the cloak approach close to the grave, and stand looking at it for a little while. she then glanced all round her, and taking a white linen cloth or handkerchief from under her cloak, turned aside towards the brook. the little stream ran into the churchyard under a tiny archway in the bottom of the wall, and ran out again, after a winding course of a few dozen yards, under a similar opening. she dipped the cloth in the water, and returned to the grave. i saw her kiss the white cross, then kneel down before the inscription, and apply her wet cloth to the cleansing of it. after considering how i could show myself with the least possible chance of frightening her, i resolved to cross the wall before me, to skirt round it outside, and to enter the churchyard again by the stile near the grave, in order that she might see me as i approached. she was so absorbed over her employment that she did not hear me coming until i had stepped over the stile. then she looked up, started to her feet with a faint cry, and stood facing me in speechless and motionless terror. "don't be frightened," i said. "surely you remember me?" i stopped while i spoke--then advanced a few steps gently--then stopped again--and so approached by little and little till i was close to her. if there had been any doubt still left in my mind, it must have been now set at rest. there, speaking affrightedly for itself--there was the same face confronting me over mrs. fairlie's grave which had first looked into mine on the high-road by night. "you remember me?" i said. "we met very late, and i helped you to find the way to london. surely you have not forgotten that?" her features relaxed, and she drew a heavy breath of relief. i saw the new life of recognition stirring slowly under the death-like stillness which fear had set on her face. "don't attempt to speak to me just yet," i went on. "take time to recover yourself--take time to feel quite certain that i am a friend." "you are very kind to me," she murmured. "as kind now as you were then." she stopped, and i kept silence on my side. i was not granting time for composure to her only, i was gaining time also for myself. under the wan wild evening light, that woman and i were met together again, a grave between us, the dead about us, the lonesome hills closing us round on every side. the time, the place, the circumstances under which we now stood face to face in the evening stillness of that dreary valley--the lifelong interests which might hang suspended on the next chance words that passed between us--the sense that, for aught i knew to the contrary, the whole future of laura fairlie's life might be determined, for good or for evil, by my winning or losing the confidence of the forlorn creature who stood trembling by her mother's grave--all threatened to shake the steadiness and the self-control on which every inch of the progress i might yet make now depended. i tried hard, as i felt this, to possess myself of all my resources; i did my utmost to turn the few moments for reflection to the best account. "are you calmer now?" i said, as soon as i thought it time to speak again. "can you talk to me without feeling frightened, and without forgetting that i am a friend?" "how did you come here?" she asked, without noticing what i had just said to her. "don't you remember my telling you, when we last met, that i was going to cumberland? i have been in cumberland ever since--i have been staying all the time at limmeridge house." "at limmeridge house!" her pale face brightened as she repeated the words, her wandering eyes fixed on me with a sudden interest. "ah, how happy you must have been!" she said, looking at me eagerly, without a shadow of its former distrust left in her expression. i took advantage of her newly-aroused confidence in me to observe her face, with an attention and a curiosity which i had hitherto restrained myself from showing, for caution's sake. i looked at her, with my mind full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by moonlight. i had seen anne catherick's likeness in miss fairlie. i now saw miss fairlie's likeness in anne catherick--saw it all the more clearly because the points of dissimilarity between the two were presented to me as well as the points of resemblance. in the general outline of the countenance and general proportion of the features--in the colour of the hair and in the little nervous uncertainty about the lips--in the height and size of the figure, and the carriage of the head and body, the likeness appeared even more startling than i had ever felt it to be yet. but there the resemblance ended, and the dissimilarity, in details, began. the delicate beauty of miss fairlie's complexion, the transparent clearness of her eyes, the smooth purity of her skin, the tender bloom of colour on her lips, were all missing from the worn weary face that was now turned towards mine. although i hated myself even for thinking such a thing, still, while i looked at the woman before me, the idea would force itself into my mind that one sad change, in the future, was all that was wanting to make the likeness complete, which i now saw to be so imperfect in detail. if ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of miss fairlie's face, then, and then only, anne catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflections of one another. i shuddered at the thought. there was something horrible in the blind unreasoning distrust of the future which the mere passage of it through my mind seemed to imply. it was a welcome interruption to be roused by feeling anne catherick's hand laid on my shoulder. the touch was as stealthy and as sudden as that other touch which had petrified me from head to foot on the night when we first met. "you are looking at me, and you are thinking of something," she said, with her strange breathless rapidity of utterance. "what is it?" "nothing extraordinary," i answered. "i was only wondering how you came here." "i came with a friend who is very good to me. i have only been here two days." "and you found your way to this place yesterday?" "how do you know that?" "i only guessed it." she turned from me, and knelt down before the inscription once more. "where should i go if not here?" she said. "the friend who was better than a mother to me is the only friend i have to visit at limmeridge. oh, it makes my heart ache to see a stain on her tomb! it ought to be kept white as snow, for her sake. i was tempted to begin cleaning it yesterday, and i can't help coming back to go on with it to-day. is there anything wrong in that? i hope not. surely nothing can be wrong that i do for mrs. fairlie's sake?" the old grateful sense of her benefactress's kindness was evidently the ruling idea still in the poor creature's mind--the narrow mind which had but too plainly opened to no other lasting impression since that first impression of her younger and happier days. i saw that my best chance of winning her confidence lay in encouraging her to proceed with the artless employment which she had come into the burial-ground to pursue. she resumed it at once, on my telling her she might do so, touching the hard marble as tenderly as if it had been a sentient thing, and whispering the words of the inscription to herself, over and over again, as if the lost days of her girlhood had returned and she was patiently learning her lesson once more at mrs. fairlie's knees. "should you wonder very much," i said, preparing the way as cautiously as i could for the questions that were to come, "if i owned that it is a satisfaction to me, as well as a surprise, to see you here? i felt very uneasy about you after you left me in the cab." she looked up quickly and suspiciously. "uneasy," she repeated. "why?" "a strange thing happened after we parted that night. two men overtook me in a chaise. they did not see where i was standing, but they stopped near me, and spoke to a policeman on the other side of the way." she instantly suspended her employment. the hand holding the damp cloth with which she had been cleaning the inscription dropped to her side. the other hand grasped the marble cross at the head of the grave. her face turned towards me slowly, with the blank look of terror set rigidly on it once more. i went on at all hazards--it was too late now to draw back. "the two men spoke to the policeman," i said, "and asked him if he had seen you. he had not seen you; and then one of the men spoke again, and said you had escaped from his asylum." she sprang to her feet as if my last words had set the pursuers on her track. "stop! and hear the end," i cried. "stop! and you shall know how i befriended you. a word from me would have told the men which way you had gone--and i never spoke that word. i helped your escape--i made it safe and certain. think, try to think. try to understand what i tell you." my manner seemed to influence her more than my words. she made an effort to grasp the new idea. her hands shifted the damp cloth hesitatingly from one to the other, exactly as they had shifted the little travelling-bag on the night when i first saw her. slowly the purpose of my words seemed to force its way through the confusion and agitation of her mind. slowly her features relaxed, and her eyes looked at me with their expression gaining in curiosity what it was fast losing in fear. "you don't think i ought to be back in the asylum, do you?" she said. "certainly not. i am glad you escaped from it--i am glad i helped you." "yes, yes, you did help me indeed; you helped me at the hard part," she went on a little vacantly. "it was easy to escape, or i should not have got away. they never suspected me as they suspected the others. i was so quiet, and so obedient, and so easily frightened. the finding london was the hard part, and there you helped me. did i thank you at the time? i thank you now very kindly." "was the asylum far from where you met me? come! show that you believe me to be your friend, and tell me where it was." she mentioned the place--a private asylum, as its situation informed me; a private asylum not very far from the spot where i had seen her--and then, with evident suspicion of the use to which i might put her answer, anxiously repeated her former inquiry, "you don't think i ought to be taken back, do you?" "once again, i am glad you escaped--i am glad you prospered well after you left me," i answered. "you said you had a friend in london to go to. did you find the friend?" "yes. it was very late, but there was a girl up at needle-work in the house, and she helped me to rouse mrs. clements. mrs. clements is my friend. a good, kind woman, but not like mrs. fairlie. ah no, nobody is like mrs. fairlie!" "is mrs. clements an old friend of yours? have you known her a long time?" "yes, she was a neighbour of ours once, at home, in hampshire, and liked me, and took care of me when i was a little girl. years ago, when she went away from us, she wrote down in my prayer-book for me where she was going to live in london, and she said, 'if you are ever in trouble, anne, come to me. i have no husband alive to say me nay, and no children to look after, and i will take care of you.' kind words, were they not? i suppose i remember them because they were kind. it's little enough i remember besides--little enough, little enough!" "had you no father or mother to take care of you?" "father?--i never saw him--i never heard mother speak of him. father? ah, dear! he is dead, i suppose." "and your mother?" "i don't get on well with her. we are a trouble and a fear to each other." a trouble and a fear to each other! at those words the suspicion crossed my mind, for the first time, that her mother might be the person who had placed her under restraint. "don't ask me about mother," she went on. "i'd rather talk of mrs. clements. mrs. clements is like you, she doesn't think that i ought to be back in the asylum, and she is as glad as you are that i escaped from it. she cried over my misfortune, and said it must be kept secret from everybody." her "misfortune." in what sense was she using that word? in a sense which might explain her motive in writing the anonymous letter? in a sense which might show it to be the too common and too customary motive that has led many a woman to interpose anonymous hindrances to the marriage of the man who has ruined her? i resolved to attempt the clearing up of this doubt before more words passed between us on either side. "what misfortune?" i asked. "the misfortune of my being shut up," she answered, with every appearance of feeling surprised at my question. "what other misfortune could there be?" i determined to persist, as delicately and forbearingly as possible. it was of very great importance that i should be absolutely sure of every step in the investigation which i now gained in advance. "there is another misfortune," i said, "to which a woman may be liable, and by which she may suffer lifelong sorrow and shame." "what is it?" she asked eagerly. "the misfortune of believing too innocently in her own virtue, and in the faith and honour of the man she loves," i answered. she looked up at me with the artless bewilderment of a child. not the slightest confusion or change of colour--not the faintest trace of any secret consciousness of shame struggling to the surface appeared in her face--that face which betrayed every other emotion with such transparent clearness. no words that ever were spoken could have assured me, as her look and manner now assured me, that the motive which i had assigned for her writing the letter and sending it to miss fairlie was plainly and distinctly the wrong one. that doubt, at any rate, was now set at rest; but the very removal of it opened a new prospect of uncertainty. the letter, as i knew from positive testimony, pointed at sir percival glyde, though it did not name him. she must have had some strong motive, originating in some deep sense of injury, for secretly denouncing him to miss fairlie in such terms as she had employed, and that motive was unquestionably not to be traced to the loss of her innocence and her character. whatever wrong he might have inflicted on her was not of that nature. of what nature could it be? "i don't understand you," she said, after evidently trying hard, and trying in vain, to discover the meaning of the words i had last said to her. "never mind," i answered. "let us go on with what we were talking about. tell me how long you stayed with mrs. clements in london, and how you came here." "how long?" she repeated. "i stayed with mrs. clements till we both came to this place, two days ago." "you are living in the village, then?" i said. "it is strange i should not have heard of you, though you have only been here two days." "no, no, not in the village. three miles away at a farm. do you know the farm? they call it todd's corner." i remembered the place perfectly--we had often passed by it in our drives. it was one of the oldest farms in the neighbourhood, situated in a solitary, sheltered spot, inland at the junction of two hills. "they are relations of mrs. clements at todd's corner," she went on, "and they had often asked her to go and see them. she said she would go, and take me with her, for the quiet and the fresh air. it was very kind, was it not? i would have gone anywhere to be quiet, and safe, and out of the way. but when i heard that todd's corner was near limmeridge--oh! i was so happy i would have walked all the way barefoot to get there, and see the schools and the village and limmeridge house again. they are very good people at todd's corner. i hope i shall stay there a long time. there is only one thing i don't like about them, and don't like about mrs. clements----" "what is it?" "they will tease me about dressing all in white--they say it looks so particular. how do they know? mrs. fairlie knew best. mrs. fairlie would never have made me wear this ugly blue cloak! ah! she was fond of white in her lifetime, and here is white stone about her grave--and i am making it whiter for her sake. she often wore white herself, and she always dressed her little daughter in white. is miss fairlie well and happy? does she wear white now, as she used when she was a girl?" her voice sank when she put the questions about miss fairlie, and she turned her head farther and farther away from me. i thought i detected, in the alteration of her manner, an uneasy consciousness of the risk she had run in sending the anonymous letter, and i instantly determined so to frame my answer as to surprise her into owning it. "miss fairlie was not very well or very happy this morning," i said. she murmured a few words, but they were spoken so confusedly, and in such a low tone, that i could not even guess at what they meant. "did you ask me why miss fairlie was neither well nor happy this morning?" i continued. "no," she said quickly and eagerly--"oh no, i never asked that." "i will tell you without your asking," i went on. "miss fairlie has received your letter." she had been down on her knees for some little time past, carefully removing the last weather-stains left about the inscription while we were speaking together. the first sentence of the words i had just addressed to her made her pause in her occupation, and turn slowly without rising from her knees, so as to face me. the second sentence literally petrified her. the cloth she had been holding dropped from her hands--her lips fell apart--all the little colour that there was naturally in her face left it in an instant. "how do you know?" she said faintly. "who showed it to you?" the blood rushed back into her face--rushed overwhelmingly, as the sense rushed upon her mind that her own words had betrayed her. she struck her hands together in despair. "i never wrote it," she gasped affrightedly; "i know nothing about it!" "yes," i said, "you wrote it, and you know about it. it was wrong to send such a letter, it was wrong to frighten miss fairlie. if you had anything to say that it was right and necessary for her to hear, you should have gone yourself to limmeridge house--you should have spoken to the young lady with your own lips." she crouched down over the flat stone of the grave, till her face was hidden on it, and made no reply. "miss fairlie will be as good and kind to you as her mother was, if you mean well," i went on. "miss fairlie will keep your secret, and not let you come to any harm. will you see her to-morrow at the farm? will you meet her in the garden at limmeridge house?" "oh, if i could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!" her lips murmured the words close on the grave-stone, murmured them in tones of passionate endearment, to the dead remains beneath. "you know how i love your child, for your sake! oh, mrs. fairlie! mrs. fairlie! tell me how to save her. be my darling and my mother once more, and tell me what to do for the best." i heard her lips kissing the stone--i saw her hands beating on it passionately. the sound and the sight deeply affected me. i stooped down, and took the poor helpless hands tenderly in mine, and tried to soothe her. it was useless. she snatched her hands from me, and never moved her face from the stone. seeing the urgent necessity of quieting her at any hazard and by any means, i appealed to the only anxiety that she appeared to feel, in connection with me and with my opinion of her--the anxiety to convince me of her fitness to be mistress of her own actions. "come, come," i said gently. "try to compose yourself, or you will make me alter my opinion of you. don't let me think that the person who put you in the asylum might have had some excuse----" the next words died away on my lips. the instant i risked that chance reference to the person who had put her in the asylum she sprang up on her knees. a most extraordinary and startling change passed over her. her face, at all ordinary times so touching to look at, in its nervous sensitiveness, weakness, and uncertainty, became suddenly darkened by an expression of maniacally intense hatred and fear, which communicated a wild, unnatural force to every feature. her eyes dilated in the dim evening light, like the eyes of a wild animal. she caught up the cloth that had fallen at her side, as if it had been a living creature that she could kill, and crushed it in both her hands with such convulsive strength, that the few drops of moisture left in it trickled down on the stone beneath her. "talk of something else," she said, whispering through her teeth. "i shall lose myself if you talk of that." every vestige of the gentler thoughts which had filled her mind hardly a minute since seemed to be swept from it now. it was evident that the impression left by mrs. fairlie's kindness was not, as i had supposed, the only strong impression on her memory. with the grateful remembrance of her school-days at limmeridge, there existed the vindictive remembrance of the wrong inflicted on her by her confinement in the asylum. who had done that wrong? could it really be her mother? it was hard to give up pursuing the inquiry to that final point, but i forced myself to abandon all idea of continuing it. seeing her as i saw her now, it would have been cruel to think of anything but the necessity and the humanity of restoring her composure. "i will talk of nothing to distress you," i said soothingly. "you want something," she answered sharply and suspiciously. "don't look at me like that. speak to me--tell me what you want." "i only want you to quiet yourself, and when you are calmer, to think over what i have said." "said?" she paused--twisted the cloth in her hands, backwards and forwards, and whispered to herself, "what is it he said?" she turned again towards me, and shook her head impatiently. "why don't you help me?" she asked, with angry suddenness. "yes, yes," i said, "i will help you, and you will soon remember. i ask you to see miss fairlie to-morrow and to tell her the truth about the letter." "ah! miss fairlie--fairlie--fairlie----" the mere utterance of the loved familiar name seemed to quiet her. her face softened and grew like itself again. "you need have no fear of miss fairlie," i continued, "and no fear of getting into trouble through the letter. she knows so much about it already, that you will have no difficulty in telling her all. there can be little necessity for concealment where there is hardly anything left to conceal. you mention no names in the letter; but miss fairlie knows that the person you write of is sir percival glyde----" the instant i pronounced that name she started to her feet, and a scream burst from her that rang through the churchyard, and made my heart leap in me with the terror of it. the dark deformity of the expression which had just left her face lowered on it once more, with doubled and trebled intensity. the shriek at the name, the reiterated look of hatred and fear that instantly followed, told all. not even a last doubt now remained. her mother was guiltless of imprisoning her in the asylum. a man had shut her up--and that man was sir percival glyde. the scream had reached other ears than mine. on one side i heard the door of the sexton's cottage open; on the other i heard the voice of her companion, the woman in the shawl, the woman whom she had spoken of as mrs. clements. "i'm coming! i'm coming!" cried the voice from behind the clump of dwarf trees. in a moment more mrs. clements hurried into view. "who are you?" she cried, facing me resolutely as she set her foot on the stile. "how dare you frighten a poor helpless woman like that?" she was at anne catherick's side, and had put one arm around her, before i could answer. "what is it, my dear?" she said. "what has he done to you?" "nothing," the poor creature answered. "nothing. i'm only frightened." mrs. clements turned on me with a fearless indignation, for which i respected her. "i should be heartily ashamed of myself if i deserved that angry look," i said. "but i do not deserve it. i have unfortunately startled her without intending it. this is not the first time she has seen me. ask her yourself, and she will tell you that i am incapable of willingly harming her or any woman." i spoke distinctly, so that anne catherick might hear and understand me, and i saw that the words and their meaning had reached her. "yes, yes," she said--"he was good to me once--he helped me----" she whispered the rest into her friend's ear. "strange, indeed!" said mrs. clements, with a look of perplexity. "it makes all the difference, though. i'm sorry i spoke so rough to you, sir; but you must own that appearances looked suspicious to a stranger. it's more my fault than yours, for humouring her whims, and letting her be alone in such a place as this. come, my dear--come home now." i thought the good woman looked a little uneasy at the prospect of the walk back, and i offered to go with them until they were both within sight of home. mrs. clements thanked me civilly, and declined. she said they were sure to meet some of the farm-labourers as soon as they got to the moor. "try to forgive me," i said, when anne catherick took her friend's arm to go away. innocent as i had been of any intention to terrify and agitate her, my heart smote me as i looked at the poor, pale, frightened face. "i will try," she answered. "but you know too much--i'm afraid you'll always frighten me now." mrs. clements glanced at me, and shook her head pityingly. "good-night, sir," she said. "you couldn't help it, i know; but i wish it was me you had frightened, and not her." they moved away a few steps. i thought they had left me, but anne suddenly stopped, and separated herself from her friend. "wait a little," she said. "i must say good-bye." she returned to the grave, rested both hands tenderly on the marble cross, and kissed it. "i'm better now," she sighed, looking up at me quietly. "i forgive you." she joined her companion again, and they left the burial-ground. i saw them stop near the church and speak to the sexton's wife, who had come from the cottage, and had waited, watching us from a distance. then they went on again up the path that led to the moor. i looked after anne catherick as she disappeared, till all trace of her had faded in the twilight--looked as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the last i was to see in this weary world of the woman in white. xiv half an hour later i was back at the house, and was informing miss halcombe of all that had happened. she listened to me from beginning to end with a steady, silent attention, which, in a woman of her temperament and disposition, was the strongest proof that could be offered of the serious manner in which my narrative affected her. "my mind misgives me," was all she said when i had done. "my mind misgives me sadly about the future." "the future may depend," i suggested, "on the use we make of the present. it is not improbable that anne catherick may speak more readily and unreservedly to a woman than she has spoken to me. if miss fairlie----" "not to be thought of for a moment," interposed miss halcombe, in her most decided manner. "let me suggest, then," i continued, "that you should see anne catherick yourself, and do all you can to win her confidence. for my own part, i shrink from the idea of alarming the poor creature a second time, as i have most unhappily alarmed her already. do you see any objection to accompanying me to the farmhouse to-morrow?" "none whatever. i will go anywhere and do anything to serve laura's interests. what did you say the place was called?" "you must know it well. it is called todd's corner." "certainly. todd's corner is one of mr. fairlie's farms. our dairymaid here is the farmer's second daughter. she goes backwards and forwards constantly between this house and her father's farm, and she may have heard or seen something which it may be useful to us to know. shall i ascertain, at once, if the girl is downstairs?" she rang the bell, and sent the servant with his message. he returned, and announced that the dairymaid was then at the farm. she had not been there for the last three days, and the housekeeper had given her leave to go home for an hour or two that evening. "i can speak to her to-morrow," said miss halcombe, when the servant had left the room again. "in the meantime, let me thoroughly understand the object to be gained by my interview with anne catherick. is there no doubt in your mind that the person who confined her in the asylum was sir percival glyde?" "there is not the shadow of a doubt. the only mystery that remains is the mystery of his motive. looking to the great difference between his station in life and hers, which seems to preclude all idea of the most distant relationship between them, it is of the last importance--even assuming that she really required to be placed under restraint--to know why he should have been the person to assume the serious responsibility of shutting her up----" "in a private asylum, i think you said?" "yes, in a private asylum, where a sum of money, which no poor person could afford to give, must have been paid for her maintenance as a patient." "i see where the doubt lies, mr. hartright, and i promise you that it shall be set at rest, whether anne catherick assists us to-morrow or not. sir percival glyde shall not be long in this house without satisfying mr. gilmore, and satisfying me. my sister's future is my dearest care in life, and i have influence enough over her to give me some power, where her marriage is concerned, in the disposal of it." we parted for the night. after breakfast the next morning, an obstacle, which the events of the evening before had put out of my memory, interposed to prevent our proceeding immediately to the farm. this was my last day at limmeridge house, and it was necessary, as soon as the post came in, to follow miss halcombe's advice, and to ask mr. fairlie's permission to shorten my engagement by a month, in consideration of an unforeseen necessity for my return to london. fortunately for the probability of this excuse, so far as appearances were concerned, the post brought me two letters from london friends that morning. i took them away at once to my own room, and sent the servant with a message to mr. fairlie, requesting to know when i could see him on a matter of business. i awaited the man's return, free from the slightest feeling of anxiety about the manner in which his master might receive my application. with mr. fairlie's leave or without it, i must go. the consciousness of having now taken the first step on the dreary journey which was henceforth to separate my life from miss fairlie's seemed to have blunted my sensibility to every consideration connected with myself. i had done with my poor man's touchy pride--i had done with all my little artist vanities. no insolence of mr. fairlie's, if he chose to be insolent, could wound me now. the servant returned with a message for which i was not unprepared. mr. fairlie regretted that the state of his health, on that particular morning, was such as to preclude all hope of his having the pleasure of receiving me. he begged, therefore, that i would accept his apologies, and kindly communicate what i had to say in the form of a letter. similar messages to this had reached me, at various intervals, during my three months' residence in the house. throughout the whole of that period mr. fairlie had been rejoiced to "possess" me, but had never been well enough to see me for a second time. the servant took every fresh batch of drawings that i mounted and restored back to his master with my "respects," and returned empty-handed with mr. fairlie's "kind compliments," "best thanks," and "sincere regrets" that the state of his health still obliged him to remain a solitary prisoner in his own room. a more satisfactory arrangement to both sides could not possibly have been adopted. it would be hard to say which of us, under the circumstances, felt the most grateful sense of obligation to mr. fairlie's accommodating nerves. i sat down at once to write the letter, expressing myself in it as civilly, as clearly, and as briefly as possible. mr. fairlie did not hurry his reply. nearly an hour elapsed before the answer was placed in my hands. it was written with beautiful regularity and neatness of character, in violet-coloured ink, on note-paper as smooth as ivory and almost as thick as cardboard, and it addressed me in these terms-- "mr. fairlie's compliments to mr. hartright. mr. fairlie is more surprised and disappointed than he can say (in the present state of his health) by mr. hartright's application. mr. fairlie is not a man of business, but he has consulted his steward, who is, and that person confirms mr. fairlie's opinion that mr. hartright's request to be allowed to break his engagement cannot be justified by any necessity whatever, excepting perhaps a case of life and death. if the highly-appreciative feeling towards art and its professors, which it is the consolation and happiness of mr. fairlie's suffering existence to cultivate, could be easily shaken, mr. hartright's present proceeding would have shaken it. it has not done so--except in the instance of mr. hartright himself. "having stated his opinion--so far, that is to say, as acute nervous suffering will allow him to state anything--mr. fairlie has nothing to add but the expression of his decision, in reference to the highly irregular application that has been made to him. perfect repose of body and mind being to the last degree important in his case, mr. fairlie will not suffer mr. hartright to disturb that repose by remaining in the house under circumstances of an essentially irritating nature to both sides. accordingly, mr. fairlie waives his right of refusal, purely with a view to the preservation of his own tranquillity--and informs mr. hartright that he may go." i folded the letter up, and put it away with my other papers. the time had been when i should have resented it as an insult--i accepted it now as a written release from my engagement. it was off my mind, it was almost out of my memory, when i went downstairs to the breakfast-room, and informed miss halcombe that i was ready to walk with her to the farm. "has mr. fairlie given you a satisfactory answer?" she asked as we left the house. "he has allowed me to go, miss halcombe." she looked up at me quickly, and then, for the first time since i had known her, took my arm of her own accord. no words could have expressed so delicately that she understood how the permission to leave my employment had been granted, and that she gave me her sympathy, not as my superior, but as my friend. i had not felt the man's insolent letter, but i felt deeply the woman's atoning kindness. on our way to the farm we arranged that miss halcombe was to enter the house alone, and that i was to wait outside, within call. we adopted this mode of proceeding from an apprehension that my presence, after what had happened in the churchyard the evening before, might have the effect of renewing anne catherick's nervous dread, and of rendering her additionally distrustful of the advances of a lady who was a stranger to her. miss halcombe left me, with the intention of speaking, in the first instance, to the farmer's wife (of whose friendly readiness to help her in any way she was well assured), while i waited for her in the near neighbourhood of the house. i had fully expected to be left alone for some time. to my surprise, however, little more than five minutes had elapsed before miss halcombe returned. "does anne catherick refuse to see you?" i asked in astonishment. "anne catherick is gone," replied miss halcombe. "gone?" "gone with mrs. clements. they both left the farm at eight o'clock this morning." i could say nothing--i could only feel that our last chance of discovery had gone with them. "all that mrs. todd knows about her guests, i know," miss halcombe went on, "and it leaves me, as it leaves her, in the dark. they both came back safe last night, after they left you, and they passed the first part of the evening with mr. todd's family as usual. just before supper-time, however, anne catherick startled them all by being suddenly seized with faintness. she had had a similar attack, of a less alarming kind, on the day she arrived at the farm; and mrs. todd had connected it, on that occasion, with something she was reading at the time in our local newspaper, which lay on the farm table, and which she had taken up only a minute or two before." "does mrs. todd know what particular passage in the newspaper affected her in that way?" i inquired. "no," replied miss halcombe. "she had looked it over, and had seen nothing in it to agitate any one. i asked leave, however, to look it over in my turn, and at the very first page i opened i found that the editor had enriched his small stock of news by drawing upon our family affairs, and had published my sister's marriage engagement, among his other announcements, copied from the london papers, of marriages in high life. i concluded at once that this was the paragraph which had so strangely affected anne catherick, and i thought i saw in it, also, the origin of the letter which she sent to our house the next day." "there can be no doubt in either case. but what did you hear about her second attack of faintness yesterday evening?" "nothing. the cause of it is a complete mystery. there was no stranger in the room. the only visitor was our dairymaid, who, as i told you, is one of mr. todd's daughters, and the only conversation was the usual gossip about local affairs. they heard her cry out, and saw her turn deadly pale, without the slightest apparent reason. mrs. todd and mrs. clements took her upstairs, and mrs. clements remained with her. they were heard talking together until long after the usual bedtime, and early this morning mrs. clements took mrs. todd aside, and amazed her beyond all power of expression by saying that they must go. the only explanation mrs. todd could extract from her guest was, that something had happened, which was not the fault of any one at the farmhouse, but which was serious enough to make anne catherick resolve to leave limmeridge immediately. it was quite useless to press mrs. clements to be more explicit. she only shook her head, and said that, for anne's sake, she must beg and pray that no one would question her. all she could repeat, with every appearance of being seriously agitated herself, was that anne must go, that she must go with her, and that the destination to which they might both betake themselves must be kept a secret from everybody. i spare you the recital of mrs. todd's hospitable remonstrances and refusals. it ended in her driving them both to the nearest station, more than three hours since. she tried hard on the way to get them to speak more plainly, but without success; and she set them down outside the station-door, so hurt and offended by the unceremonious abruptness of their departure and their unfriendly reluctance to place the least confidence in her, that she drove away in anger, without so much as stopping to bid them good-bye. that is exactly what has taken place. search your own memory, mr. hartright, and tell me if anything happened in the burial-ground yesterday evening which can at all account for the extraordinary departure of those two women this morning." "i should like to account first, miss halcombe, for the sudden change in anne catherick which alarmed them at the farmhouse, hours after she and i had parted, and when time enough had elapsed to quiet any violent agitation that i might have been unfortunate enough to cause. did you inquire particularly about the gossip which was going on in the room when she turned faint?" "yes. but mrs. todd's household affairs seem to have divided her attention that evening with the talk in the farmhouse parlour. she could only tell me that it was 'just the news,'--meaning, i suppose, that they all talked as usual about each other." "the dairymaid's memory may be better than her mother's," i said. "it may be as well for you to speak to the girl, miss halcombe, as soon as we get back." my suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house. miss halcombe led me round to the servants' offices, and we found the girl in the dairy, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulders, cleaning a large milk-pan and singing blithely over her work. "i have brought this gentleman to see your dairy, hannah," said miss halcombe. "it is one of the sights of the house, and it always does you credit." the girl blushed and curtseyed, and said shyly that she hoped she always did her best to keep things neat and clean. "we have just come from your father's," miss halcombe continued. "you were there yesterday evening, i hear, and you found visitors at the house?" "yes, miss." "one of them was taken faint and ill, i am told. i suppose nothing was said or done to frighten her? you were not talking of anything very terrible, were you?" "oh no, miss!" said the girl, laughing. "we were only talking of the news." "your sisters told you the news at todd's corner, i suppose?" "yes, miss." "and you told them the news at limmeridge house?" "yes, miss. and i'm quite sure nothing was said to frighten the poor thing, for i was talking when she was taken ill. it gave me quite a turn, miss, to see it, never having been taken faint myself." before any more questions could be put to her, she was called away to receive a basket of eggs at the dairy door. as she left us i whispered to miss halcombe-- "ask her if she happened to mention, last night, that visitors were expected at limmeridge house." miss halcombe showed me, by a look, that she understood, and put the question as soon as the dairymaid returned to us. "oh yes, miss, i mentioned that," said the girl simply. "the company coming, and the accident to the brindled cow, was all the news i had to take to the farm." "did you mention names? did you tell them that sir percival glyde was expected on monday?" "yes, miss--i told them sir percival glyde was coming. i hope there was no harm in it--i hope i didn't do wrong." "oh no, no harm. come, mr. hartright, hannah will begin to think us in the way, if we interrupt her any longer over her work." we stopped and looked at one another the moment we were alone again. "is there any doubt in your mind, now, miss halcombe?" "sir percival glyde shall remove that doubt, mr. hartright--or laura fairlie shall never be his wife." xv as we walked round to the front of the house a fly from the railway approached us along the drive. miss halcombe waited on the door-steps until the fly drew up, and then advanced to shake hands with an old gentleman, who got out briskly the moment the steps were let down. mr. gilmore had arrived. i looked at him, when we were introduced to each other, with an interest and a curiosity which i could hardly conceal. this old man was to remain at limmeridge house after i had left it, he was to hear sir percival glyde's explanation, and was to give miss halcombe the assistance of his experience in forming her judgment; he was to wait until the question of the marriage was set at rest; and his hand, if that question were decided in the affirmative, was to draw the settlement which bound miss fairlie irrevocably to her engagement. even then, when i knew nothing by comparison with what i know now, i looked at the family lawyer with an interest which i had never felt before in the presence of any man breathing who was a total stranger to me. in external appearance mr. gilmore was the exact opposite of the conventional idea of an old lawyer. his complexion was florid--his white hair was worn rather long and kept carefully brushed--his black coat, waistcoat, and trousers fitted him with perfect neatness--his white cravat was carefully tied, and his lavender-coloured kid gloves might have adorned the hands of a fashionable clergyman, without fear and without reproach. his manners were pleasantly marked by the formal grace and refinement of the old school of politeness, quickened by the invigorating sharpness and readiness of a man whose business in life obliges him always to keep his faculties in good working order. a sanguine constitution and fair prospects to begin with--a long subsequent career of creditable and comfortable prosperity--a cheerful, diligent, widely-respected old age--such were the general impressions i derived from my introduction to mr. gilmore, and it is but fair to him to add, that the knowledge i gained by later and better experience only tended to confirm them. i left the old gentleman and miss halcombe to enter the house together, and to talk of family matters undisturbed by the restraint of a stranger's presence. they crossed the hall on their way to the drawing-room, and i descended the steps again to wander about the garden alone. my hours were numbered at limmeridge house--my departure the next morning was irrevocably settled--my share in the investigation which the anonymous letter had rendered necessary was at an end. no harm could be done to any one but myself if i let my heart loose again, for the little time that was left me, from the cold cruelty of restraint which necessity had forced me to inflict upon it, and took my farewell of the scenes which were associated with the brief dream-time of my happiness and my love. i turned instinctively to the walk beneath my study-window, where i had seen her the evening before with her little dog, and followed the path which her dear feet had trodden so often, till i came to the wicket gate that led into her rose garden. the winter bareness spread drearily over it now. the flowers that she had taught me to distinguish by their names, the flowers that i had taught her to paint from, were gone, and the tiny white paths that led between the beds were damp and green already. i went on to the avenue of trees, where we had breathed together the warm fragrance of august evenings, where we had admired together the myriad combinations of shade and sunlight that dappled the ground at our feet. the leaves fell about me from the groaning branches, and the earthy decay in the atmosphere chilled me to the bones. a little farther on, and i was out of the grounds, and following the lane that wound gently upward to the nearest hills. the old felled tree by the wayside, on which we had sat to rest, was sodden with rain, and the tuft of ferns and grasses which i had drawn for her, nestling under the rough stone wall in front of us, had turned to a pool of water, stagnating round an island of draggled weeds. i gained the summit of the hill, and looked at the view which we had so often admired in the happier time. it was cold and barren--it was no longer the view that i remembered. the sunshine of her presence was far from me--the charm of her voice no longer murmured in my ear. she had talked to me, on the spot from which i now looked down, of her father, who was her last surviving parent--had told me how fond of each other they had been, and how sadly she missed him still when she entered certain rooms in the house, and when she took up forgotten occupations and amusements with which he had been associated. was the view that i had seen, while listening to those words, the view that i saw now, standing on the hill-top by myself? i turned and left it--i wound my way back again, over the moor, and round the sandhills, down to the beach. there was the white rage of the surf, and the multitudinous glory of the leaping waves--but where was the place on which she had once drawn idle figures with her parasol in the sand--the place where we had sat together, while she talked to me about myself and my home, while she asked me a woman's minutely observant questions about my mother and my sister, and innocently wondered whether i should ever leave my lonely chambers and have a wife and a house of my own? wind and wave had long since smoothed out the trace of her which she had left in those marks on the sand, i looked over the wide monotony of the sea-side prospect, and the place in which we two had idled away the sunny hours was as lost to me as if i had never known it, as strange to me as if i stood already on a foreign shore. the empty silence of the beach struck cold to my heart. i returned to the house and the garden, where traces were left to speak of her at every turn. on the west terrace walk i met mr. gilmore. he was evidently in search of me, for he quickened his pace when we caught sight of each other. the state of my spirits little fitted me for the society of a stranger; but the meeting was inevitable, and i resigned myself to make the best of it. "you are the very person i wanted to see," said the old gentleman. "i had two words to say to you, my dear sir; and if you have no objection i will avail myself of the present opportunity. to put it plainly, miss halcombe and i have been talking over family affairs--affairs which are the cause of my being here--and in the course of our conversation she was naturally led to tell me of this unpleasant matter connected with the anonymous letter, and of the share which you have most creditably and properly taken in the proceedings so far. that share, i quite understand, gives you an interest which you might not otherwise have felt, in knowing that the future management of the investigation which you have begun will be placed in safe hands. my dear sir, make yourself quite easy on that point--it will be placed in my hands." "you are, in every way, mr. gilmore, much fitter to advise and to act in the matter than i am. is it an indiscretion on my part to ask if you have decided yet on a course of proceeding?" "so far as it is possible to decide, mr. hartright, i have decided. i mean to send a copy of the letter, accompanied by a statement of the circumstances, to sir percival glyde's solicitor in london, with whom i have some acquaintance. the letter itself i shall keep here to show to sir percival as soon as he arrives. the tracing of the two women i have already provided for, by sending one of mr. fairlie's servants--a confidential person--to the station to make inquiries. the man has his money and his directions, and he will follow the women in the event of his finding any clue. this is all that can be done until sir percival comes on monday. i have no doubt myself that every explanation which can be expected from a gentleman and a man of honour, he will readily give. sir percival stands very high, sir--an eminent position, a reputation above suspicion--i feel quite easy about results--quite easy, i am rejoiced to assure you. things of this sort happen constantly in my experience. anonymous letters--unfortunate woman--sad state of society. i don't deny that there are peculiar complications in this case; but the case itself is, most unhappily, common--common." "i am afraid, mr. gilmore, i have the misfortune to differ from you in the view i take of the case." "just so, my dear sir--just so. i am an old man, and i take the practical view. you are a young man, and you take the romantic view. let us not dispute about our views. i live professionally in an atmosphere of disputation, mr. hartright, and i am only too glad to escape from it, as i am escaping here. we will wait for events--yes, yes, yes--we will wait for events. charming place this. good shooting? probably not, none of mr. fairlie's land is preserved, i think. charming place, though, and delightful people. you draw and paint, i hear, mr. hartright? enviable accomplishment. what style?" we dropped into general conversation, or rather, mr. gilmore talked and i listened. my attention was far from him, and from the topics on which he discoursed so fluently. the solitary walk of the last two hours had wrought its effect on me--it had set the idea in my mind of hastening my departure from limmeridge house. why should i prolong the hard trial of saying farewell by one unnecessary minute? what further service was required of me by any one? there was no useful purpose to be served by my stay in cumberland--there was no restriction of time in the permission to leave which my employer had granted to me. why not end it there and then? i determined to end it. there were some hours of daylight still left--there was no reason why my journey back to london should not begin on that afternoon. i made the first civil excuse that occurred to me for leaving mr. gilmore, and returned at once to the house. on my way up to my own room i met miss halcombe on the stairs. she saw, by the hurry of my movements and the change in my manner, that i had some new purpose in view, and asked what had happened. i told her the reasons which induced me to think of hastening my departure, exactly as i have told them here. "no, no," she said, earnestly and kindly, "leave us like a friend--break bread with us once more. stay here and dine, stay here and help us to spend our last evening with you as happily, as like our first evenings, as we can. it is my invitation--mrs. vesey's invitation----" she hesitated a little, and then added, "laura's invitation as well." i promised to remain. god knows i had no wish to leave even the shadow of a sorrowful impression with any one of them. my own room was the best place for me till the dinner bell rang. i waited there till it was time to go downstairs. i had not spoken to miss fairlie--i had not even seen her--all that day. the first meeting with her, when i entered the drawing-room, was a hard trial to her self-control and to mine. she, too, had done her best to make our last evening renew the golden bygone time--the time that could never come again. she had put on the dress which i used to admire more than any other that she possessed--a dark blue silk, trimmed quaintly and prettily with old-fashioned lace; she came forward to meet me with her former readiness--she gave me her hand with the frank, innocent good-will of happier days. the cold fingers that trembled round mine--the pale cheeks with a bright red spot burning in the midst of them--the faint smile that struggled to live on her lips and died away from them while i looked at it, told me at what sacrifice of herself her outward composure was maintained. my heart could take her no closer to me, or i should have loved her then as i had never loved her yet. mr. gilmore was a great assistance to us. he was in high good-humour, and he led the conversation with unflagging spirit. miss halcombe seconded him resolutely, and i did all i could to follow her example. the kind blue eyes, whose slightest changes of expression i had learnt to interpret so well, looked at me appealingly when we first sat down to table. help my sister--the sweet anxious face seemed to say--help my sister, and you will help me. we got through the dinner, to all outward appearance at least, happily enough. when the ladies had risen from table, and mr. gilmore and i were left alone in the dining-room, a new interest presented itself to occupy our attention, and to give me an opportunity of quieting myself by a few minutes of needful and welcome silence. the servant who had been despatched to trace anne catherick and mrs. clements returned with his report, and was shown into the dining-room immediately. "well," said mr. gilmore, "what have you found out?" "i have found out, sir," answered the man, "that both the women took tickets at our station here for carlisle." "you went to carlisle, of course, when you heard that?" "i did, sir, but i am sorry to say i could find no further trace of them." "you inquired at the railway?" "yes, sir." "and at the different inns?" "yes, sir." "and you left the statement i wrote for you at the police station?" "i did, sir." "well, my friend, you have done all you could, and i have done all i could, and there the matter must rest till further notice. we have played our trump cards, mr. hartright," continued the old gentleman when the servant had withdrawn. "for the present, at least, the women have outmanoeuvred us, and our only resource now is to wait till sir percival glyde comes here on monday next. won't you fill your glass again? good bottle of port, that--sound, substantial, old wine. i have got better in my own cellar, though." we returned to the drawing-room--the room in which the happiest evenings of my life had been passed--the room which, after this last night, i was never to see again. its aspect was altered since the days had shortened and the weather had grown cold. the glass doors on the terrace side were closed, and hidden by thick curtains. instead of the soft twilight obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of lamplight now dazzled my eyes. all was changed--indoors and out all was changed. miss halcombe and mr. gilmore sat down together at the card-table--mrs. vesey took her customary chair. there was no restraint on the disposal of their evening, and i felt the restraint on the disposal of mine all the more painfully from observing it. i saw miss fairlie lingering near the music-stand. the time had been when i might have joined her there. i waited irresolutely--i knew neither where to go nor what to do next. she cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of music suddenly from the stand, and came towards me of her own accord. "shall i play some of those little melodies of mozart's which you used to like so much?" she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking down at it while she spoke. before i could thank her she hastened to the piano. the chair near it, which i had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty. she struck a few chords--then glanced round at me--then looked back again at her music. "won't you take your old place?" she said, speaking very abruptly and in very low tones. "i may take it on the last night," i answered. she did not reply--she kept her attention riveted on the music--music which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in former times, without the book. i only knew that she had heard me, i only knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the red spot on the cheek that was nearest to me fade out, and the face grow pale all over. "i am very sorry you are going," she said, her voice almost sinking to a whisper, her eyes looking more and more intently at the music, her fingers flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish energy which i had never noticed in her before. "i shall remember those kind words, miss fairlie, long after to-morrow has come and gone." the paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned it farther away from me. "don't speak of to-morrow," she said. "let the music speak to us of to-night, in a happier language than ours." her lips trembled--a faint sigh fluttered from them, which she tried vainly to suppress. her fingers wavered on the piano--she struck a false note, confused herself in trying to set it right, and dropped her hands angrily on her lap. miss halcombe and mr. gilmore looked up in astonishment from the card-table at which they were playing. even mrs. vesey, dozing in her chair, woke at the sudden cessation of the music, and inquired what had happened. "you play at whist, mr. hartright?" asked miss halcombe, with her eyes directed significantly at the place i occupied. i knew what she meant--i knew she was right, and i rose at once to go to the card-table. as i left the piano miss fairlie turned a page of the music, and touched the keys again with a surer hand. "i will play it," she said, striking the notes almost passionately. "i will play it on the last night." "come, mrs. vesey," said miss halcombe, "mr. gilmore and i are tired of ecarte--come and be mr. hartright's partner at whist." the old lawyer smiled satirically. his had been the winning hand, and he had just turned up a king. he evidently attributed miss halcombe's abrupt change in the card-table arrangements to a lady's inability to play the losing game. the rest of the evening passed without a word or a look from her. she kept her place at the piano, and i kept mine at the card-table. she played unintermittingly--played as if the music was her only refuge from herself. sometimes her fingers touched the notes with a lingering fondness--a soft, plaintive, dying tenderness, unutterably beautiful and mournful to hear; sometimes they faltered and failed her, or hurried over the instrument mechanically, as if their task was a burden to them. but still, change and waver as they might in the expression they imparted to the music, their resolution to play never faltered. she only rose from the piano when we all rose to say good-night. mrs. vesey was the nearest to the door, and the first to shake hands with me. "i shall not see you again, mr. hartright," said the old lady. "i am truly sorry you are going away. you have been very kind and attentive, and an old woman like me feels kindness and attention. i wish you happy, sir--i wish you a kind good-bye." mr. gilmore came next. "i hope we shall have a future opportunity of bettering our acquaintance, mr. hartright. you quite understand about that little matter of business being safe in my hands? yes, yes, of course. bless me, how cold it is! don't let me keep you at the door. bon voyage, my dear sir--bon voyage, as the french say." miss halcombe followed. "half-past seven to-morrow morning," she said--then added in a whisper, "i have heard and seen more than you think. your conduct to-night has made me your friend for life." miss fairlie came last. i could not trust myself to look at her when i took her hand, and when i thought of the next morning. "my departure must be a very early one," i said. "i shall be gone, miss fairlie, before you----" "no, no," she interposed hastily, "not before i am out of my room. i shall be down to breakfast with marian. i am not so ungrateful, not so forgetful of the past three months----" her voice failed her, her hand closed gently round mine--then dropped it suddenly. before i could say "good-night" she was gone. the end comes fast to meet me--comes inevitably, as the light of the last morning came at limmeridge house. it was barely half-past seven when i went downstairs, but i found them both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. in the chill air, in the dim light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house, we three sat down together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. the struggle to preserve appearances was hopeless and useless, and i rose to end it. as i held out my hand, as miss halcombe, who was nearest to me, took it, miss fairlie turned away suddenly and hurried from the room. "better so," said miss halcombe, when the door had closed--"better so, for you and for her." i waited a moment before i could speak--it was hard to lose her, without a parting word or a parting look. i controlled myself--i tried to take leave of miss halcombe in fitting terms; but all the farewell words i would fain have spoken dwindled to one sentence. "have i deserved that you should write to me?" was all i could say. "you have nobly deserved everything that i can do for you, as long as we both live. whatever the end is you shall know it." "and if i can ever be of help again, at any future time, long after the memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten . . ." i could add no more. my voice faltered, my eyes moistened in spite of me. she caught me by both hands--she pressed them with the strong, steady grasp of a man--her dark eyes glittered--her brown complexion flushed deep--the force and energy of her face glowed and grew beautiful with the pure inner light of her generosity and her pity. "i will trust you--if ever the time comes i will trust you as my friend and her friend, as my brother and her brother." she stopped, drew me nearer to her--the fearless, noble creature--touched my forehead, sister-like, with her lips, and called me by my christian name. "god bless you, walter!" she said. "wait here alone and compose yourself--i had better not stay for both our sakes--i had better see you go from the balcony upstairs." she left the room. i turned away towards the window, where nothing faced me but the lonely autumn landscape--i turned away to master myself, before i too left the room in my turn, and left it for ever. a minute passed--it could hardly have been more--when i heard the door open again softly, and the rustling of a woman's dress on the carpet moved towards me. my heart beat violently as i turned round. miss fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of the room. she stopped and hesitated when our eyes met, and when she saw that we were alone. then, with that courage which women lose so often in the small emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer to me, strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand after her along the table by which she walked, and holding something at her side in the other, which was hidden by the folds of her dress. "i only went into the drawing-room," she said, "to look for this. it may remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave behind you. you told me i had improved very much when i did it, and i thought you might like----" she turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch, drawn throughout by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had first met. the paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to me--trembled in mine as i took it from her. i was afraid to say what i felt--i only answered, "it shall never leave me--all my life long it shall be the treasure that i prize most. i am very grateful for it--very grateful to you, for not letting me go away without bidding you good-bye." "oh!" she said innocently, "how could i let you go, after we have passed so many happy days together!" "those days may never return, miss fairlie--my way of life and yours are very far apart. but if a time should come, when the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment's happiness, or spare you a moment's sorrow, will you try to remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you? miss halcombe has promised to trust me--will you promise too?" the farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her gathering tears. "i promise it," she said in broken tones. "oh, don't look at me like that! i promise it with all my heart." i ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand. "you have many friends who love you, miss fairlie. your happy future is the dear object of many hopes. may i say, at parting, that it is the dear object of my hopes too?" the tears flowed fast down her cheeks. she rested one trembling hand on the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. i took it in mine--i held it fast. my head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it--not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but in the agony and the self-abandonment of despair. "for god's sake, leave me!" she said faintly. the confession of her heart's secret burst from her in those pleading words. i had no right to hear them, no right to answer them--they were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from the room. it was all over. i dropped her hand, i said no more. the blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and i dashed them away to look at her for the last time. one look as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily. one farewell look, and the door had closed upon her--the great gulf of separation had opened between us--the image of laura fairlie was a memory of the past already. the end of hartright's narrative. the story continued by vincent gilmore (of chancery lane, solicitor) i i write these lines at the request of my friend, mr. walter hartright. they are intended to convey a description of certain events which seriously affected miss fairlie's interests, and which took place after the period of mr. hartright's departure from limmeridge house. there is no need for me to say whether my own opinion does or does not sanction the disclosure of the remarkable family story, of which my narrative forms an important component part. mr. hartright has taken that responsibility on himself, and circumstances yet to be related will show that he has amply earned the right to do so, if he chooses to exercise it. the plan he has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence. my appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement. i was present during the sojourn of sir percival glyde in cumberland, and was personally concerned in one important result of his short residence under mr. fairlie's roof. it is my duty, therefore, to add these new links to the chain of events, and to take up the chain itself at the point where, for the present only mr. hartright has dropped it. i arrived at limmeridge house on friday the second of november. my object was to remain at mr. fairlie's until the arrival of sir percival glyde. if that event led to the appointment of any given day for sir percival's union with miss fairlie, i was to take the necessary instructions back with me to london, and to occupy myself in drawing the lady's marriage-settlement. on the friday i was not favoured by mr. fairlie with an interview. he had been, or had fancied himself to be, an invalid for years past, and he was not well enough to receive me. miss halcombe was the first member of the family whom i saw. she met me at the house door, and introduced me to mr. hartright, who had been staying at limmeridge for some time past. i did not see miss fairlie until later in the day, at dinner-time. she was not looking well, and i was sorry to observe it. she is a sweet lovable girl, as amiable and attentive to every one about her as her excellent mother used to be--though, personally speaking, she takes after her father. mrs. fairlie had dark eyes and hair, and her elder daughter, miss halcombe, strongly reminds me of her. miss fairlie played to us in the evening--not so well as usual, i thought. we had a rubber at whist, a mere profanation, so far as play was concerned, of that noble game. i had been favourably impressed by mr. hartright on our first introduction to one another, but i soon discovered that he was not free from the social failings incidental to his age. there are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. they can't sit over their wine, they can't play at whist, and they can't pay a lady a compliment. mr. hartright was no exception to the general rule. otherwise, even in those early days and on that short acquaintance, he struck me as being a modest and gentlemanlike young man. so the friday passed. i say nothing about the more serious matters which engaged my attention on that day--the anonymous letter to miss fairlie, the measures i thought it right to adopt when the matter was mentioned to me, and the conviction i entertained that every possible explanation of the circumstances would be readily afforded by sir percival glyde, having all been fully noticed, as i understand, in the narrative which precedes this. on the saturday mr. hartright had left before i got down to breakfast. miss fairlie kept her room all day, and miss halcombe appeared to me to be out of spirits. the house was not what it used to be in the time of mr. and mrs. philip fairlie. i took a walk by myself in the forenoon, and looked about at some of the places which i first saw when i was staying at limmeridge to transact family business, more than thirty years since. they were not what they used to be either. at two o'clock mr. fairlie sent to say he was well enough to see me. he had not altered, at any rate, since i first knew him. his talk was to the same purpose as usual--all about himself and his ailments, his wonderful coins, and his matchless rembrandt etchings. the moment i tried to speak of the business that had brought me to his house, he shut his eyes and said i "upset" him. i persisted in upsetting him by returning again and again to the subject. all i could ascertain was that he looked on his niece's marriage as a settled thing, that her father had sanctioned it, that he sanctioned it himself, that it was a desirable marriage, and that he should be personally rejoiced when the worry of it was over. as to the settlements, if i would consult his niece, and afterwards dive as deeply as i pleased into my own knowledge of the family affairs, and get everything ready, and limit his share in the business, as guardian, to saying yes, at the right moment--why, of course he would meet my views, and everybody else's views, with infinite pleasure. in the meantime, there i saw him, a helpless sufferer, confined to his room. did i think he looked as if he wanted teasing? no. then why tease him? i might, perhaps, have been a little astonished at this extraordinary absence of all self-assertion on mr. fairlie's part, in the character of guardian, if my knowledge of the family affairs had not been sufficient to remind me that he was a single man, and that he had nothing more than a life-interest in the limmeridge property. as matters stood, therefore, i was neither surprised nor disappointed at the result of the interview. mr. fairlie had simply justified my expectations--and there was an end of it. sunday was a dull day, out of doors and in. a letter arrived for me from sir percival glyde's solicitor, acknowledging the receipt of my copy of the anonymous letter and my accompanying statement of the case. miss fairlie joined us in the afternoon, looking pale and depressed, and altogether unlike herself. i had some talk with her, and ventured on a delicate allusion to sir percival. she listened and said nothing. all other subjects she pursued willingly, but this subject she allowed to drop. i began to doubt whether she might not be repenting of her engagement--just as young ladies often do, when repentance comes too late. on monday sir percival glyde arrived. i found him to be a most prepossessing man, so far as manners and appearance were concerned. he looked rather older than i had expected, his head being bald over the forehead, and his face somewhat marked and worn, but his movements were as active and his spirits as high as a young man's. his meeting with miss halcombe was delightfully hearty and unaffected, and his reception of me, upon my being presented to him, was so easy and pleasant that we got on together like old friends. miss fairlie was not with us when he arrived, but she entered the room about ten minutes afterwards. sir percival rose and paid his compliments with perfect grace. his evident concern on seeing the change for the worse in the young lady's looks was expressed with a mixture of tenderness and respect, with an unassuming delicacy of tone, voice, and manner, which did equal credit to his good breeding and his good sense. i was rather surprised, under these circumstances, to see that miss fairlie continued to be constrained and uneasy in his presence, and that she took the first opportunity of leaving the room again. sir percival neither noticed the restraint in her reception of him, nor her sudden withdrawal from our society. he had not obtruded his attentions on her while she was present, and he did not embarrass miss halcombe by any allusion to her departure when she was gone. his tact and taste were never at fault on this or on any other occasion while i was in his company at limmeridge house. as soon as miss fairlie had left the room he spared us all embarrassment on the subject of the anonymous letter, by adverting to it of his own accord. he had stopped in london on his way from hampshire, had seen his solicitor, had read the documents forwarded by me, and had travelled on to cumberland, anxious to satisfy our minds by the speediest and the fullest explanation that words could convey. on hearing him express himself to this effect, i offered him the original letter, which i had kept for his inspection. he thanked me, and declined to look at it, saying that he had seen the copy, and that he was quite willing to leave the original in our hands. the statement itself, on which he immediately entered, was as simple and satisfactory as i had all along anticipated it would be. mrs. catherick, he informed us, had in past years laid him under some obligations for faithful services rendered to his family connections and to himself. she had been doubly unfortunate in being married to a husband who had deserted her, and in having an only child whose mental faculties had been in a disturbed condition from a very early age. although her marriage had removed her to a part of hampshire far distant from the neighbourhood in which sir percival's property was situated, he had taken care not to lose sight of her--his friendly feeling towards the poor woman, in consideration of her past services, having been greatly strengthened by his admiration of the patience and courage with which she supported her calamities. in course of time the symptoms of mental affliction in her unhappy daughter increased to such a serious extent, as to make it a matter of necessity to place her under proper medical care. mrs. catherick herself recognised this necessity, but she also felt the prejudice common to persons occupying her respectable station, against allowing her child to be admitted, as a pauper, into a public asylum. sir percival had respected this prejudice, as he respected honest independence of feeling in any rank of life, and had resolved to mark his grateful sense of mrs. catherick's early attachment to the interests of himself and his family, by defraying the expense of her daughter's maintenance in a trustworthy private asylum. to her mother's regret, and to his own regret, the unfortunate creature had discovered the share which circumstances had induced him to take in placing her under restraint, and had conceived the most intense hatred and distrust of him in consequence. to that hatred and distrust--which had expressed itself in various ways in the asylum--the anonymous letter, written after her escape, was plainly attributable. if miss halcombe's or mr. gilmore's recollection of the document did not confirm that view, or if they wished for any additional particulars about the asylum (the address of which he mentioned, as well as the names and addresses of the two doctors on whose certificates the patient was admitted), he was ready to answer any question and to clear up any uncertainty. he had done his duty to the unhappy young woman, by instructing his solicitor to spare no expense in tracing her, and in restoring her once more to medical care, and he was now only anxious to do his duty towards miss fairlie and towards her family, in the same plain, straightforward way. i was the first to speak in answer to this appeal. my own course was plain to me. it is the great beauty of the law that it can dispute any human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form. if i had felt professionally called upon to set up a case against sir percival glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, i could have done so beyond all doubt. but my duty did not lie in this direction--my function was of the purely judicial kind. i was to weigh the explanation we had just heard, to allow all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who offered it, and to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on sir percival's own showing, were plainly with him, or plainly against him. my own conviction was that they were plainly with him, and i accordingly declared that his explanation was, to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one. miss halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly, said a few words, on her side, to the same effect--with a certain hesitation of manner, however, which the circumstances did not seem to me to warrant. i am unable to say, positively, whether sir percival noticed this or not. my opinion is that he did, seeing that he pointedly resumed the subject, although he might now, with all propriety, have allowed it to drop. "if my plain statement of facts had only been addressed to mr. gilmore," he said, "i should consider any further reference to this unhappy matter as unnecessary. i may fairly expect mr. gilmore, as a gentleman, to believe me on my word, and when he has done me that justice, all discussion of the subject between us has come to an end. but my position with a lady is not the same. i owe to her--what i would concede to no man alive--a proof of the truth of my assertion. you cannot ask for that proof, miss halcombe, and it is therefore my duty to you, and still more to miss fairlie, to offer it. may i beg that you will write at once to the mother of this unfortunate woman--to mrs. catherick--to ask for her testimony in support of the explanation which i have just offered to you." i saw miss halcombe change colour, and look a little uneasy. sir percival's suggestion, politely as it was expressed, appeared to her, as it appeared to me, to point very delicately at the hesitation which her manner had betrayed a moment or two since. "i hope, sir percival, you don't do me the injustice to suppose that i distrust you," she said quickly. "certainly not, miss halcombe. i make my proposal purely as an act of attention to you. will you excuse my obstinacy if i still venture to press it?" he walked to the writing-table as he spoke, drew a chair to it, and opened the paper case. "let me beg you to write the note," he said, "as a favour to me. it need not occupy you more than a few minutes. you have only to ask mrs. catherick two questions. first, if her daughter was placed in the asylum with her knowledge and approval. secondly, if the share i took in the matter was such as to merit the expression of her gratitude towards myself? mr. gilmore's mind is at ease on this unpleasant subject, and your mind is at ease--pray set my mind at ease also by writing the note." "you oblige me to grant your request, sir percival, when i would much rather refuse it." with those words miss halcombe rose from her place and went to the writing-table. sir percival thanked her, handed her a pen, and then walked away towards the fireplace. miss fairlie's little italian greyhound was lying on the rug. he held out his hand, and called to the dog good-humouredly. "come, nina," he said, "we remember each other, don't we?" the little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually are, looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched hand, whined, shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. it was scarcely possible that he could have been put out by such a trifle as a dog's reception of him, but i observed, nevertheless, that he walked away towards the window very suddenly. perhaps his temper is irritable at times. if so, i can sympathise with him. my temper is irritable at times too. miss halcombe was not long in writing the note. when it was done she rose from the writing-table, and handed the open sheet of paper to sir percival. he bowed, took it from her, folded it up immediately without looking at the contents, sealed it, wrote the address, and handed it back to her in silence. i never saw anything more gracefully and more becomingly done in my life. "you insist on my posting this letter, sir percival?" said miss halcombe. "i beg you will post it," he answered. "and now that it is written and sealed up, allow me to ask one or two last questions about the unhappy woman to whom it refers. i have read the communication which mr. gilmore kindly addressed to my solicitor, describing the circumstances under which the writer of the anonymous letter was identified. but there are certain points to which that statement does not refer. did anne catherick see miss fairlie?" "certainly not," replied miss halcombe. "did she see you?" "no." "she saw nobody from the house then, except a certain mr. hartright, who accidentally met with her in the churchyard here?" "nobody else." "mr. hartright was employed at limmeridge as a drawing-master, i believe? is he a member of one of the water-colour societies?" "i believe he is," answered miss halcombe. he paused for a moment, as if he was thinking over the last answer, and then added-- "did you find out where anne catherick was living, when she was in this neighbourhood?" "yes. at a farm on the moor, called todd's corner." "it is a duty we all owe to the poor creature herself to trace her," continued sir percival. "she may have said something at todd's corner which may help us to find her. i will go there and make inquiries on the chance. in the meantime, as i cannot prevail on myself to discuss this painful subject with miss fairlie, may i beg, miss halcombe, that you will kindly undertake to give her the necessary explanation, deferring it of course until you have received the reply to that note." miss halcombe promised to comply with his request. he thanked her, nodded pleasantly, and left us, to go and establish himself in his own room. as he opened the door the cross-grained greyhound poked out her sharp muzzle from under the sofa, and barked and snapped at him. "a good morning's work, miss halcombe," i said, as soon as we were alone. "here is an anxious day well ended already." "yes," she answered; "no doubt. i am very glad your mind is satisfied." "my mind! surely, with that note in your hand, your mind is at ease too?" "oh yes--how can it be otherwise? i know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but i almost wish walter hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." i was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "events, it is true, connected mr. hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," i said; "and i readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. but i am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of sir percival's statement on your mind or mine." "it was only a fancy," she said absently. "there is no need to discuss it, mr. gilmore. your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide i can desire." i did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. if mr. fairlie had done it, i should not have been surprised. but resolute, clear-minded miss halcombe was the very last person in the world whom i should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "if any doubts still trouble you," i said, "why not mention them to me at once? tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust sir percival glyde?" "none whatever." "do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "how can i say i do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? can there be better testimony in his favour, mr. gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "none better. if the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, i for one cannot see what more any friend of sir percival's can possibly expect from him." "then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. don't attach any weight to my hesitation. i can give no better reason for it than that i have been over-anxious about laura lately--and anxiety, mr. gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." she left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. a sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. i had known her from her earliest years--i had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which i should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. i could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. in my youth, i should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. in my age, i knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. ii we all met again at dinner-time. sir percival was in such boisterous high spirits that i hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. the only trace of his former self that i could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards miss fairlie. a look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. rather to my surprise, miss fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. she was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. on the next day, the tuesday, sir percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to todd's corner. his inquiries, as i afterwards heard, led to no results. on his return he had an interview with mr. fairlie, and in the afternoon he and miss halcombe rode out together. nothing else happened worthy of record. the evening passed as usual. there was no change in sir percival, and no change in miss fairlie. the wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from mrs. catherick. i took a copy of the document, which i have preserved, and which i may as well present in this place. it ran as follows-- "madam,--i beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by sir percival glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "jane anne catherick." short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of sir percival glyde's statement. this was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, miss halcombe's opinion also. sir percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. he told us that mrs. catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. the next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint miss fairlie with sir percival's explanation. miss halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which i was reading the newspaper. sir percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "i suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting mrs. catherick's letter in her hand. "if we are friends of sir percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," i answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "but if we are enemies who suspect him----" "that alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "we are sir percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be sir percival's admirers as well. you know that he saw mr. fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "yes. i saw you riding away together." "we began the ride by talking about anne catherick, and about the singular manner in which mr. hartright met with her. but we soon dropped that subject, and sir percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with laura. he said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. if, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by mr. fairlie or by me. all he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. if, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "no man could say more than that, miss halcombe. as to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." she paused after i had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "i accuse nobody, and i suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "but i cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading laura to this marriage." "that is exactly the course which sir percival glyde has himself requested you to take," i replied in astonishment. "he has begged you not to force her inclinations." "and he indirectly obliges me to force them, if i give her his message." "how can that possibly be?" "consult your own knowledge of laura, mr. gilmore. if i tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, i at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. you know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to sir percival glyde on his deathbed." i own that i was a little shocked at this view of the case. "surely," i said, "you don't mean to infer that when sir percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "do you think i would remain an instant in the company of any man whom i suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. i liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. we see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "in that case," i said, "excuse me if i tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. whatever the consequences may be, sir percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. if that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. what objection can she urge against him after that? what excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "in the eyes of law and reason, mr. gilmore, no excuse, i daresay. if she still hesitates, and if i still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." with those words she suddenly rose and left me. when a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. i returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that miss halcombe and miss fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from sir percival, and keeping from me. i thought this hard on both of us, especially on sir percival. my doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by miss halcombe's language and manner when i saw her again later in the day. she was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. miss fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when miss halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of sir percival's visit at limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. if sir percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. she pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that miss halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at miss fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. the purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. that morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. it was extremely probable that i should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at limmeridge house during the remainder of the year. in that case, supposing miss fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before i drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. i said nothing about this difficulty until sir percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. he was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. when miss halcombe informed me of this i told her that i must absolutely speak to her sister before i left limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that i should see miss fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. she did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. indisposition was the excuse, and i thought sir percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. the next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, i went up to miss fairlie's sitting-room. the poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which i had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. i led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and i fully expected a barking and snapping reception. strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment i sat down. "you used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," i said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. is that pretty drawing your doing?" i pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when i came in. the page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. this was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could i begin to talk of business to her the moment i opened my lips? "no," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." her fingers had a restless habit, which i remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. on this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. the expression of melancholy deepened on her face. she did not look at the drawing, or look at me. her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. seeing that, i thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "one of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," i began. "i must get back to london to-day: and, before i leave, i want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "i am very sorry you are going, mr. gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "it is like the happy old times to have you here. "i hope i may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," i continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, i must take my opportunity when i can get it, and speak to you now. i am your old lawyer and your old friend, and i may remind you, i am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying sir percival glyde." she took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "it is necessary to refer to it," i answered, "but not to dwell on it. let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. in the first case, i must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and i ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. this may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." i explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. she listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "and now," i said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." she moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "if it does happen," she began faintly, "if i am----" "if you are married," i added, helping her out. "don't let him part me from marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "oh, mr. gilmore, pray make it law that marian is to live with me!" under other circumstances i might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. but her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "your having marian halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," i said. "you hardly understood my question, i think. it referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "may i leave it to marian, mr. gilmore?" "certainly, my love," i answered. "but remember what a large sum it is. would you like it all to go to miss halcombe?" she hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "not all of it," she said. "there is some one else besides marian----" she stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "you mean some other member of the family besides miss halcombe?" i suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. the heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "there is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if i might leave it. there would be no harm if i should die first----" she paused again. the colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. the hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. she looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. sad! to remember her, as i did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! in the distress that she caused me i forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. i moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "don't cry, my love," i said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little laura fairlie of ten long years ago. it was the best way i could have taken to compose her. she laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "i am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "i have not been well--i have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and i often cry without reason when i am alone. i am better now--i can answer you as i ought, mr. gilmore, i can indeed." "no, no, my dear," i replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. you have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." i led her at once into speaking on other topics. in ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and i rose to take my leave. "come here again," she said earnestly. "i will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." still clinging to the past--that past which i represented to her, in my way, as miss halcombe did in hers! it troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as i look back at the end of mine. "if i do come again, i hope i shall find you better," i said; "better and happier. god bless you, my dear!" she only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as i took leave of her. the whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, i neither knew how nor why. i had entered the room, feeling that sir percival glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. i left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. a man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. i can make no excuse for myself; i can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. the hour for my departure was now drawing near. i sent to mr. fairlie to say that i would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. he sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "kind love and best wishes, dear gilmore. hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. pray take care of yourself. good-bye." just before i left i saw miss halcombe for a moment alone. "have you said all you wanted to laura?" she asked. "yes," i replied. "she is very weak and nervous--i am glad she has you to take care of her." miss halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "you are altering your opinion about laura," she said. "you are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." no sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. i only answered-- "let me know what happens. i will do nothing till i hear from you." she still looked hard in my face. "i wish it was all over, and well over, mr. gilmore--and so do you." with those words she left me. sir percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "if you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that i am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. the tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." a really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. as i drove away to the station i felt as if i could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of sir percival glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. iii a week passed, after my return to london, without the receipt of any communication from miss halcombe. on the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. it announced that sir percival glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. in all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in december. miss fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in march. she would, therefore, by this arrangement, become sir percival's wife about three months before she was of age. i ought not to have been surprised, i ought not to have been sorry, but i was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of miss halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. in six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that sir percival had left cumberland to return to his house in hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in yorkshire. there the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided miss fairlie to accept sir percival glyde in one short week from the time when i had last seen her. at a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. it is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. the circumstances came within the personal experience of miss halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. in the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before i, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with miss fairlie's proposed marriage in which i was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. it is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. i will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. the matter is of the utmost importance. i warn all readers of these lines that miss fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of miss fairlie's story, and that mr. gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. miss fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age. let us take the land first. in the time of miss fairlie's paternal grandfather (whom we will call mr. fairlie, the elder) the entailed succession to the limmeridge estate stood thus-- mr. fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons, philip, frederick, and arthur. as eldest son, philip succeeded to the estate, if he died without leaving a son, the property went to the second brother, frederick; and if frederick died also without leaving a son, the property went to the third brother, arthur. as events turned out, mr. philip fairlie died leaving an only daughter, the laura of this story, and the estate, in consequence, went, in course of law, to the second brother, frederick, a single man. the third brother, arthur, had died many years before the decease of philip, leaving a son and a daughter. the son, at the age of eighteen, was drowned at oxford. his death left laura, the daughter of mr. philip fairlie, presumptive heiress to the estate, with every chance of succeeding to it, in the ordinary course of nature, on her uncle frederick's death, if the said frederick died without leaving male issue. except in the event, then, of mr. frederick fairlie's marrying and leaving an heir (the two very last things in the world that he was likely to do), his niece, laura, would have the property on his death, possessing, it must be remembered, nothing more than a life-interest in it. if she died single, or died childless, the estate would revert to her cousin, magdalen, the daughter of mr. arthur fairlie. if she married, with a proper settlement--or, in other words, with the settlement i meant to make for her--the income from the estate (a good three thousand a year) would, during her lifetime, be at her own disposal. if she died before her husband, he would naturally expect to be left in the enjoyment of the income, for his lifetime. if she had a son, that son would be the heir, to the exclusion of her cousin magdalen. thus, sir percival's prospects in marrying miss fairlie (so far as his wife's expectations from real property were concerned) promised him these two advantages, on mr. frederick fairlie's death: first, the use of three thousand a year (by his wife's permission, while she lived, and in his own right, on her death, if he survived her); and, secondly, the inheritance of limmeridge for his son, if he had one. so much for the landed property, and for the disposal of the income from it, on the occasion of miss fairlie's marriage. thus far, no difficulty or difference of opinion on the lady's settlement was at all likely to arise between sir percival's lawyer and myself. the personal estate, or, in other words, the money to which miss fairlie would become entitled on reaching the age of twenty-one years, is the next point to consider. this part of her inheritance was, in itself, a comfortable little fortune. it was derived under her father's will, and it amounted to the sum of twenty thousand pounds. besides this, she had a life-interest in ten thousand pounds more, which latter amount was to go, on her decease, to her aunt eleanor, her father's only sister. it will greatly assist in setting the family affairs before the reader in the clearest possible light, if i stop here for a moment, to explain why the aunt had been kept waiting for her legacy until the death of the niece. mr. philip fairlie had lived on excellent terms with his sister eleanor, as long as she remained a single woman. but when her marriage took place, somewhat late in life, and when that marriage united her to an italian gentleman named fosco, or, rather, to an italian nobleman--seeing that he rejoiced in the title of count--mr. fairlie disapproved of her conduct so strongly that he ceased to hold any communication with her, and even went the length of striking her name out of his will. the other members of the family all thought this serious manifestation of resentment at his sister's marriage more or less unreasonable. count fosco, though not a rich man, was not a penniless adventurer either. he had a small but sufficient income of his own. he had lived many years in england, and he held an excellent position in society. these recommendations, however, availed nothing with mr. fairlie. in many of his opinions he was an englishman of the old school, and he hated a foreigner simply and solely because he was a foreigner. the utmost that he could be prevailed on to do, in after years--mainly at miss fairlie's intercession--was to restore his sister's name to its former place in his will, but to keep her waiting for her legacy by giving the income of the money to his daughter for life, and the money itself, if her aunt died before her, to her cousin magdalen. considering the relative ages of the two ladies, the aunt's chance, in the ordinary course of nature, of receiving the ten thousand pounds, was thus rendered doubtful in the extreme; and madame fosco resented her brother's treatment of her as unjustly as usual in such cases, by refusing to see her niece, and declining to believe that miss fairlie's intercession had ever been exerted to restore her name to mr. fairlie's will. such was the history of the ten thousand pounds. here again no difficulty could arise with sir percival's legal adviser. the income would be at the wife's disposal, and the principal would go to her aunt or her cousin on her death. all preliminary explanations being now cleared out of the way, i come at last to the real knot of the case--to the twenty thousand pounds. this sum was absolutely miss fairlie's own on her completing her twenty-first year, and the whole future disposition of it depended, in the first instance, on the conditions i could obtain for her in her marriage-settlement. the other clauses contained in that document were of a formal kind, and need not be recited here. but the clause relating to the money is too important to be passed over. a few lines will be sufficient to give the necessary abstract of it. my stipulation in regard to the twenty thousand pounds was simply this: the whole amount was to be settled so as to give the income to the lady for her life--afterwards to sir percival for his life--and the principal to the children of the marriage. in default of issue, the principal was to be disposed of as the lady might by her will direct, for which purpose i reserved to her the right of making a will. the effect of these conditions may be thus summed up. if lady glyde died without leaving children, her half-sister miss halcombe, and any other relatives or friends whom she might be anxious to benefit, would, on her husband's death, divide among them such shares of her money as she desired them to have. if, on the other hand, she died leaving children, then their interest, naturally and necessarily, superseded all other interests whatsoever. this was the clause--and no one who reads it can fail, i think, to agree with me that it meted out equal justice to all parties. we shall see how my proposals were met on the husband's side. at the time when miss halcombe's letter reached me i was even more busily occupied than usual. but i contrived to make leisure for the settlement. i had drawn it, and had sent it for approval to sir percival's solicitor, in less than a week from the time when miss halcombe had informed me of the proposed marriage. after a lapse of two days the document was returned to me, with notes and remarks of the baronet's lawyer. his objections, in general, proved to be of the most trifling and technical kind, until he came to the clause relating to the twenty thousand pounds. against this there were double lines drawn in red ink, and the following note was appended to them-- "not admissible. the principal to go to sir percival glyde, in the event of his surviving lady glyde, and there being no issue." that is to say, not one farthing of the twenty thousand pounds was to go to miss halcombe, or to any other relative or friend of lady glyde's. the whole sum, if she left no children, was to slip into the pockets of her husband. the answer i wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as i could make it. "my dear sir. miss fairlie's settlement. i maintain the clause to which you object, exactly as it stands. yours truly." the rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. "my dear sir. miss fairlie's settlement. i maintain the red ink to which you object, exactly as it stands. yours truly." in the detestable slang of the day, we were now both "at a deadlock," and nothing was left for it but to refer to our clients on either side. as matters stood, my client--miss fairlie not having yet completed her twenty-first year--mr. frederick fairlie, was her guardian. i wrote by that day's post, and put the case before him exactly as it stood, not only urging every argument i could think of to induce him to maintain the clause as i had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary motive which was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of the twenty thousand pounds. the knowledge of sir percival's affairs which i had necessarily gained when the provisions of the deed on his side were submitted in due course to my examination, had but too plainly informed me that the debts on his estate were enormous, and that his income, though nominally a large one, was virtually, for a man in his position, next to nothing. the want of ready money was the practical necessity of sir percival's existence, and his lawyer's note on the clause in the settlement was nothing but the frankly selfish expression of it. mr. fairlie's answer reached me by return of post, and proved to be wandering and irrelevant in the extreme. turned into plain english, it practically expressed itself to this effect: "would dear gilmore be so very obliging as not to worry his friend and client about such a trifle as a remote contingency? was it likely that a young woman of twenty-one would die before a man of forty five, and die without children? on the other hand, in such a miserable world as this, was it possible to over-estimate the value of peace and quietness? if those two heavenly blessings were offered in exchange for such an earthly trifle as a remote chance of twenty thousand pounds, was it not a fair bargain? surely, yes. then why not make it?" i threw the letter away in disgust. just as it had fluttered to the ground, there was a knock at my door, and sir percival's solicitor, mr. merriman, was shown in. there are many varieties of sharp practitioners in this world, but i think the hardest of all to deal with are the men who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. a fat, well fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain the most hopeless to deal with. mr. merriman was one of this class. "and how is good mr. gilmore?" he began, all in a glow with the warmth of his own amiability. "glad to see you, sir, in such excellent health. i was passing your door, and i thought i would look in in case you might have something to say to me. do--now pray do let us settle this little difference of ours by word of mouth, if we can! have you heard from your client yet?" "yes. have you heard from yours?" "my dear, good sir! i wish i had heard from him to any purpose--i wish, with all my heart, the responsibility was off my shoulders; but he is obstinate--or let me rather say, resolute--and he won't take it off. 'merriman, i leave details to you. do what you think right for my interests, and consider me as having personally withdrawn from the business until it is all over.' those were sir percival's words a fortnight ago, and all i can get him to do now is to repeat them. i am not a hard man, mr. gilmore, as you know. personally and privately, i do assure you, i should like to sponge out that note of mine at this very moment. but if sir percival won't go into the matter, if sir percival will blindly leave all his interests in my sole care, what course can i possibly take except the course of asserting them? my hands are bound--don't you see, my dear sir?--my hands are bound." "you maintain your note on the clause, then, to the letter?" i said. "yes--deuce take it! i have no other alternative." he walked to the fireplace and warmed himself, humming the fag end of a tune in a rich convivial bass voice. "what does your side say?" he went on; "now pray tell me--what does your side say?" i was ashamed to tell him. i attempted to gain time--nay, i did worse. my legal instincts got the better of me, and i even tried to bargain. "twenty thousand pounds is rather a large sum to be given up by the lady's friends at two days' notice," i said. "very true," replied mr. merriman, looking down thoughtfully at his boots. "properly put, sir--most properly put!" "a compromise, recognising the interests of the lady's family as well as the interests of the husband, might not perhaps have frightened my client quite so much," i went on. "come, come! this contingency resolves itself into a matter of bargaining after all. what is the least you will take?" "the least we will take," said mr. merriman, "is nineteen- thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-pounds-nineteen-shillings- and-elevenpence-three-farthings. ha! ha! ha! excuse me, mr. gilmore. i must have my little joke." "little enough," i remarked. "the joke is just worth the odd farthing it was made for." mr. merriman was delighted. he laughed over my retort till the room rang again. i was not half so good-humoured on my side; i came back to business, and closed the interview. "this is friday," i said. "give us till tuesday next for our final answer." "by all means," replied mr. merriman. "longer, my dear sir, if you like." he took up his hat to go, and then addressed me again. "by the way," he said, "your clients in cumberland have not heard anything more of the woman who wrote the anonymous letter, have they?" "nothing more," i answered. "have you found no trace of her?" "not yet," said my legal friend. "but we don't despair. sir percival has his suspicions that somebody is keeping her in hiding, and we are having that somebody watched." "you mean the old woman who was with her in cumberland," i said. "quite another party, sir," answered mr. merriman. "we don't happen to have laid hands on the old woman yet. our somebody is a man. we have got him close under our eye here in london, and we strongly suspect he had something to do with helping her in the first instance to escape from the asylum. sir percival wanted to question him at once, but i said, 'no. questioning him will only put him on his guard--watch him, and wait.' we shall see what happens. a dangerous woman to be at large, mr. gilmore; nobody knows what she may do next. i wish you good-morning, sir. on tuesday next i shall hope for the pleasure of hearing from you." he smiled amiably and went out. my mind had been rather absent during the latter part of the conversation with my legal friend. i was so anxious about the matter of the settlement that i had little attention to give to any other subject, and the moment i was left alone again i began to think over what my next proceeding ought to be. in the case of any other client i should have acted on my instructions, however personally distasteful to me, and have given up the point about the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. but i could not act with this business-like indifference towards miss fairlie. i had an honest feeling of affection and admiration for her--i remembered gratefully that her father had been the kindest patron and friend to me that ever man had--i had felt towards her while i was drawing the settlement as i might have felt, if i had not been an old bachelor, towards a daughter of my own, and i was determined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and where her interests were concerned. writing a second time to mr. fairlie was not to be thought of--it would only be giving him a second opportunity of slipping through my fingers. seeing him and personally remonstrating with him might possibly be of more use. the next day was saturday. i determined to take a return ticket and jolt my old bones down to cumberland, on the chance of persuading him to adopt the just, the independent, and the honourable course. it was a poor chance enough, no doubt, but when i had tried it my conscience would be at ease. i should then have done all that a man in my position could do to serve the interests of my old friend's only child. the weather on saturday was beautiful, a west wind and a bright sun. having felt latterly a return of that fulness and oppression of the head, against which my doctor warned me so seriously more than two years since, i resolved to take the opportunity of getting a little extra exercise by sending my bag on before me and walking to the terminus in euston square. as i came out into holborn a gentleman walking by rapidly stopped and spoke to me. it was mr. walter hartright. if he had not been the first to greet me i should certainly have passed him. he was so changed that i hardly knew him again. his face looked pale and haggard--his manner was hurried and uncertain--and his dress, which i remembered as neat and gentlemanlike when i saw him at limmeridge, was so slovenly now that i should really have been ashamed of the appearance of it on one of my own clerks. "have you been long back from cumberland?" he asked. "i heard from miss halcombe lately. i am aware that sir percival glyde's explanation has been considered satisfactory. will the marriage take place soon? do you happen to know mr. gilmore?" he spoke so fast, and crowded his questions together so strangely and confusedly, that i could hardly follow him. however accidentally intimate he might have been with the family at limmeridge, i could not see that he had any right to expect information on their private affairs, and i determined to drop him, as easily as might be, on the subject of miss fairlie's marriage. "time will show, mr. hartright," i said--"time will show. i dare say if we look out for the marriage in the papers we shall not be far wrong. excuse my noticing it, but i am sorry to see you not looking so well as you were when we last met." a momentary nervous contraction quivered about his lips and eyes, and made me half reproach myself for having answered him in such a significantly guarded manner. "i had no right to ask about her marriage," he said bitterly. "i must wait to see it in the newspapers like other people. yes,"--he went on before i could make any apologies--"i have not been well lately. i am going to another country to try a change of scene and occupation. miss halcombe has kindly assisted me with her influence, and my testimonials have been found satisfactory. it is a long distance off, but i don't care where i go, what the climate is, or how long i am away." he looked about him while he said this at the throng of strangers passing us by on either side, in a strange, suspicious manner, as if he thought that some of them might be watching us. "i wish you well through it, and safe back again," i said, and then added, so as not to keep him altogether at arm's length on the subject of the fairlies, "i am going down to limmeridge to-day on business. miss halcombe and miss fairlie are away just now on a visit to some friends in yorkshire." his eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say something in answer, but the same momentary nervous spasm crossed his face again. he took my hand, pressed it hard, and disappeared among the crowd without saying another word. though he was little more than a stranger to me, i waited for a moment, looking after him almost with a feeling of regret. i had gained in my profession sufficient experience of young men to know what the outward signs and tokens were of their beginning to go wrong, and when i resumed my walk to the railway i am sorry to say i felt more than doubtful about mr. hartright's future. iv leaving by an early train, i got to limmeridge in time for dinner. the house was oppressively empty and dull. i had expected that good mrs. vesey would have been company for me in the absence of the young ladies, but she was confined to her room by a cold. the servants were so surprised at seeing me that they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all sorts of annoying mistakes. even the butler, who was old enough to have known better, brought me a bottle of port that was chilled. the reports of mr. fairlie's health were just as usual, and when i sent up a message to announce my arrival, i was told that he would be delighted to see me the next morning but that the sudden news of my appearance had prostrated him with palpitations for the rest of the evening. the wind howled dismally all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there, and everywhere in the empty house. i slept as wretchedly as possible, and got up in a mighty bad humour to breakfast by myself the next morning. at ten o'clock i was conducted to mr. fairlie's apartments. he was in his usual room, his usual chair, and his usual aggravating state of mind and body. when i went in, his valet was standing before him, holding up for inspection a heavy volume of etchings, as long and as broad as my office writing-desk. the miserable foreigner grinned in the most abject manner, and looked ready to drop with fatigue, while his master composedly turned over the etchings, and brought their hidden beauties to light with the help of a magnifying glass. "you very best of good old friends," said mr. fairlie, leaning back lazily before he could look at me, "are you quite well? how nice of you to come here and see me in my solitude. dear gilmore!" i had expected that the valet would be dismissed when i appeared, but nothing of the sort happened. there he stood, in front of his master's chair, trembling under the weight of the etchings, and there mr. fairlie sat, serenely twirling the magnifying glass between his white fingers and thumbs. "i have come to speak to you on a very important matter," i said, "and you will therefore excuse me, if i suggest that we had better be alone." the unfortunate valet looked at me gratefully. mr. fairlie faintly repeated my last three words, "better be alone," with every appearance of the utmost possible astonishment. i was in no humour for trifling, and i resolved to make him understand what i meant. "oblige me by giving that man permission to withdraw," i said, pointing to the valet. mr. fairlie arched his eyebrows and pursed up his lips in sarcastic surprise. "man?" he repeated. "you provoking old gilmore, what can you possibly mean by calling him a man? he's nothing of the sort. he might have been a man half an hour ago, before i wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an hour hence, when i don't want them any longer. at present he is simply a portfolio stand. why object, gilmore, to a portfolio stand?" "i do object. for the third time, mr. fairlie, i beg that we may be alone." my tone and manner left him no alternative but to comply with my request. he looked at the servant, and pointed peevishly to a chair at his side. "put down the etchings and go away," he said. "don't upset me by losing my place. have you, or have you not, lost my place? are you sure you have not? and have you put my hand-bell quite within my reach? yes? then why the devil don't you go?" the valet went out. mr. fairlie twisted himself round in his chair, polished the magnifying glass with his delicate cambric handkerchief, and indulged himself with a sidelong inspection of the open volume of etchings. it was not easy to keep my temper under these circumstances, but i did keep it. "i have come here at great personal inconvenience," i said, "to serve the interests of your niece and your family, and i think i have established some slight claim to be favoured with your attention in return." "don't bully me!" exclaimed mr. fairlie, falling back helplessly in the chair, and closing his eyes. "please don't bully me. i'm not strong enough." i was determined not to let him provoke me, for laura fairlie's sake. "my object," i went on, "is to entreat you to reconsider your letter, and not to force me to abandon the just rights of your niece, and of all who belong to her. let me state the case to you once more, and for the last time." mr. fairlie shook his head and sighed piteously. "this is heartless of you, gilmore--very heartless," he said. "never mind, go on." i put all the points to him carefully--i set the matter before him in every conceivable light. he lay back in the chair the whole time i was speaking with his eyes closed. when i had done he opened them indolently, took his silver smelling-bottle from the table, and sniffed at it with an air of gentle relish. "good gilmore!" he said between the sniffs, "how very nice this is of you! how you reconcile one to human nature!" "give me a plain answer to a plain question, mr. fairlie. i tell you again, sir percival glyde has no shadow of a claim to expect more than the income of the money. the money itself if your niece has no children, ought to be under her control, and to return to her family. if you stand firm, sir percival must give way--he must give way, i tell you, or he exposes himself to the base imputation of marrying miss fairlie entirely from mercenary motives." mr. fairlie shook the silver smelling-bottle at me playfully. "you dear old gilmore, how you do hate rank and family, don't you? how you detest glyde because he happens to be a baronet. what a radical you are--oh, dear me, what a radical you are!" a radical!!! i could put up with a good deal of provocation, but, after holding the soundest conservative principles all my life, i could not put up with being called a radical. my blood boiled at it--i started out of my chair--i was speechless with indignation. "don't shake the room!" cried mr. fairlie--"for heaven's sake don't shake the room! worthiest of all possible gilmores, i meant no offence. my own views are so extremely liberal that i think i am a radical myself. yes. we are a pair of radicals. please don't be angry. i can't quarrel--i haven't stamina enough. shall we drop the subject? yes. come and look at these sweet etchings. do let me teach you to understand the heavenly pearliness of these lines. do now, there's a good gilmore!" while he was maundering on in this way i was, fortunately for my own self-respect, returning to my senses. when i spoke again i was composed enough to treat his impertinence with the silent contempt that it deserved. "you are entirely wrong, sir," i said, "in supposing that i speak from any prejudice against sir percival glyde. i may regret that he has so unreservedly resigned himself in this matter to his lawyer's direction as to make any appeal to himself impossible, but i am not prejudiced against him. what i have said would equally apply to any other man in his situation, high or low. the principle i maintain is a recognised principle. if you were to apply at the nearest town here, to the first respectable solicitor you could find, he would tell you as a stranger what i tell you as a friend. he would inform you that it is against all rule to abandon the lady's money entirely to the man she marries. he would decline, on grounds of common legal caution, to give the husband, under any circumstances whatever, an interest of twenty thousand pounds in his wife's death." "would he really, gilmore?" said mr. fairlie. "if he said anything half so horrid, i do assure you i should tinkle my bell for louis, and have him sent out of the house immediately." "you shall not irritate me, mr. fairlie--for your niece's sake and for her father's sake, you shall not irritate me. you shall take the whole responsibility of this discreditable settlement on your own shoulders before i leave the room." "don't!--now please don't!" said mr. fairlie. "think how precious your time is, gilmore, and don't throw it away. i would dispute with you if i could, but i can't--i haven't stamina enough. you want to upset me, to upset yourself, to upset glyde, and to upset laura; and--oh, dear me!--all for the sake of the very last thing in the world that is likely to happen. no, dear friend, in the interests of peace and quietness, positively no!" "i am to understand, then, that you hold by the determination expressed in your letter?" "yes, please. so glad we understand each other at last. sit down again--do!" i walked at once to the door, and mr. fairlie resignedly "tinkled" his hand-bell. before i left the room i turned round and addressed him for the last time. "whatever happens in the future, sir," i said, "remember that my plain duty of warning you has been performed. as the faithful friend and servant of your family, i tell you, at parting, that no daughter of mine should be married to any man alive under such a settlement as you are forcing me to make for miss fairlie." the door opened behind me, and the valet stood waiting on the threshold. "louis," said mr. fairlie, "show mr. gilmore out, and then come back and hold up my etchings for me again. make them give you a good lunch downstairs. do, gilmore, make my idle beasts of servants give you a good lunch!" i was too much disgusted to reply--i turned on my heel, and left him in silence. there was an up train at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by that train i returned to london. on the tuesday i sent in the altered settlement, which practically disinherited the very persons whom miss fairlie's own lips had informed me she was most anxious to benefit. i had no choice. another lawyer would have drawn up the deed if i had refused to undertake it. my task is done. my personal share in the events of the family story extends no farther than the point which i have just reached. other pens than mine will describe the strange circumstances which are now shortly to follow. seriously and sorrowfully i close this brief record. seriously and sorrowfully i repeat here the parting words that i spoke at limmeridge house:--no daughter of mine should have been married to any man alive under such a settlement as i was compelled to make for laura fairlie. the end of mr. gilmore's narrative. the story continued by marian halcombe (in extracts from her diary) limmeridge house, nov. .[ ] [ ] the passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in miss halcombe's diary are only those which bear no reference to miss fairlie or to any of the persons with whom she is associated in these pages. this morning mr. gilmore left us. his interview with laura had evidently grieved and surprised him more than he liked to confess. i felt afraid, from his look and manner when we parted, that she might have inadvertently betrayed to him the real secret of her depression and my anxiety. this doubt grew on me so, after he had gone, that i declined riding out with sir percival, and went up to laura's room instead. i have been sadly distrustful of myself, in this difficult and lamentable matter, ever since i found out my own ignorance of the strength of laura's unhappy attachment. i ought to have known that the delicacy and forbearance and sense of honour which drew me to poor hartright, and made me so sincerely admire and respect him, were just the qualities to appeal most irresistibly to laura's natural sensitiveness and natural generosity of nature. and yet, until she opened her heart to me of her own accord, i had no suspicion that this new feeling had taken root so deeply. i once thought time and care might remove it. i now fear that it will remain with her and alter her for life. the discovery that i have committed such an error in judgment as this makes me hesitate about everything else. i hesitate about sir percival, in the face of the plainest proofs. i hesitate even in speaking to laura. on this very morning i doubted, with my hand on the door, whether i should ask her the questions i had come to put, or not. when i went into her room i found her walking up and down in great impatience. she looked flushed and excited, and she came forward at once, and spoke to me before i could open my lips. "i wanted you," she said. "come and sit down on the sofa with me. marian! i can bear this no longer--i must and will end it." there was too much colour in her cheeks, too much energy in her manner, too much firmness in her voice. the little book of hartright's drawings--the fatal book that she will dream over whenever she is alone--was in one of her hands. i began by gently and firmly taking it from her, and putting it out of sight on a side-table. "tell me quietly, my darling, what you wish to do," i said. "has mr. gilmore been advising you?" she shook her head. "no, not in what i am thinking of now. he was very kind and good to me, marian, and i am ashamed to say i distressed him by crying. i am miserably helpless--i can't control myself. for my own sake, and for all our sakes, i must have courage enough to end it." "do you mean courage enough to claim your release?" i asked. "no," she said simply. "courage, dear, to tell the truth." she put her arms round my neck, and rested her head quietly on my bosom. on the opposite wall hung the miniature portrait of her father. i bent over her, and saw that she was looking at it while her head lay on my breast. "i can never claim my release from my engagement," she went on. "whatever way it ends it must end wretchedly for me. all i can do, marian, is not to add the remembrance that i have broken my promise and forgotten my father's dying words, to make that wretchedness worse." "what is it you propose, then?" i asked. "to tell sir percival glyde the truth with my own lips," she answered, "and to let him release me, if he will, not because i ask him, but because he knows all." "what do you mean, laura, by 'all'? sir percival will know enough (he has told me so himself) if he knows that the engagement is opposed to your own wishes." "can i tell him that, when the engagement was made for me by my father, with my own consent? i should have kept my promise, not happily, i am afraid, but still contentedly--" she stopped, turned her face to me, and laid her cheek close against mine--"i should have kept my engagement, marian, if another love had not grown up in my heart, which was not there when i first promised to be sir percival's wife." "laura! you will never lower yourself by making a confession to him?" "i shall lower myself, indeed, if i gain my release by hiding from him what he has a right to know." "he has not the shadow of a right to know it!" "wrong, marian, wrong! i ought to deceive no one--least of all the man to whom my father gave me, and to whom i gave myself." she put her lips to mine, and kissed me. "my own love," she said softly, "you are so much too fond of me, and so much too proud of me, that you forget, in my case, what you would remember in your own. better that sir percival should doubt my motives, and misjudge my conduct if he will, than that i should be first false to him in thought, and then mean enough to serve my own interests by hiding the falsehood." i held her away from me in astonishment. for the first time in our lives we had changed places--the resolution was all on her side, the hesitation all on mine. i looked into the pale, quiet, resigned young face--i saw the pure, innocent heart, in the loving eyes that looked back at me--and the poor worldly cautions and objections that rose to my lips dwindled and died away in their own emptiness. i hung my head in silence. in her place the despicably small pride which makes so many women deceitful would have been my pride, and would have made me deceitful too. "don't be angry with me, marian," she said, mistaking my silence. i only answered by drawing her close to me again. i was afraid of crying if i spoke. my tears do not flow so easily as they ought--they come almost like men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten every one about me. "i have thought of this, love, for many days," she went on, twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which poor mrs. vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure her of--"i have thought of it very seriously, and i can be sure of my courage when my own conscience tells me i am right. let me speak to him to-morrow--in your presence, marian. i will say nothing that is wrong, nothing that you or i need be ashamed of--but, oh, it will ease my heart so to end this miserable concealment! only let me know and feel that i have no deception to answer for on my side, and then, when he has heard what i have to say, let him act towards me as he will." she sighed, and put her head back in its old position on my bosom. sad misgivings about what the end would be weighed upon my mind, but still distrusting myself, i told her that i would do as she wished. she thanked me, and we passed gradually into talking of other things. at dinner she joined us again, and was more easy and more herself with sir percival than i have seen her yet. in the evening she went to the piano, choosing new music of the dexterous, tuneless, florid kind. the lovely old melodies of mozart, which poor hartright was so fond of, she has never played since he left. the book is no longer in the music-stand. she took the volume away herself, so that nobody might find it out and ask her to play from it. i had no opportunity of discovering whether her purpose of the morning had changed or not, until she wished sir percival good-night--and then her own words informed me that it was unaltered. she said, very quietly, that she wished to speak to him after breakfast, and that he would find her in her sitting-room with me. he changed colour at those words, and i felt his hand trembling a little when it came to my turn to take it. the event of the next morning would decide his future life, and he evidently knew it. i went in, as usual, through the door between our two bedrooms, to bid laura good-night before she went to sleep. in stooping over her to kiss her i saw the little book of hartright's drawings half hidden under her pillow, just in the place where she used to hide her favourite toys when she was a child. i could not find it in my heart to say anything, but i pointed to the book and shook my head. she reached both hands up to my cheeks, and drew my face down to hers till our lips met. "leave it there to-night," she whispered; "to-morrow may be cruel, and may make me say good-bye to it for ever." th.--the first event of the morning was not of a kind to raise my spirits--a letter arrived for me from poor walter hartright. it is the answer to mine describing the manner in which sir percival cleared himself of the suspicions raised by anne catherick's letter. he writes shortly and bitterly about sir percival's explanations, only saying that he has no right to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who are above him. this is sad, but his occasional references to himself grieve me still more. he says that the effort to return to his old habits and pursuits grows harder instead of easier to him every day and he implores me, if i have any interest, to exert it to get him employment that will necessitate his absence from england, and take him among new scenes and new people. i have been made all the readier to comply with this request by a passage at the end of his letter, which has almost alarmed me. after mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard anything of anne catherick, he suddenly breaks off, and hints in the most abrupt, mysterious manner, that he has been perpetually watched and followed by strange men ever since he returned to london. he acknowledges that he cannot prove this extraordinary suspicion by fixing on any particular persons, but he declares that the suspicion itself is present to him night and day. this has frightened me, because it looks as if his one fixed idea about laura was becoming too much for his mind. i will write immediately to some of my mother's influential old friends in london, and press his claims on their notice. change of scene and change of occupation may really be the salvation of him at this crisis in his life. greatly to my relief, sir percival sent an apology for not joining us at breakfast. he had taken an early cup of coffee in his own room, and he was still engaged there in writing letters. at eleven o'clock, if that hour was convenient, he would do himself the honour of waiting on miss fairlie and miss halcombe. my eyes were on laura's face while the message was being delivered. i had found her unaccountably quiet and composed on going into her room in the morning, and so she remained all through breakfast. even when we were sitting together on the sofa in her room, waiting for sir percival, she still preserved her self-control. "don't be afraid of me, marian," was all she said; "i may forget myself with an old friend like mr. gilmore, or with a dear sister like you, but i will not forget myself with sir percival glyde." i looked at her, and listened to her in silent surprise. through all the years of our close intimacy this passive force in her character had been hidden from me--hidden even from herself, till love found it, and suffering called it forth. as the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven sir percival knocked at the door and came in. there was suppressed anxiety and agitation in every line of his face. the dry, sharp cough, which teases him at most times, seemed to be troubling him more incessantly than ever. he sat down opposite to us at the table, and laura remained by me. i looked attentively at them both, and he was the palest of the two. he said a few unimportant words, with a visible effort to preserve his customary ease of manner. but his voice was not to be steadied, and the restless uneasiness in his eyes was not to be concealed. he must have felt this himself, for he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and gave up even the attempt to hide his embarrassment any longer. there was just one moment of dead silence before laura addressed him. "i wish to speak to you, sir percival," she said, "on a subject that is very important to us both. my sister is here, because her presence helps me and gives me confidence. she has not suggested one word of what i am going to say--i speak from my own thoughts, not from hers. i am sure you will be kind enough to understand that before i go any farther?" sir percival bowed. she had proceeded thus far, with perfect outward tranquillity and perfect propriety of manner. she looked at him, and he looked at her. they seemed, at the outset, at least, resolved to understand one another plainly. "i have heard from marian," she went on, "that i have only to claim my release from our engagement to obtain that release from you. it was forbearing and generous on your part, sir percival, to send me such a message. it is only doing you justice to say that i am grateful for the offer, and i hope and believe that it is only doing myself justice to tell you that i decline to accept it." his attentive face relaxed a little. but i saw one of his feet, softly, quietly, incessantly beating on the carpet under the table, and i felt that he was secretly as anxious as ever. "i have not forgotten," she said, "that you asked my father's permission before you honoured me with a proposal of marriage. perhaps you have not forgotten either what i said when i consented to our engagement? i ventured to tell you that my father's influence and advice had mainly decided me to give you my promise. i was guided by my father, because i had always found him the truest of all advisers, the best and fondest of all protectors and friends. i have lost him now--i have only his memory to love, but my faith in that dear dead friend has never been shaken. i believe at this moment, as truly as i ever believed, that he knew what was best, and that his hopes and wishes ought to be my hopes and wishes too." her voice trembled for the first time. her restless fingers stole their way into my lap, and held fast by one of my hands. there was another moment of silence, and then sir percival spoke. "may i ask," he said, "if i have ever proved myself unworthy of the trust which it has been hitherto my greatest honour and greatest happiness to possess?" "i have found nothing in your conduct to blame," she answered. "you have always treated me with the same delicacy and the same forbearance. you have deserved my trust, and, what is of far more importance in my estimation, you have deserved my father's trust, out of which mine grew. you have given me no excuse, even if i had wanted to find one, for asking to be released from my pledge. what i have said so far has been spoken with the wish to acknowledge my whole obligation to you. my regard for that obligation, my regard for my father's memory, and my regard for my own promise, all forbid me to set the example, on my side, of withdrawing from our present position. the breaking of our engagement must be entirely your wish and your act, sir percival--not mine." the uneasy beating of his foot suddenly stopped, and he leaned forward eagerly across the table. "my act?" he said. "what reason can there be on my side for withdrawing?" i heard her breath quickening--i felt her hand growing cold. in spite of what she had said to me when we were alone, i began to be afraid of her. i was wrong. "a reason that it is very hard to tell you," she answered. "there is a change in me, sir percival--a change which is serious enough to justify you, to yourself and to me, in breaking off our engagement." his face turned so pale again that even his lips lost their colour. he raised the arm which lay on the table, turned a little away in his chair, and supported his head on his hand, so that his profile only was presented to us. "what change?" he asked. the tone in which he put the question jarred on me--there was something painfully suppressed in it. she sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a little, so as to rest her shoulder against mine. i felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by speaking myself. she stopped me by a warning pressure of her hand, and then addressed sir percival one more, but this time without looking at him. "i have heard," she said, "and i believe it, that the fondest and truest of all affections is the affection which a woman ought to bear to her husband. when our engagement began that affection was mine to give, if i could, and yours to win, if you could. will you pardon me, and spare me, sir percival, if i acknowledge that it is not so any longer?" a few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped over her cheeks slowly as she paused and waited for his answer. he did not utter a word. at the beginning of her reply he had moved the hand on which his head rested, so that it hid his face. i saw nothing but the upper part of his figure at the table. not a muscle of him moved. the fingers of the hand which supported his head were dented deep in his hair. they might have expressed hidden anger or hidden grief--it was hard to say which--there was no significant trembling in them. there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to tell the secret of his thoughts at that moment--the moment which was the crisis of his life and the crisis of hers. i was determined to make him declare himself, for laura's sake. "sir percival!" i interposed sharply, "have you nothing to say when my sister has said so much? more, in my opinion," i added, my unlucky temper getting the better of me, "than any man alive, in your position, has a right to hear from her." that last rash sentence opened a way for him by which to escape me if he chose, and he instantly took advantage of it. "pardon me, miss halcombe," he said, still keeping his hand over his face, "pardon me if i remind you that i have claimed no such right." the few plain words which would have brought him back to the point from which he had wandered were just on my lips, when laura checked me by speaking again. "i hope i have not made my painful acknowledgment in vain," she continued. "i hope it has secured me your entire confidence in what i have still to say?" "pray be assured of it." he made that brief reply warmly, dropping his hand on the table while he spoke, and turning towards us again. whatever outward change had passed over him was gone now. his face was eager and expectant--it expressed nothing but the most intense anxiety to hear her next words. "i wish you to understand that i have not spoken from any selfish motive," she said. "if you leave me, sir percival, after what you have just heard, you do not leave me to marry another man, you only allow me to remain a single woman for the rest of my life. my fault towards you has begun and ended in my own thoughts. it can never go any farther. no word has passed--" she hesitated, in doubt about the expression she should use next, hesitated in a momentary confusion which it was very sad and very painful to see. "no word has passed," she patiently and resolutely resumed, "between myself and the person to whom i am now referring for the first and last time in your presence of my feelings towards him, or of his feelings towards me--no word ever can pass--neither he nor i are likely, in this world, to meet again. i earnestly beg you to spare me from saying any more, and to believe me, on my word, in what i have just told you. it is the truth. sir percival, the truth which i think my promised husband has a claim to hear, at any sacrifice of my own feelings. i trust to his generosity to pardon me, and to his honour to keep my secret." "both those trusts are sacred to me," he said, "and both shall be sacredly kept." after answering in those terms he paused, and looked at her as if he was waiting to hear more. "i have said all i wish to say," she added quietly--"i have said more than enough to justify you in withdrawing from your engagement." "you have said more than enough," he answered, "to make it the dearest object of my life to keep the engagement." with those words he rose from his chair, and advanced a few steps towards the place where she was sitting. she started violently, and a faint cry of surprise escaped her. every word she had spoken had innocently betrayed her purity and truth to a man who thoroughly understood the priceless value of a pure and true woman. her own noble conduct had been the hidden enemy, throughout, of all the hopes she had trusted to it. i had dreaded this from the first. i would have prevented it, if she had allowed me the smallest chance of doing so. i even waited and watched now, when the harm was done, for a word from sir percival that would give me the opportunity of putting him in the wrong. "you have left it to me, miss fairlie, to resign you," he continued. "i am not heartless enough to resign a woman who has just shown herself to be the noblest of her sex." he spoke with such warmth and feeling, with such passionate enthusiasm, and yet with such perfect delicacy, that she raised her head, flushed up a little, and looked at him with sudden animation and spirit. "no!" she said firmly. "the most wretched of her sex, if she must give herself in marriage when she cannot give her love." "may she not give it in the future," he asked, "if the one object of her husband's life is to deserve it?" "never!" she answered. "if you still persist in maintaining our engagement, i may be your true and faithful wife, sir percival--your loving wife, if i know my own heart, never!" she looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steeled his heart against her. i tried hard to feel that sir percival was to blame, and to say so, but my womanhood would pity him, in spite of myself. "i gratefully accept your faith and truth," he said. "the least that you can offer is more to me than the utmost that i could hope for from any other woman in the world." her left hand still held mine, but her right hand hung listlessly at her side. he raised it gently to his lips--touched it with them, rather than kissed it--bowed to me--and then, with perfect delicacy and discretion, silently quitted the room. she neither moved nor said a word when he was gone--she sat by me, cold and still, with her eyes fixed on the ground. i saw it was hopeless and useless to speak, and i only put my arm round her, and held her to me in silence. we remained together so for what seemed a long and weary time--so long and so weary, that i grew uneasy and spoke to her softly, in the hope of producing a change. the sound of my voice seemed to startle her into consciousness. she suddenly drew herself away from me and rose to her feet. "i must submit, marian, as well as i can," she said. "my new life has its hard duties, and one of them begins to-day." as she spoke she went to a side-table near the window, on which her sketching materials were placed, gathered them together carefully, and put them in a drawer of her cabinet. she locked the drawer and brought the key to me. "i must part from everything that reminds me of him," she said. "keep the key wherever you please--i shall never want it again." before i could say a word she had turned away to her book-case, and had taken from it the album that contained walter hartright's drawings. she hesitated for a moment, holding the little volume fondly in her hands--then lifted it to her lips and kissed it. "oh, laura! laura!" i said, not angrily, not reprovingly--with nothing but sorrow in my voice, and nothing but sorrow in my heart. "it is the last time, marian," she pleaded. "i am bidding it good-bye for ever." she laid the book on the table and drew out the comb that fastened her hair. it fell, in its matchless beauty, over her back and shoulders, and dropped round her, far below her waist. she separated one long, thin lock from the rest, cut it off, and pinned it carefully, in the form of a circle, on the first blank page of the album. the moment it was fastened she closed the volume hurriedly, and placed it in my hands. "you write to him and he writes to you," she said. "while i am alive, if he asks after me always tell him i am well, and never say i am unhappy. don't distress him, marian, for my sake, don't distress him. if i die first, promise you will give him this little book of his drawings, with my hair in it. there can be no harm, when i am gone, in telling him that i put it there with my own hands. and say--oh, marian, say for me, then, what i can never say for myself--say i loved him!" she flung her arms round my neck, and whispered the last words in my ear with a passionate delight in uttering them which it almost broke my heart to hear. all the long restraint she had imposed on herself gave way in that first last outburst of tenderness. she broke from me with hysterical vehemence, and threw herself on the sofa in a paroxysm of sobs and tears that shook her from head to foot. i tried vainly to soothe her and reason with her--she was past being soothed, and past being reasoned with. it was the sad, sudden end for us two of this memorable day. when the fit had worn itself out she was too exhausted to speak. she slumbered towards the afternoon, and i put away the book of drawings so that she might not see it when she woke. my face was calm, whatever my heart might be, when she opened her eyes again and looked at me. we said no more to each other about the distressing interview of the morning. sir percival's name was not mentioned. walter hartright was not alluded to again by either of us for the remainder of the day. th.--finding that she was composed and like herself this morning, i returned to the painful subject of yesterday, for the sole purpose of imploring her to let me speak to sir percival and mr. fairlie, more plainly and strongly than she could speak to either of them herself, about this lamentable marriage. she interposed, gently but firmly, in the middle of my remonstrances. "i left yesterday to decide," she said; "and yesterday has decided. it is too late to go back." sir percival spoke to me this afternoon about what had passed in laura's room. he assured me that the unparalleled trust she had placed in him had awakened such an answering conviction of her innocence and integrity in his mind, that he was guiltless of having felt even a moment's unworthy jealousy, either at the time when he was in her presence, or afterwards when he had withdrawn from it. deeply as he lamented the unfortunate attachment which had hindered the progress he might otherwise have made in her esteem and regard, he firmly believed that it had remained unacknowledged in the past, and that it would remain, under all changes of circumstance which it was possible to contemplate, unacknowledged in the future. this was his absolute conviction; and the strongest proof he could give of it was the assurance, which he now offered, that he felt no curiosity to know whether the attachment was of recent date or not, or who had been the object of it. his implicit confidence in miss fairlie made him satisfied with what she had thought fit to say to him, and he was honestly innocent of the slightest feeling of anxiety to hear more. he waited after saying those words and looked at me. i was so conscious of my unreasonable prejudice against him--so conscious of an unworthy suspicion that he might be speculating on my impulsively answering the very questions which he had just described himself as resolved not to ask--that i evaded all reference to this part of the subject with something like a feeling of confusion on my own part. at the same time i was resolved not to lose even the smallest opportunity of trying to plead laura's cause, and i told him boldly that i regretted his generosity had not carried him one step farther, and induced him to withdraw from the engagement altogether. here, again, he disarmed me by not attempting to defend himself. he would merely beg me to remember the difference there was between his allowing miss fairlie to give him up, which was a matter of submission only, and his forcing himself to give up miss fairlie, which was, in other words, asking him to be the suicide of his own hopes. her conduct of the day before had so strengthened the unchangeable love and admiration of two long years, that all active contention against those feelings, on his part, was henceforth entirely out of his power. i must think him weak, selfish, unfeeling towards the very woman whom he idolised, and he must bow to my opinion as resignedly as he could--only putting it to me, at the same time, whether her future as a single woman, pining under an unhappily placed attachment which she could never acknowledge, could be said to promise her a much brighter prospect than her future as the wife of a man who worshipped the very ground she walked on? in the last case there was hope from time, however slight it might be--in the first case, on her own showing, there was no hope at all. i answered him--more because my tongue is a woman's, and must answer, than because i had anything convincing to say. it was only too plain that the course laura had adopted the day before had offered him the advantage if he chose to take it--and that he had chosen to take it. i felt this at the time, and i feel it just as strongly now, while i write these lines, in my own room. the one hope left is that his motives really spring, as he says they do, from the irresistible strength of his attachment to laura. before i close my diary for to-night i must record that i wrote to-day, in poor hartright's interest, to two of my mother's old friends in london--both men of influence and position. if they can do anything for him, i am quite sure they will. except laura, i never was more anxious about any one than i am now about walter. all that has happened since he left us has only increased my strong regard and sympathy for him. i hope i am doing right in trying to help him to employment abroad--i hope, most earnestly and anxiously, that it will end well. th.--sir percival had an interview with mr. fairlie, and i was sent for to join them. i found mr. fairlie greatly relieved at the prospect of the "family worry" (as he was pleased to describe his niece's marriage) being settled at last. so far, i did not feel called on to say anything to him about my own opinion, but when he proceeded, in his most aggravatingly languid manner, to suggest that the time for the marriage had better be settled next, in accordance with sir percival's wishes, i enjoyed the satisfaction of assailing mr. fairlie's nerves with as strong a protest against hurrying laura's decision as i could put into words. sir percival immediately assured me that he felt the force of my objection, and begged me to believe that the proposal had not been made in consequence of any interference on his part. mr. fairlie leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, said we both of us did honour to human nature, and then repeated his suggestion as coolly as if neither sir percival nor i had said a word in opposition to it. it ended in my flatly declining to mention the subject to laura, unless she first approached it of her own accord. i left the room at once after making that declaration. sir percival looked seriously embarrassed and distressed, mr. fairlie stretched out his lazy legs on his velvet footstool, and said, "dear marian! how i envy you your robust nervous system! don't bang the door!" on going to laura's room i found that she had asked for me, and that mrs. vesey had informed her that i was with mr. fairlie. she inquired at once what i had been wanted for, and i told her all that had passed, without attempting to conceal the vexation and annoyance that i really felt. her answer surprised and distressed me inexpressibly--it was the very last reply that i should have expected her to make. "my uncle is right," she said. "i have caused trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about me. let me cause no more, marian--let sir percival decide." i remonstrated warmly, but nothing that i could say moved her. "i am held to my engagement," she replied; "i have broken with my old life. the evil day will not come the less surely because i put it off. no, marian! once again my uncle is right. i have caused trouble enough and anxiety enough, and i will cause no more." she used to be pliability itself, but she was now inflexibly passive in her resignation--i might almost say in her despair. dearly as i love her, i should have been less pained if she had been violently agitated--it was so shockingly unlike her natural character to see her as cold and insensible as i saw her now. th.--sir percival put some questions to me at breakfast about laura, which left me no choice but to tell him what she had said. while we were talking she herself came down and joined us. she was just as unnaturally composed in sir percival's presence as she had been in mine. when breakfast was over he had an opportunity of saying a few words to her privately, in a recess of one of the windows. they were not more than two or three minutes together, and on their separating she left the room with mrs. vesey, while sir percival came to me. he said he had entreated her to favour him by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time for the marriage at her own will and pleasure. in reply she had merely expressed her acknowledgments, and had desired him to mention what his wishes were to miss halcombe. i have no patience to write more. in this instance, as in every other, sir percival has carried his point with the utmost possible credit to himself, in spite of everything that i can say or do. his wishes are now, what they were, of course, when he first came here; and laura having resigned herself to the one inevitable sacrifice of the marriage, remains as coldly hopeless and enduring as ever. in parting with the little occupations and relics that reminded her of hartright, she seems to have parted with all her tenderness and all her impressibility. it is only three o'clock in the afternoon while i write these lines, and sir percival has left us already, in the happy hurry of a bridegroom, to prepare for the bride's reception at his house in hampshire. unless some extraordinary event happens to prevent it they will be married exactly at the time when he wished to be married--before the end of the year. my very fingers burn as i write it! th.--a sleepless night, through uneasiness about laura. towards the morning i came to a resolution to try what change of scene would do to rouse her. she cannot surely remain in her present torpor of insensibility, if i take her away from limmeridge and surround her with the pleasant faces of old friends? after some consideration i decided on writing to the arnolds, in yorkshire. they are simple, kind-hearted, hospitable people, and she has known them from her childhood. when i had put the letter in the post-bag i told her what i had done. it would have been a relief to me if she had shown the spirit to resist and object. but no--she only said, "i will go anywhere with you, marian. i dare say you are right--i dare say the change will do me good." th.--i wrote to mr. gilmore, informing him that there was really a prospect of this miserable marriage taking place, and also mentioning my idea of trying what change of scene would do for laura. i had no heart to go into particulars. time enough for them when we get nearer to the end of the year. th.--three letters for me. the first, from the arnolds, full of delight at the prospect of seeing laura and me. the second, from one of the gentlemen to whom i wrote on walter hartright's behalf, informing me that he has been fortunate enough to find an opportunity of complying with my request. the third, from walter himself, thanking me, poor fellow, in the warmest terms, for giving him an opportunity of leaving his home, his country, and his friends. a private expedition to make excavations among the ruined cities of central america is, it seems, about to sail from liverpool. the draughtsman who had been already appointed to accompany it has lost heart, and withdrawn at the eleventh hour, and walter is to fill his place. he is to be engaged for six months certain, from the time of the landing in honduras, and for a year afterwards, if the excavations are successful, and if the funds hold out. his letter ends with a promise to write me a farewell line when they are all on board ship, and when the pilot leaves them. i can only hope and pray earnestly that he and i are both acting in this matter for the best. it seems such a serious step for him to take, that the mere contemplation of it startles me. and yet, in his unhappy position, how can i expect him or wish him to remain at home? th.--the carriage is at the door. laura and i set out on our visit to the arnolds to-day. polesdean lodge, yorkshire. rd.--a week in these new scenes and among these kind-hearted people has done her some good, though not so much as i had hoped. i have resolved to prolong our stay for another week at least. it is useless to go back to limmeridge till there is an absolute necessity for our return. th.--sad news by this morning's post. the expedition to central america sailed on the twenty-first. we have parted with a true man--we have lost a faithful friend. water hartright has left england. th.--sad news yesterday--ominous news to-day. sir percival glyde has written to mr. fairlie, and mr. fairlie has written to laura and me, to recall us to limmeridge immediately. what can this mean? has the day for the marriage been fixed in our absence? ii limmeridge house. november th.--my forebodings are realised. the marriage is fixed for the twenty-second of december. the day after we left for polesdean lodge sir percival wrote, it seems, to mr. fairlie, to say that the necessary repairs and alterations in his house in hampshire would occupy a much longer time in completion than he had originally anticipated. the proper estimates were to be submitted to him as soon as possible, and it would greatly facilitate his entering into definite arrangements with the workpeople, if he could be informed of the exact period at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take place. he could then make all his calculations in reference to time, besides writing the necessary apologies to friends who had been engaged to visit him that winter, and who could not, of course, be received when the house was in the hands of the workmen. to this letter mr. fairlie had replied by requesting sir percival himself to suggest a day for the marriage, subject to miss fairlie's approval, which her guardian willingly undertook to do his best to obtain. sir percival wrote back by the next post, and proposed (in accordance with his own views and wishes from the first?) the latter part of december--perhaps the twenty-second, or twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and her guardian might prefer. the lady not being at hand to speak for herself, her guardian had decided, in her absence, on the earliest day mentioned--the twenty-second of december, and had written to recall us to limmeridge in consequence. after explaining these particulars to me at a private interview yesterday, mr. fairlie suggested, in his most amiable manner, that i should open the necessary negotiations to-day. feeling that resistance was useless, unless i could first obtain laura's authority to make it, i consented to speak to her, but declared, at the same time, that i would on no consideration undertake to gain her consent to sir percival's wishes. mr. fairlie complimented me on my "excellent conscience," much as he would have complimented me, if he had been out walking, on my "excellent constitution," and seemed perfectly satisfied, so far, with having simply shifted one more family responsibility from his own shoulders to mine. this morning i spoke to laura as i had promised. the composure--i may almost say, the insensibility--which she has so strangely and so resolutely maintained ever since sir percival left us, was not proof against the shock of the news i had to tell her. she turned pale and trembled violently. "not so soon!" she pleaded. "oh, marian, not so soon!" the slightest hint she could give was enough for me. i rose to leave the room, and fight her battle for her at once with mr. fairlie. just as my hand was on the door, she caught fast hold of my dress and stopped me. "let me go!" i said. "my tongue burns to tell your uncle that he and sir percival are not to have it all their own way." she sighed bitterly, and still held my dress. "no!" she said faintly. "too late, marian, too late!" "not a minute too late," i retorted. "the question of time is our question--and trust me, laura, to take a woman's full advantage of it." i unclasped her hand from my gown while i spoke; but she slipped both her arms round my waist at the same moment, and held me more effectually than ever. "it will only involve us in more trouble and more confusion," she said. "it will set you and my uncle at variance, and bring sir percival here again with fresh causes of complaint--" "so much the better!" i cried out passionately. "who cares for his causes of complaint? are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? no man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. men! they are the enemies of our innocence and our peace--they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship--they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. and what does the best of them give us in return? let me go, laura--i'm mad when i think of it!" the tears--miserable, weak, women's tears of vexation and rage--started to my eyes. she smiled sadly, and put her handkerchief over my face to hide for me the betrayal of my own weakness--the weakness of all others which she knew that i most despised. "oh, marian!" she said. "you crying! think what you would say to me, if the places were changed, and if those tears were mine. all your love and courage and devotion will not alter what must happen, sooner or later. let my uncle have his way. let us have no more troubles and heart-burnings that any sacrifice of mine can prevent. say you will live with me, marian, when i am married--and say no more." but i did say more. i forced back the contemptible tears that were no relief to me, and that only distressed her, and reasoned and pleaded as calmly as i could. it was of no avail. she made me twice repeat the promise to live with her when she was married, and then suddenly asked a question which turned my sorrow and my sympathy for her into a new direction. "while we were at polesdean," she said, "you had a letter, marian----" her altered tone--the abrupt manner in which she looked away from me and hid her face on my shoulder--the hesitation which silenced her before she had completed her question, all told me, but too plainly, to whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed. "i thought, laura, that you and i were never to refer to him again," i said gently. "you had a letter from him?" she persisted. "yes," i replied, "if you must know it." "do you mean to write to him again?" i hesitated. i had been afraid to tell her of his absence from england, or of the manner in which my exertions to serve his new hopes and projects had connected me with his departure. what answer could i make? he was gone where no letters could reach him for months, perhaps for years, to come. "suppose i do mean to write to him again," i said at last. "what then, laura?" her cheek grew burning hot against my neck, and her arms trembled and tightened round me. "don't tell him about the twenty-second," she whispered. "promise, marian--pray promise you will not even mention my name to him when you write next." i gave the promise. no words can say how sorrowfully i gave it. she instantly took her arm from my waist, walked away to the window, and stood looking out with her back to me. after a moment she spoke once more, but without turning round, without allowing me to catch the smallest glimpse of her face. "are you going to my uncle's room?" she asked. "will you say that i consent to whatever arrangement he may think best? never mind leaving me, marian. i shall be better alone for a little while." i went out. if, as soon as i got into the passage, i could have transported mr. fairlie and sir percival glyde to the uttermost ends of the earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger would have been raised without an instant's hesitation. for once my unhappy temper now stood my friend. i should have broken down altogether and burst into a violent fit of crying, if my tears had not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger. as it was, i dashed into mr. fairlie's room--called to him as harshly as possible, "laura consents to the twenty-second"--and dashed out again without waiting for a word of answer. i banged the door after me, and i hope i shattered mr. fairlie's nervous system for the rest of the day. th.--this morning i read poor hartright's farewell letter over again, a doubt having crossed my mind since yesterday, whether i am acting wisely in concealing the fact of his departure from laura. on reflection, i still think i am right. the allusions in his letter to the preparations made for the expedition to central america, all show that the leaders of it know it to be dangerous. if the discovery of this makes me uneasy, what would it make her? it is bad enough to feel that his departure has deprived us of the friend of all others to whose devotion we could trust in the hour of need, if ever that hour comes and finds us helpless; but it is far worse to know that he has gone from us to face the perils of a bad climate, a wild country, and a disturbed population. surely it would be a cruel candour to tell laura this, without a pressing and a positive necessity for it? i almost doubt whether i ought not to go a step farther, and burn the letter at once, for fear of its one day falling into wrong hands. it not only refers to laura in terms which ought to remain a secret for ever between the writer and me, but it reiterates his suspicion--so obstinate, so unaccountable, and so alarming--that he has been secretly watched since he left limmeridge. he declares that he saw the faces of the two strange men who followed him about the streets of london, watching him among the crowd which gathered at liverpool to see the expedition embark, and he positively asserts that he heard the name of anne catherick pronounced behind him as he got into the boat. his own words are, "these events have a meaning, these events must lead to a result. the mystery of anne catherick is not cleared up yet. she may never cross my path again, but if ever she crosses yours, make better use of the opportunity, miss halcombe, than i made of it. i speak on strong conviction--i entreat you to remember what i say." these are his own expressions. there is no danger of my forgetting them--my memory is only too ready to dwell on any words of hartright's that refer to anne catherick. but there is danger in my keeping the letter. the merest accident might place it at the mercy of strangers. i may fall ill--i may die. better to burn it at once, and have one anxiety the less. it is burnt. the ashes of his farewell letter--the last he may ever write to me--lie in a few black fragments on the hearth. is this the sad end to all that sad story? oh, not the end--surely, surely not the end already! th.--the preparations for the marriage have begun. the dressmaker has come to receive her orders. laura is perfectly impassive, perfectly careless about the question of all others in which a woman's personal interests are most closely bound up. she has left it all to the dressmaker and to me. if poor hartright had been the baronet, and the husband of her father's choice, how differently she would have behaved! how anxious and capricious she would have been, and what a hard task the best of dressmakers would have found it to please her! th.--we hear every day from sir percival. the last news is that the alterations in his house will occupy from four to six months before they can be properly completed. if painters, paperhangers, and upholsterers could make happiness as well as splendour, i should be interested about their proceedings in laura's future home. as it is, the only part of sir percival's last letter which does not leave me as it found me, perfectly indifferent to all his plans and projects, is the part which refers to the wedding tour. he proposes, as laura is delicate, and as the winter threatens to be unusually severe, to take her to rome, and to remain in italy until the early part of next summer. if this plan should not be approved, he is equally ready, although he has no establishment of his own in town, to spend the season in london, in the most suitable furnished house that can be obtained for the purpose. putting myself and my own feelings entirely out of the question (which it is my duty to do, and which i have done), i, for one, have no doubt of the propriety of adopting the first of these proposals. in either case a separation between laura and me is inevitable. it will be a longer separation, in the event of their going abroad, than it would be in the event of their remaining in london--but we must set against this disadvantage the benefit to laura, on the other side, of passing the winter in a mild climate, and more than that, the immense assistance in raising her spirits, and reconciling her to her new existence, which the mere wonder and excitement of travelling for the first time in her life in the most interesting country in the world, must surely afford. she is not of a disposition to find resources in the conventional gaieties and excitements of london. they would only make the first oppression of this lamentable marriage fall the heavier on her. i dread the beginning of her new life more than words can tell, but i see some hope for her if she travels--none if she remains at home. it is strange to look back at this latest entry in my journal, and to find that i am writing of the marriage and the parting with laura, as people write of a settled thing. it seems so cold and so unfeeling to be looking at the future already in this cruelly composed way. but what other way is possible, now that the time is drawing so near? before another month is over our heads she will be his laura instead of mine! his laura! i am as little able to realise the idea which those two words convey--my mind feels almost as dulled and stunned by it--as if writing of her marriage were like writing of her death. december st.--a sad, sad day--a day that i have no heart to describe at any length. after weakly putting it off last night, i was obliged to speak to her this morning of sir percival's proposal about the wedding tour. in the full conviction that i should be with her wherever she went, the poor child--for a child she is still in many things--was almost happy at the prospect of seeing the wonders of florence and rome and naples. it nearly broke my heart to dispel her delusion, and to bring her face to face with the hard truth. i was obliged to tell her that no man tolerates a rival--not even a woman rival--in his wife's affections, when he first marries, whatever he may do afterwards. i was obliged to warn her that my chance of living with her permanently under her own roof, depended entirely on my not arousing sir percival's jealousy and distrust by standing between them at the beginning of their marriage, in the position of the chosen depositary of his wife's closest secrets. drop by drop i poured the profaning bitterness of this world's wisdom into that pure heart and that innocent mind, while every higher and better feeling within me recoiled from my miserable task. it is over now. she has learnt her hard, her inevitable lesson. the simple illusions of her girlhood are gone, and my hand has stripped them off. better mine than his--that is all my consolation--better mine than his. so the first proposal is the proposal accepted. they are to go to italy, and i am to arrange, with sir percival's permission, for meeting them and staying with them when they return to england. in other words, i am to ask a personal favour, for the first time in my life, and to ask it of the man of all others to whom i least desire to owe a serious obligation of any kind. well! i think i could do even more than that, for laura's sake. nd.--on looking back, i find myself always referring to sir percival in disparaging terms. in the turn affairs have now taken. i must and will root out my prejudice against him, i cannot think how it first got into my mind. it certainly never existed in former times. is it laura's reluctance to become his wife that has set me against him? have hartright's perfectly intelligible prejudices infected me without my suspecting their influence? does that letter of anne catherick's still leave a lurking distrust in my mind, in spite of sir percival's explanation, and of the proof in my possession of the truth of it? i cannot account for the state of my own feelings; the one thing i am certain of is, that it is my duty--doubly my duty now--not to wrong sir percival by unjustly distrusting him. if it has got to be a habit with me always to write of him in the same unfavourable manner, i must and will break myself of this unworthy tendency, even though the effort should force me to close the pages of my journal till the marriage is over! i am seriously dissatisfied with myself--i will write no more to-day. december th.--a whole fortnight has passed, and i have not once opened these pages. i have been long enough away from my journal to come back to it with a healthier and better mind, i hope, so far as sir percival is concerned. there is not much to record of the past two weeks. the dresses are almost all finished, and the new travelling trunks have been sent here from london. poor dear laura hardly leaves me for a moment all day, and last night, when neither of us could sleep, she came and crept into my bed to talk to me there. "i shall lose you so soon, marian," she said; "i must make the most of you while i can." they are to be married at limmeridge church, and thank heaven, not one of the neighbours is to be invited to the ceremony. the only visitor will be our old friend, mr. arnold, who is to come from polesdean to give laura away, her uncle being far too delicate to trust himself outside the door in such inclement weather as we now have. if i were not determined, from this day forth, to see nothing but the bright side of our prospects, the melancholy absence of any male relative of laura's, at the most important moment of her life, would make me very gloomy and very distrustful of the future. but i have done with gloom and distrust--that is to say, i have done with writing about either the one or the other in this journal. sir percival is to arrive to-morrow. he offered, in case we wished to treat him on terms of rigid etiquette, to write and ask our clergyman to grant him the hospitality of the rectory, during the short period of his sojourn at limmeridge, before the marriage. under the circumstances, neither mr. fairlie nor i thought it at all necessary for us to trouble ourselves about attending to trifling forms and ceremonies. in our wild moorland country, and in this great lonely house, we may well claim to be beyond the reach of the trivial conventionalities which hamper people in other places. i wrote to sir percival to thank him for his polite offer, and to beg that he would occupy his old rooms, just as usual, at limmeridge house. th.--he arrived to-day, looking, as i thought, a little worn and anxious, but still talking and laughing like a man in the best possible spirits. he brought with him some really beautiful presents in jewellery, which laura received with her best grace, and, outwardly at least, with perfect self-possession. the only sign i can detect of the struggle it must cost her to preserve appearances at this trying time, expresses itself in a sudden unwillingness, on her part, ever to be left alone. instead of retreating to her own room, as usual, she seems to dread going there. when i went upstairs to-day, after lunch, to put on my bonnet for a walk, she volunteered to join me, and again, before dinner, she threw the door open between our two rooms, so that we might talk to each other while we were dressing. "keep me always doing something," she said; "keep me always in company with somebody. don't let me think--that is all i ask now, marian--don't let me think." this sad change in her only increases her attractions for sir percival. he interprets it, i can see, to his own advantage. there is a feverish flush in her cheeks, a feverish brightness in her eyes, which he welcomes as the return of her beauty and the recovery of her spirits. she talked to-day at dinner with a gaiety and carelessness so false, so shockingly out of her character, that i secretly longed to silence her and take her away. sir percival's delight and surprise appeared to be beyond all expression. the anxiety which i had noticed on his face when he arrived totally disappeared from it, and he looked, even to my eyes, a good ten years younger than he really is. there can be no doubt--though some strange perversity prevents me from seeing it myself--there can be no doubt that laura's future husband is a very handsome man. regular features form a personal advantage to begin with--and he has them. bright brown eyes, either in man or woman, are a great attraction--and he has them. even baldness, when it is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case), is rather becoming than not in a man, for it heightens the head and adds to the intelligence of the face. grace and ease of movement, untiring animation of manner, ready, pliant, conversational powers--all these are unquestionable merits, and all these he certainly possesses. surely mr. gilmore, ignorant as he is of laura's secret, was not to blame for feeling surprised that she should repent of her marriage engagement? any one else in his place would have shared our good old friend's opinion. if i were asked, at this moment, to say plainly what defects i have discovered in sir percival, i could only point out two. one, his incessant restlessness and excitability--which may be caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy of character. the other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered manner of speaking to the servants--which may be only a bad habit after all. no, i cannot dispute it, and i will not dispute it--sir percival is a very handsome and a very agreeable man. there! i have written it down at last, and i am glad it's over. th.--feeling weary and depressed this morning, i left laura with mrs. vesey, and went out alone for one of my brisk midday walks, which i have discontinued too much of late. i took the dry airy road over the moor that leads to todd's corner. after having been out half an hour, i was excessively surprised to see sir percival approaching me from the direction of the farm. he was walking rapidly, swinging his stick, his head erect as usual, and his shooting jacket flying open in the wind. when we met he did not wait for me to ask any questions--he told me at once that he had been to the farm to inquire if mr. or mrs. todd had received any tidings, since his last visit to limmeridge, of anne catherick. "you found, of course, that they had heard nothing?" i said. "nothing whatever," he replied. "i begin to be seriously afraid that we have lost her. do you happen to know," he continued, looking me in the face very attentively "if the artist--mr. hartright--is in a position to give us any further information?" "he has neither heard of her, nor seen her, since he left cumberland," i answered. "very sad," said sir percival, speaking like a man who was disappointed, and yet, oddly enough, looking at the same time like a man who was relieved. "it is impossible to say what misfortunes may not have happened to the miserable creature. i am inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of all my efforts to restore her to the care and protection which she so urgently needs." this time he really looked annoyed. i said a few sympathising words, and we then talked of other subjects on our way back to the house. surely my chance meeting with him on the moor has disclosed another favourable trait in his character? surely it was singularly considerate and unselfish of him to think of anne catherick on the eve of his marriage, and to go all the way to todd's corner to make inquiries about her, when he might have passed the time so much more agreeably in laura's society? considering that he can only have acted from motives of pure charity, his conduct, under the circumstances, shows unusual good feeling and deserves extraordinary praise. well! i give him extraordinary praise--and there's an end of it. th.--more discoveries in the inexhaustible mine of sir percival's virtues. to-day i approached the subject of my proposed sojourn under his wife's roof when he brings her back to england. i had hardly dropped my first hint in this direction before he caught me warmly by the hand, and said i had made the very offer to him which he had been, on his side, most anxious to make to me. i was the companion of all others whom he most sincerely longed to secure for his wife, and he begged me to believe that i had conferred a lasting favour on him by making the proposal to live with laura after her marriage, exactly as i had always lived with her before it. when i had thanked him in her name and mine for his considerate kindness to both of us, we passed next to the subject of his wedding tour, and began to talk of the english society in rome to which laura was to be introduced. he ran over the names of several friends whom he expected to meet abroad this winter. they were all english, as well as i can remember, with one exception. the one exception was count fosco. the mention of the count's name, and the discovery that he and his wife are likely to meet the bride and bridegroom on the continent, puts laura's marriage, for the first time, in a distinctly favourable light. it is likely to be the means of healing a family feud. hitherto madame fosco has chosen to forget her obligations as laura's aunt out of sheer spite against the late mr. fairlie for his conduct in the affair of the legacy. now however, she can persist in this course of conduct no longer. sir percival and count fosco are old and fast friends, and their wives will have no choice but to meet on civil terms. madame fosco in her maiden days was one of the most impertinent women i ever met with--capricious, exacting, and vain to the last degree of absurdity. if her husband has succeeded in bringing her to her senses, he deserves the gratitude of every member of the family, and he may have mine to begin with. i am becoming anxious to know the count. he is the most intimate friend of laura's husband, and in that capacity he excites my strongest interest. neither laura nor i have ever seen him. all i know of him is that his accidental presence, years ago, on the steps of the trinita del monte at rome, assisted sir percival's escape from robbery and assassination at the critical moment when he was wounded in the hand, and might the next instant have been wounded in the heart. i remember also that, at the time of the late mr. fairlie's absurd objections to his sister's marriage, the count wrote him a very temperate and sensible letter on the subject, which, i am ashamed to say, remained unanswered. this is all i know of sir percival's friend. i wonder if he will ever come to england? i wonder if i shall like him? my pen is running away into mere speculation. let me return to sober matter of fact. it is certain that sir percival's reception of my venturesome proposal to live with his wife was more than kind, it was almost affectionate. i am sure laura's husband will have no reason to complain of me if i can only go on as i have begun. i have already declared him to be handsome, agreeable, full of good feeling towards the unfortunate and full of affectionate kindness towards me. really, i hardly know myself again, in my new character of sir percival's warmest friend. th.--i hate sir percival! i flatly deny his good looks. i consider him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and totally wanting in kindness and good feeling. last night the cards for the married couple were sent home. laura opened the packet and saw her future name in print for the first time. sir percival looked over her shoulder familiarly at the new card which had already transformed miss fairlie into lady glyde--smiled with the most odious self-complacency, and whispered something in her ear. i don't know what it was--laura has refused to tell me--but i saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that i thought she would have fainted. he took no notice of the change--he seemed to be barbarously unconscious that he had said anything to pain her. all my old feelings of hostility towards him revived on the instant, and all the hours that have passed since have done nothing to dissipate them. i am more unreasonable and more unjust than ever. in three words--how glibly my pen writes them!--in three words, i hate him. st.--have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little, at last? i have been writing, for the last few days, in a tone of levity which, heaven knows, is far enough from my heart, and which it has rather shocked me to discover on looking back at the entries in my journal. perhaps i may have caught the feverish excitement of laura's spirits for the last week. if so, the fit has already passed away from me, and has left me in a very strange state of mind. a persistent idea has been forcing itself on my attention, ever since last night, that something will yet happen to prevent the marriage. what has produced this singular fancy? is it the indirect result of my apprehensions for laura's future? or has it been unconsciously suggested to me by the increasing restlessness and irritability which i have certainly observed in sir percival's manner as the wedding-day draws nearer and nearer? impossible to say. i know that i have the idea--surely the wildest idea, under the circumstances, that ever entered a woman's head?--but try as i may, i cannot trace it back to its source. this last day has been all confusion and wretchedness. how can i write about it?--and yet, i must write. anything is better than brooding over my own gloomy thoughts. kind mrs. vesey, whom we have all too much overlooked and forgotten of late, innocently caused us a sad morning to begin with. she has been, for months past, secretly making a warm shetland shawl for her dear pupil--a most beautiful and surprising piece of work to be done by a woman at her age and with her habits. the gift was presented this morning, and poor warm-hearted laura completely broke down when the shawl was put proudly on her shoulders by the loving old friend and guardian of her motherless childhood. i was hardly allowed time to quiet them both, or even to dry my own eyes, when i was sent for by mr. fairlie, to be favoured with a long recital of his arrangements for the preservation of his own tranquillity on the wedding-day. "dear laura" was to receive his present--a shabby ring, with her affectionate uncle's hair for an ornament, instead of a precious stone, and with a heartless french inscription inside, about congenial sentiments and eternal friendship--"dear laura" was to receive this tender tribute from my hands immediately, so that she might have plenty of time to recover from the agitation produced by the gift before she appeared in mr. fairlie's presence. "dear laura" was to pay him a little visit that evening, and to be kind enough not to make a scene. "dear laura" was to pay him another little visit in her wedding-dress the next morning, and to be kind enough, again, not to make a scene. "dear laura" was to look in once more, for the third time, before going away, but without harrowing his feelings by saying when she was going away, and without tears--"in the name of pity, in the name of everything, dear marian, that is most affectionate and most domestic, and most delightfully and charmingly self-composed, without tears!" i was so exasperated by this miserable selfish trifling, at such a time, that i should certainly have shocked mr. fairlie by some of the hardest and rudest truths he has ever heard in his life, if the arrival of mr. arnold from polesdean had not called me away to new duties downstairs. the rest of the day is indescribable. i believe no one in the house really knew how it passed. the confusion of small events, all huddled together one on the other, bewildered everybody. there were dresses sent home that had been forgotten--there were trunks to be packed and unpacked and packed again--there were presents from friends far and near, friends high and low. we were all needlessly hurried, all nervously expectant of the morrow. sir percival, especially, was too restless now to remain five minutes together in the same place. that short, sharp cough of his troubled him more than ever. he was in and out of doors all day long, and he seemed to grow so inquisitive on a sudden, that he questioned the very strangers who came on small errands to the house. add to all this, the one perpetual thought in laura's mind and mine, that we were to part the next day, and the haunting dread, unexpressed by either of us, and yet ever present to both, that this deplorable marriage might prove to be the one fatal error of her life and the one hopeless sorrow of mine. for the first time in all the years of our close and happy intercourse we almost avoided looking each other in the face, and we refrained, by common consent, from speaking together in private through the whole evening. i can dwell on it no longer. whatever future sorrows may be in store for me, i shall always look back on this twenty-first of december as the most comfortless and most miserable day of my life. i am writing these lines in the solitude of my own room, long after midnight, having just come back from a stolen look at laura in her pretty little white bed--the bed she has occupied since the days of her girlhood. there she lay, unconscious that i was looking at her--quiet, more quiet than i had dared to hope, but not sleeping. the glimmer of the night-light showed me that her eyes were only partially closed--the traces of tears glistened between her eyelids. my little keepsake--only a brooch--lay on the table at her bedside, with her prayer-book, and the miniature portrait of her father which she takes with her wherever she goes. i waited a moment, looking at her from behind her pillow, as she lay beneath me, with one arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so still, so quietly breathing, that the frill on her night-dress never moved--i waited, looking at her, as i have seen her thousands of times, as i shall never see her again--and then stole back to my room. my own love! with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how friendless you are! the one man who would give his heart's life to serve you is far away, tossing, this stormy night, on the awful sea. who else is left to you? no father, no brother--no living creature but the helpless, useless woman who writes these sad lines, and watches by you for the morning, in sorrow that she cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer. oh, what a trust is to be placed in that man's hands to-morrow! if ever he forgets it--if ever he injures a hair of her head!---- the twenty-second of december. seven o'clock. a wild, unsettled morning. she has just risen--better and calmer, now that the time has come, than she was yesterday. ten o'clock. she is dressed. we have kissed each other--we have promised each other not to lose courage. i am away for a moment in my own room. in the whirl and confusion of my thoughts, i can detect that strange fancy of some hindrance happening to stop the marriage still hanging about my mind. is it hanging about his mind too? i see him from the window, moving hither and thither uneasily among the carriages at the door.--how can i write such folly! the marriage is a certainty. in less than half an hour we start for the church. eleven o'clock. it is all over. they are married. three o'clock. they are gone! i am blind with crying--i can write no more---- * * * * * * * * * * [the first epoch of the story closes here.] the second epoch the story continued by marian halcombe. i blackwater park, hampshire. june th, .--six months to look back on--six long, lonely months since laura and i last saw each other! how many days have i still to wait? only one! to-morrow, the twelfth, the travellers return to england. i can hardly realise my own happiness--i can hardly believe that the next four-and-twenty hours will complete the last day of separation between laura and me. she and her husband have been in italy all the winter, and afterwards in the tyrol. they come back, accompanied by count fosco and his wife, who propose to settle somewhere in the neighbourhood of london, and who have engaged to stay at blackwater park for the summer months before deciding on a place of residence. so long as laura returns, no matter who returns with her. sir percival may fill the house from floor to ceiling, if he likes, on condition that his wife and i inhabit it together. meanwhile, here i am, established at blackwater park, "the ancient and interesting seat" (as the county history obligingly informs me) "of sir percival glyde, bart.," and the future abiding-place (as i may now venture to add on my account) of plain marian halcombe, spinster, now settled in a snug little sitting-room, with a cup of tea by her side, and all her earthly possessions ranged round her in three boxes and a bag. i left limmeridge yesterday, having received laura's delightful letter from paris the day before. i had been previously uncertain whether i was to meet them in london or in hampshire, but this last letter informed me that sir percival proposed to land at southampton, and to travel straight on to his country-house. he has spent so much money abroad that he has none left to defray the expenses of living in london for the remainder of the season, and he is economically resolved to pass the summer and autumn quietly at blackwater. laura has had more than enough of excitement and change of scene, and is pleased at the prospect of country tranquillity and retirement which her husband's prudence provides for her. as for me, i am ready to be happy anywhere in her society. we are all, therefore, well contented in our various ways, to begin with. last night i slept in london, and was delayed there so long to-day by various calls and commissions, that i did not reach blackwater this evening till after dusk. judging by my vague impressions of the place thus far, it is the exact opposite of limmeridge. the house is situated on a dead flat, and seems to be shut in--almost suffocated, to my north-country notions, by trees. i have seen nobody but the man-servant who opened the door to me, and the housekeeper, a very civil person, who showed me the way to my own room, and got me my tea. i have a nice little boudoir and bedroom, at the end of a long passage on the first floor. the servants and some of the spare rooms are on the second floor, and all the living rooms are on the ground floor. i have not seen one of them yet, and i know nothing about the house, except that one wing of it is said to be five hundred years old, that it had a moat round it once, and that it gets its name of blackwater from a lake in the park. eleven o'clock has just struck, in a ghostly and solemn manner, from a turret over the centre of the house, which i saw when i came in. a large dog has been woke, apparently by the sound of the bell, and is howling and yawning drearily, somewhere round a corner. i hear echoing footsteps in the passages below, and the iron thumping of bolts and bars at the house door. the servants are evidently going to bed. shall i follow their example? no, i am not half sleepy enough. sleepy, did i say? i feel as if i should never close my eyes again. the bare anticipation of seeing that dear face, and hearing that well-known voice to-morrow, keeps me in a perpetual fever of excitement. if i only had the privileges of a man, i would order out sir percival's best horse instantly, and tear away on a night-gallop, eastward, to meet the rising sun--a long, hard, heavy, ceaseless gallop of hours and hours, like the famous highwayman's ride to york. being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats for life, i must respect the house-keeper's opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way. reading is out of the question--i can't fix my attention on books. let me try if i can write myself into sleepiness and fatigue. my journal has been very much neglected of late. what can i recall--standing, as i now do, on the threshold of a new life--of persons and events, of chances and changes, during the past six months--the long, weary, empty interval since laura's wedding-day? walter hartright is uppermost in my memory, and he passes first in the shadowy procession of my absent friends. i received a few lines from him, after the landing of the expedition in honduras, written more cheerfully and hopefully than he has written yet. a month or six weeks later i saw an extract from an american newspaper, describing the departure of the adventurers on their inland journey. they were last seen entering a wild primeval forest, each man with his rifle on his shoulder and his baggage at his back. since that time, civilisation has lost all trace of them. not a line more have i received from walter, not a fragment of news from the expedition has appeared in any of the public journals. the same dense, disheartening obscurity hangs over the fate and fortunes of anne catherick, and her companion, mrs. clements. nothing whatever has been heard of either of them. whether they are in the country or out of it, whether they are living or dead, no one knows. even sir percival's solicitor has lost all hope, and has ordered the useless search after the fugitives to be finally given up. our good old friend mr. gilmore has met with a sad check in his active professional career. early in the spring we were alarmed by hearing that he had been found insensible at his desk, and that the seizure was pronounced to be an apoplectic fit. he had been long complaining of fulness and oppression in the head, and his doctor had warned him of the consequences that would follow his persistency in continuing to work, early and late, as if he were still a young man. the result now is that he has been positively ordered to keep out of his office for a year to come, at least, and to seek repose of body and relief of mind by altogether changing his usual mode of life. the business is left, accordingly, to be carried on by his partner, and he is himself, at this moment, away in germany, visiting some relations who are settled there in mercantile pursuits. thus another true friend and trustworthy adviser is lost to us--lost, i earnestly hope and trust, for a time only. poor mrs. vesey travelled with me as far as london. it was impossible to abandon her to solitude at limmeridge after laura and i had both left the house, and we have arranged that she is to live with an unmarried younger sister of hers, who keeps a school at clapham. she is to come here this autumn to visit her pupil--i might almost say her adopted child. i saw the good old lady safe to her destination, and left her in the care of her relative, quietly happy at the prospect of seeing laura again in a few months' time. as for mr. fairlie, i believe i am guilty of no injustice if i describe him as being unutterably relieved by having the house clear of us women. the idea of his missing his niece is simply preposterous--he used to let months pass in the old times without attempting to see her--and in my case and mrs. vesey's, i take leave to consider his telling us both that he was half heart-broken at our departure, to be equivalent to a confession that he was secretly rejoiced to get rid of us. his last caprice has led him to keep two photographers incessantly employed in producing sun-pictures of all the treasures and curiosities in his possession. one complete copy of the collection of the photographs is to be presented to the mechanics' institution of carlisle, mounted on the finest cardboard, with ostentatious red-letter inscriptions underneath, "madonna and child by raphael. in the possession of frederick fairlie, esquire." "copper coin of the period of tiglath pileser. in the possession of frederick fairlie, esquire." "unique rembrandt etching. known all over europe as the smudge, from a printer's blot in the corner which exists in no other copy. valued at three hundred guineas. in the possession of frederick fairlie, esq." dozens of photographs of this sort, and all inscribed in this manner, were completed before i left cumberland, and hundreds more remain to be done. with this new interest to occupy him, mr. fairlie will be a happy man for months and months to come, and the two unfortunate photographers will share the social martyrdom which he has hitherto inflicted on his valet alone. so much for the persons and events which hold the foremost place in my memory. what next of the one person who holds the foremost place in my heart? laura has been present to my thoughts all the while i have been writing these lines. what can i recall of her during the past six months, before i close my journal for the night? i have only her letters to guide me, and on the most important of all the questions which our correspondence can discuss, every one of those letters leaves me in the dark. does he treat her kindly? is she happier now than she was when i parted with her on the wedding-day? all my letters have contained these two inquiries, put more or less directly, now in one form, and now in another, and all, on that point only, have remained without reply, or have been answered as if my questions merely related to the state of her health. she informs me, over and over again, that she is perfectly well--that travelling agrees with her--that she is getting through the winter, for the first time in her life, without catching cold--but not a word can i find anywhere which tells me plainly that she is reconciled to her marriage, and that she can now look back to the twenty-second of december without any bitter feelings of repentance and regret. the name of her husband is only mentioned in her letters, as she might mention the name of a friend who was travelling with them, and who had undertaken to make all the arrangements for the journey. "sir percival" has settled that we leave on such a day--"sir percival" has decided that we travel by such a road. sometimes she writes "percival" only, but very seldom--in nine cases out of ten she gives him his title. i cannot find that his habits and opinions have changed and coloured hers in any single particular. the usual moral transformation which is insensibly wrought in a young, fresh, sensitive woman by her marriage, seems never to have taken place in laura. she writes of her own thoughts and impressions, amid all the wonders she has seen, exactly as she might have written to some one else, if i had been travelling with her instead of her husband. i see no betrayal anywhere of sympathy of any kind existing between them. even when she wanders from the subject of her travels, and occupies herself with the prospects that await her in england, her speculations are busied with her future as my sister, and persistently neglect to notice her future as sir percival's wife. in all this there is no undertone of complaint to warn me that she is absolutely unhappy in her married life. the impression i have derived from our correspondence does not, thank god, lead me to any such distressing conclusion as that. i only see a sad torpor, an unchangeable indifference, when i turn my mind from her in the old character of a sister, and look at her, through the medium of her letters, in the new character of a wife. in other words, it is always laura fairlie who has been writing to me for the last six months, and never lady glyde. the strange silence which she maintains on the subject of her husband's character and conduct, she preserves with almost equal resolution in the few references which her later letters contain to the name of her husband's bosom friend, count fosco. for some unexplained reason the count and his wife appear to have changed their plans abruptly, at the end of last autumn, and to have gone to vienna instead of going to rome, at which latter place sir percival had expected to find them when he left england. they only quitted vienna in the spring, and travelled as far as the tyrol to meet the bride and bridegroom on their homeward journey. laura writes readily enough about the meeting with madame fosco, and assures me that she has found her aunt so much changed for the better--so much quieter, and so much more sensible as a wife than she was as a single woman--that i shall hardly know her again when i see her here. but on the subject of count fosco (who interests me infinitely more than his wife), laura is provokingly circumspect and silent. she only says that he puzzles her, and that she will not tell me what her impression of him is until i have seen him, and formed my own opinion first. this, to my mind, looks ill for the count. laura has preserved, far more perfectly than most people do in later life, the child's subtle faculty of knowing a friend by instinct, and if i am right in assuming that her first impression of count fosco has not been favourable, i for one am in some danger of doubting and distrusting that illustrious foreigner before i have so much as set eyes on him. but, patience, patience--this uncertainty, and many uncertainties more, cannot last much longer. to-morrow will see all my doubts in a fair way of being cleared up, sooner or later. twelve o'clock has struck, and i have just come back to close these pages, after looking out at my open window. it is a still, sultry, moonless night. the stars are dull and few. the trees that shut out the view on all sides look dimly black and solid in the distance, like a great wall of rock. i hear the croaking of frogs, faint and far off, and the echoes of the great clock hum in the airless calm long after the strokes have ceased. i wonder how blackwater park will look in the daytime? i don't altogether like it by night. th.--a day of investigations and discoveries--a more interesting day, for many reasons, than i had ventured to anticipate. i began my sight-seeing, of course, with the house. the main body of the building is of the time of that highly-overrated woman, queen elizabeth. on the ground floor there are two hugely long galleries, with low ceilings lying parallel with each other, and rendered additionally dark and dismal by hideous family portraits--every one of which i should like to burn. the rooms on the floor above the two galleries are kept in tolerable repair, but are very seldom used. the civil housekeeper, who acted as my guide, offered to show me over them, but considerately added that she feared i should find them rather out of order. my respect for the integrity of my own petticoats and stockings infinitely exceeds my respect for all the elizabethan bedrooms in the kingdom, so i positively declined exploring the upper regions of dust and dirt at the risk of soiling my nice clean clothes. the housekeeper said, "i am quite of your opinion, miss," and appeared to think me the most sensible woman she had met with for a long time past. so much, then, for the main building. two wings are added at either end of it. the half-ruined wing on the left (as you approach the house) was once a place of residence standing by itself, and was built in the fourteenth century. one of sir percival's maternal ancestors--i don't remember, and don't care which--tacked on the main building, at right angles to it, in the aforesaid queen elizabeth's time. the housekeeper told me that the architecture of "the old wing," both outside and inside, was considered remarkably fine by good judges. on further investigation i discovered that good judges could only exercise their abilities on sir percival's piece of antiquity by previously dismissing from their minds all fear of damp, darkness, and rats. under these circumstances, i unhesitatingly acknowledged myself to be no judge at all, and suggested that we should treat "the old wing" precisely as we had previously treated the elizabethan bedrooms. once more the housekeeper said, "i am quite of your opinion, miss," and once more she looked at me with undisguised admiration of my extraordinary common-sense. we went next to the wing on the right, which was built, by way of completing the wonderful architectural jumble at blackwater park, in the time of george the second. this is the habitable part of the house, which has been repaired and redecorated inside on laura's account. my two rooms, and all the good bedrooms besides, are on the first floor, and the basement contains a drawing-room, a dining-room, a morning-room, a library, and a pretty little boudoir for laura, all very nicely ornamented in the bright modern way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern luxuries. none of the rooms are anything like so large and airy as our rooms at limmeridge, but they all look pleasant to live in. i was terribly afraid, from what i had heard of blackwater park, of fatiguing antique chairs, and dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings, and all the barbarous lumber which people born without a sense of comfort accumulate about them, in defiance of the consideration due to the convenience of their friends. it is an inexpressible relief to find that the nineteenth century has invaded this strange future home of mine, and has swept the dirty "good old times" out of the way of our daily life. i dawdled away the morning--part of the time in the rooms downstairs, and part out of doors in the great square which is formed by the three sides of the house, and by the lofty iron railings and gates which protect it in front. a large circular fish-pond with stone sides, and an allegorical leaden monster in the middle, occupies the centre of the square. the pond itself is full of gold and silver fish, and is encircled by a broad belt of the softest turf i ever walked on. i loitered here on the shady side pleasantly enough till luncheon-time, and after that took my broad straw hat and wandered out alone in the warm lovely sunlight to explore the grounds. daylight confirmed the impression which i had felt the night before, of there being too many trees at blackwater. the house is stifled by them. they are, for the most part, young, and planted far too thickly. i suspect there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber all over the estate before sir percival's time, and an angry anxiety on the part of the next possessor to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly as possible. after looking about me in front of the house, i observed a flower-garden on my left hand, and walked towards it to see what i could discover in that direction. on a nearer view the garden proved to be small and poor and ill kept. i left it behind me, opened a little gate in a ring fence, and found myself in a plantation of fir-trees. a pretty winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees, and my north-country experience soon informed me that i was approaching sandy, heathy ground. after a walk of more than half a mile, i should think, among the firs, the path took a sharp turn--the trees abruptly ceased to appear on either side of me, and i found myself standing suddenly on the margin of a vast open space, and looking down at the blackwater lake from which the house takes its name. the ground, shelving away below me, was all sand, with a few little heathy hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. the lake itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on which i stood, and had been gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its former size. i saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter of a mile away from me in the hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining reeds and rushes, and little knolls of earth. on the farther bank from me the trees rose thickly again, and shut out the view, and cast their black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water. as i walked down to the lake, i saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, overgrown with rank grass and dismal willows. the water, which was clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks, and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees. the frogs were croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water, like live shadows themselves, as i got nearer to the marshy side of the lake. i saw here, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still. far and near the view suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay, and the glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. i turned and retraced my steps to the high heathy ground, directing them a little aside from my former path towards a shabby old wooden shed, which stood on the outer skirt of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto been too unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of the lake. on approaching the shed i found that it had once been a boat-house, and that an attempt had apparently been made to convert it afterwards into a sort of rude arbour, by placing inside it a firwood seat, a few stools, and a table. i entered the place, and sat down for a little while to rest and get my breath again. i had not been in the boat-house more than a minute when it struck me that the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by something beneath me. i listened intently for a moment, and heard a low, thick, sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under the seat which i was occupying. my nerves are not easily shaken by trifles, but on this occasion i started to my feet in a fright--called out--received no answer--summoned back my recreant courage, and looked under the seat. there, crouched up in the farthest corner, lay the forlorn cause of my terror, in the shape of a poor little dog--a black and white spaniel. the creature moaned feebly when i looked at it and called to it, but never stirred. i moved away the seat and looked closer. the poor little dog's eyes were glazing fast, and there were spots of blood on its glossy white side. the misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is surely one of the saddest of all the mournful sights which this world can show. i lifted the poor dog in my arms as gently as i could, and contrived a sort of make-shift hammock for him to lie in, by gathering up the front of my dress all round him. in this way i took the creature, as painlessly as possible, and as fast as possible, back to the house. finding no one in the hall i went up at once to my own sitting-room, made a bed for the dog with one of my old shawls, and rang the bell. the largest and fattest of all possible house-maids answered it, in a state of cheerful stupidity which would have provoked the patience of a saint. the girl's fat, shapeless face actually stretched into a broad grin at the sight of the wounded creature on the floor. "what do you see there to laugh at?" i asked, as angrily as if she had been a servant of my own. "do you know whose dog it is?" "no, miss, that i certainly don't." she stooped, and looked down at the spaniel's injured side--brightened suddenly with the irradiation of a new idea--and pointing to the wound with a chuckle of satisfaction, said, "that's baxter's doings, that is." i was so exasperated that i could have boxed her ears. "baxter?" i said. "who is the brute you call baxter?" the girl grinned again more cheerfully than ever. "bless you, miss! baxter's the keeper, and when he finds strange dogs hunting about, he takes and shoots 'em. it's keeper's dooty miss, i think that dog will die. here's where he's been shot, ain't it? that's baxter's doings, that is. baxter's doings, miss, and baxter's dooty." i was almost wicked enough to wish that baxter had shot the housemaid instead of the dog. seeing that it was quite useless to expect this densely impenetrable personage to give me any help in relieving the suffering creature at our feet, i told her to request the housekeeper's attendance with my compliments. she went out exactly as she had come in, grinning from ear to ear. as the door closed on her she said to herself softly, "it's baxter's doings and baxter's dooty--that's what it is." the housekeeper, a person of some education and intelligence, thoughtfully brought upstairs with her some milk and some warm water. the instant she saw the dog on the floor she started and changed colour. "why, lord bless me," cried the housekeeper, "that must be mrs. catherick's dog!" "whose?" i asked, in the utmost astonishment. "mrs. catherick's. you seem to know mrs. catherick, miss halcombe?" "not personally, but i have heard of her. does she live here? has she had any news of her daughter?" "no, miss halcombe, she came here to ask for news." "when?" "only yesterday. she said some one had reported that a stranger answering to the description of her daughter had been seen in our neighbourhood. no such report has reached us here, and no such report was known in the village, when i sent to make inquiries there on mrs. catherick's account. she certainly brought this poor little dog with her when she came, and i saw it trot out after her when she went away. i suppose the creature strayed into the plantations, and got shot. where did you find it, miss halcombe?" "in the old shed that looks out on the lake." "ah, yes, that is the plantation side, and the poor thing dragged itself, i suppose, to the nearest shelter, as dogs will, to die. if you can moisten its lips with the milk, miss halcombe, i will wash the clotted hair from the wound. i am very much afraid it is too late to do any good. however, we can but try." mrs. catherick! the name still rang in my ears, as if the housekeeper had only that moment surprised me by uttering it. while we were attending to the dog, the words of walter hartright's caution to me returned to my memory: "if ever anne catherick crosses your path, make better use of the opportunity, miss halcombe, than i made of it." the finding of the wounded spaniel had led me already to the discovery of mrs. catherick's visit to blackwater park, and that event might lead in its turn, to something more. i determined to make the most of the chance which was now offered to me, and to gain as much information as i could. "did you say that mrs. catherick lived anywhere in this neighbourhood?" i asked. "oh dear, no," said the housekeeper. "she lives at welmingham, quite at the other end of the county--five-and-twenty miles off, at least." "i suppose you have known mrs. catherick for some years?" "on the contrary, miss halcombe, i never saw her before she came here yesterday. i had heard of her, of course, because i had heard of sir percival's kindness in putting her daughter under medical care. mrs. catherick is rather a strange person in her manners, but extremely respectable-looking. she seemed sorely put out when she found that there was no foundation--none, at least, that any of us could discover--for the report of her daughter having been seen in this neighbourhood." "i am rather interested about mrs. catherick," i went on, continuing the conversation as long as possible. "i wish i had arrived here soon enough to see her yesterday. did she stay for any length of time?" "yes," said the housekeeper, "she stayed for some time; and i think she would have remained longer, if i had not been called away to speak to a strange gentleman--a gentleman who came to ask when sir percival was expected back. mrs. catherick got up and left at once, when she heard the maid tell me what the visitor's errand was. she said to me, at parting, that there was no need to tell sir percival of her coming here. i thought that rather an odd remark to make, especially to a person in my responsible situation." i thought it an odd remark too. sir percival had certainly led me to believe, at limmeridge, that the most perfect confidence existed between himself and mrs. catherick. if that was the case, why should she be anxious to have her visit at blackwater park kept a secret from him? "probably," i said, seeing that the housekeeper expected me to give my opinion on mrs. catherick's parting words, "probably she thought the announcement of her visit might vex sir percival to no purpose, by reminding him that her lost daughter was not found yet. did she talk much on that subject?" "very little," replied the housekeeper. "she talked principally of sir percival, and asked a great many questions about where he had been travelling, and what sort of lady his new wife was. she seemed to be more soured and put out than distressed, by failing to find any traces of her daughter in these parts. 'i give her up,' were the last words she said that i can remember; 'i give her up, ma'am, for lost.' and from that she passed at once to her questions about lady glyde, wanting to know if she was a handsome, amiable lady, comely and healthy and young----ah, dear! i thought how it would end. look, miss halcombe, the poor thing is out of its misery at last!" the dog was dead. it had given a faint, sobbing cry, it had suffered an instant's convulsion of the limbs, just as those last words, "comely and healthy and young," dropped from the housekeeper's lips. the change had happened with startling suddenness--in one moment the creature lay lifeless under our hands. eight o'clock. i have just returned from dining downstairs, in solitary state. the sunset is burning redly on the wilderness of trees that i see from my window, and i am poring over my journal again, to calm my impatience for the return of the travellers. they ought to have arrived, by my calculations, before this. how still and lonely the house is in the drowsy evening quiet! oh me! how many minutes more before i hear the carriage wheels and run downstairs to find myself in laura's arms? the poor little dog! i wish my first day at blackwater park had not been associated with death, though it is only the death of a stray animal. welmingham--i see, on looking back through these private pages of mine, that welmingham is the name of the place where mrs. catherick lives. her note is still in my possession, the note in answer to that letter about her unhappy daughter which sir percival obliged me to write. one of these days, when i can find a safe opportunity, i will take the note with me by way of introduction, and try what i can make of mrs. catherick at a personal interview. i don't understand her wishing to conceal her visit to this place from sir percival's knowledge, and i don't feel half so sure, as the housekeeper seems to do, that her daughter anne is not in the neighbourhood after all. what would walter hartright have said in this emergency? poor, dear hartright! i am beginning to feel the want of his honest advice and his willing help already. surely i heard something. was it a bustle of footsteps below stairs? yes! i hear the horses' feet--i hear the rolling wheels---- ii june th.--the confusion of their arrival has had time to subside. two days have elapsed since the return of the travellers, and that interval has sufficed to put the new machinery of our lives at blackwater park in fair working order. i may now return to my journal, with some little chance of being able to continue the entries in it as collectedly as usual. i think i must begin by putting down an odd remark which has suggested itself to me since laura came back. when two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two first meet. the sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them on either side. after the first happiness of my meeting with laura was over, after we had sat down together hand in hand to recover breath enough and calmness enough to talk, i felt this strangeness instantly, and i could see that she felt it too. it has partially worn away, now that we have fallen back into most of our old habits, and it will probably disappear before long. but it has certainly had an influence over the first impressions that i have formed of her, now that we are living together again--for which reason only i have thought fit to mention it here. she has found me unaltered, but i have found her changed. changed in person, and in one respect changed in character. i cannot absolutely say that she is less beautiful than she used to be--i can only say that she is less beautiful to me. others, who do not look at her with my eyes and my recollections, would probably think her improved. there is more colour and more decision and roundness of outline in her face than there used to be, and her figure seems more firmly set and more sure and easy in all its movements than it was in her maiden days. but i miss something when i look at her--something that once belonged to the happy, innocent life of laura fairlie, and that i cannot find in lady glyde. there was in the old times a freshness, a softness, an ever-varying and yet ever-remaining tenderness of beauty in her face, the charm of which it is not possible to express in words, or, as poor hartright used often to say, in painting either. this is gone. i thought i saw the faint reflection of it for a moment when she turned pale under the agitation of our sudden meeting on the evening of her return, but it has never reappeared since. none of her letters had prepared me for a personal change in her. on the contrary, they had led me to expect that her marriage had left her, in appearance at least, quite unaltered. perhaps i read her letters wrongly in the past, and am now reading her face wrongly in the present? no matter! whether her beauty has gained or whether it has lost in the last six months, the separation either way has made her own dear self more precious to me than ever, and that is one good result of her marriage, at any rate! the second change, the change that i have observed in her character, has not surprised me, because i was prepared for it in this case by the tone of her letters. now that she is at home again, i find her just as unwilling to enter into any details on the subject of her married life as i had previously found her all through the time of our separation, when we could only communicate with each other by writing. at the first approach i made to the forbidden topic she put her hand on my lips with a look and gesture which touchingly, almost painfully, recalled to my memory the days of her girlhood and the happy bygone time when there were no secrets between us. "whenever you and i are together, marian," she said, "we shall both be happier and easier with one another, if we accept my married life for what it is, and say and think as little about it as possible. i would tell you everything, darling, about myself," she went on, nervously buckling and unbuckling the ribbon round my waist, "if my confidences could only end there. but they could not--they would lead me into confidences about my husband too; and now i am married, i think i had better avoid them, for his sake, and for your sake, and for mine. i don't say that they would distress you, or distress me--i wouldn't have you think that for the world. but--i want to be so happy, now i have got you back again, and i want you to be so happy too----" she broke off abruptly, and looked round the room, my own sitting-room, in which we were talking. "ah!" she cried, clapping her hands with a bright smile of recognition, "another old friend found already! your book-case, marian--your dear-little-shabby-old-satin-wood book-case--how glad i am you brought it with you from limmeridge! and the horrid heavy man's umbrella, that you always would walk out with when it rained! and first and foremost of all, your own dear, dark, clever, gipsy-face, looking at me just as usual! it is so like home again to be here. how can we make it more like home still? i will put my father's portrait in your room instead of in mine--and i will keep all my little treasures from limmeridge here--and we will pass hours and hours every day with these four friendly walls round us. oh, marian!" she said, suddenly seating herself on a footstool at my knees, and looking up earnestly in my face, "promise you will never marry, and leave me. it is selfish to say so, but you are so much better off as a single woman--unless--unless you are very fond of your husband--but you won't be very fond of anybody but me, will you?" she stopped again, crossed my hands on my lap, and laid her face on them. "have you been writing many letters, and receiving many letters lately?" she asked, in low, suddenly-altered tones. i understood what the question meant, but i thought it my duty not to encourage her by meeting her half way. "have you heard from him?" she went on, coaxing me to forgive the more direct appeal on which she now ventured, by kissing my hands, upon which her face still rested. "is he well and happy, and getting on in his profession? has he recovered himself--and forgotten me?" she should not have asked those questions. she should have remembered her own resolution, on the morning when sir percival held her to her marriage engagement, and when she resigned the book of hartright's drawings into my hands for ever. but, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back? where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image that has been once fixed in it by a true love? books tell us that such unearthly creatures have existed--but what does our own experience say in answer to books? i made no attempt to remonstrate with her: perhaps, because i sincerely appreciated the fearless candour which let me see, what other women in her position might have had reasons for concealing even from their dearest friends--perhaps, because i felt, in my own heart and conscience, that in her place i should have asked the same questions and had the same thoughts. all i could honestly do was to reply that i had not written to him or heard from him lately, and then to turn the conversation to less dangerous topics. there has been much to sadden me in our interview--my first confidential interview with her since her return. the change which her marriage has produced in our relations towards each other, by placing a forbidden subject between us, for the first time in our lives; the melancholy conviction of the dearth of all warmth of feeling, of all close sympathy, between her husband and herself, which her own unwilling words now force on my mind; the distressing discovery that the influence of that ill-fated attachment still remains (no matter how innocently, how harmlessly) rooted as deeply as ever in her heart--all these are disclosures to sadden any woman who loves her as dearly, and feels for her as acutely, as i do. there is only one consolation to set against them--a consolation that ought to comfort me, and that does comfort me. all the graces and gentleness of her character--all the frank affection of her nature--all the sweet, simple, womanly charms which used to make her the darling and delight of every one who approached her, have come back to me with herself. of my other impressions i am sometimes a little inclined to doubt. of this last, best, happiest of all impressions, i grow more and more certain every hour in the day. let me turn, now, from her to her travelling companions. her husband must engage my attention first. what have i observed in sir percival, since his return, to improve my opinion of him? i can hardly say. small vexations and annoyances seem to have beset him since he came back, and no man, under those circumstances, is ever presented at his best. he looks, as i think, thinner than he was when he left england. his wearisome cough and his comfortless restlessness have certainly increased. his manner--at least his manner towards me--is much more abrupt than it used to be. he greeted me, on the evening of his return, with little or nothing of the ceremony and civility of former times--no polite speeches of welcome--no appearance of extraordinary gratification at seeing me--nothing but a short shake of the hand, and a sharp "how-d'ye-do, miss halcombe--glad to see you again." he seemed to accept me as one of the necessary fixtures of blackwater park, to be satisfied at finding me established in my proper place, and then to pass me over altogether. most men show something of their disposition in their own houses, which they have concealed elsewhere, and sir percival has already displayed a mania for order and regularity, which is quite a new revelation of him, so far as my previous knowledge of his character is concerned. if i take a book from the library and leave it on the table, he follows me and puts it back again. if i rise from a chair, and let it remain where i have been sitting, he carefully restores it to its proper place against the wall. he picks up stray flower-blossoms from the carpet, and mutters to himself as discontentedly as if they were hot cinders burning holes in it, and he storms at the servants if there is a crease in the tablecloth, or a knife missing from its place at the dinner-table, as fiercely as if they had personally insulted him. i have already referred to the small annoyances which appear to have troubled him since his return. much of the alteration for the worse which i have noticed in him may be due to these. i try to persuade myself that it is so, because i am anxious not to be disheartened already about the future. it is certainly trying to any man's temper to be met by a vexation the moment he sets foot in his own house again, after a long absence, and this annoying circumstance did really happen to sir percival in my presence. on the evening of their arrival the housekeeper followed me into the hall to receive her master and mistress and their guests. the instant he saw her, sir percival asked if any one had called lately. the housekeeper mentioned to him, in reply, what she had previously mentioned to me, the visit of the strange gentleman to make inquiries about the time of her master's return. he asked immediately for the gentleman's name. no name had been left. the gentleman's business? no business had been mentioned. what was the gentleman like? the housekeeper tried to describe him, but failed to distinguish the nameless visitor by any personal peculiarity which her master could recognise. sir percival frowned, stamped angrily on the floor, and walked on into the house, taking no notice of anybody. why he should have been so discomposed by a trifle i cannot say--but he was seriously discomposed, beyond all doubt. upon the whole, it will be best, perhaps, if i abstain from forming a decisive opinion of his manners, language, and conduct in his own house, until time has enabled him to shake off the anxieties, whatever they may be, which now evidently troubled his mind in secret. i will turn over to a new page, and my pen shall let laura's husband alone for the present. the two guests--the count and countess fosco--come next in my catalogue. i will dispose of the countess first, so as to have done with the woman as soon as possible. laura was certainly not chargeable with any exaggeration, in writing me word that i should hardly recognise her aunt again when we met. never before have i beheld such a change produced in a woman by her marriage as has been produced in madame fosco. as eleanor fairlie (aged seven-and-thirty), she was always talking pretentious nonsense, and always worrying the unfortunate men with every small exaction which a vain and foolish woman can impose on long-suffering male humanity. as madame fosco (aged three-and-forty), she sits for hours together without saying a word, frozen up in the strangest manner in herself. the hideously ridiculous love-locks which used to hang on either side of her face are now replaced by stiff little rows of very short curls, of the sort one sees in old-fashioned wigs. a plain, matronly cap covers her head, and makes her look, for the first time in her life since i remember her, like a decent woman. nobody (putting her husband out of the question, of course) now sees in her, what everybody once saw--i mean the structure of the female skeleton, in the upper regions of the collar-bones and the shoulder-blades. clad in quiet black or grey gowns, made high round the throat--dresses that she would have laughed at, or screamed at, as the whim of the moment inclined her, in her maiden days--she sits speechless in corners; her dry white hands (so dry that the pores of her skin look chalky) incessantly engaged, either in monotonous embroidery work or in rolling up endless cigarettes for the count's own particular smoking. on the few occasions when her cold blue eyes are off her work, they are generally turned on her husband, with the look of mute submissive inquiry which we are all familiar with in the eyes of a faithful dog. the only approach to an inward thaw which i have yet detected under her outer covering of icy constraint, has betrayed itself, once or twice, in the form of a suppressed tigerish jealousy of any woman in the house (the maids included) to whom the count speaks, or on whom he looks with anything approaching to special interest or attention. except in this one particular, she is always, morning, noon, and night, indoors and out, fair weather or foul, as cold as a statue, and as impenetrable as the stone out of which it is cut. for the common purposes of society the extraordinary change thus produced in her is, beyond all doubt, a change for the better, seeing that it has transformed her into a civil, silent, unobtrusive woman, who is never in the way. how far she is really reformed or deteriorated in her secret self, is another question. i have once or twice seen sudden changes of expression on her pinched lips, and heard sudden inflexions of tone in her calm voice, which have led me to suspect that her present state of suppression may have sealed up something dangerous in her nature, which used to evaporate harmlessly in the freedom of her former life. it is quite possible that i may be altogether wrong in this idea. my own impression, however, is, that i am right. time will show. and the magician who has wrought this wonderful transformation--the foreign husband who has tamed this once wayward english woman till her own relations hardly know her again--the count himself? what of the count? this in two words: he looks like a man who could tame anything. if he had married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. if he had married me, i should have made his cigarettes, as his wife does--i should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds hers. i am almost afraid to confess it, even to these secret pages. the man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. in two short days he has made his way straight into my favourable estimation, and how he has worked the miracle is more than i can tell. it absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly i see him!--how much more plainly than i see sir percival, or mr. fairlie, or walter hartright, or any other absent person of whom i think, with the one exception of laura herself! i can hear his voice, as if he was speaking at this moment. i know what his conversation was yesterday, as well as if i was hearing it now. how am i to describe him? there are peculiarities in his personal appearance, his habits, and his amusements, which i should blame in the boldest terms, or ridicule in the most merciless manner, if i had seen them in another man. what is it that makes me unable to blame them, or to ridicule them in him? for example, he is immensely fat. before this time i have always especially disliked corpulent humanity. i have always maintained that the popular notion of connecting excessive grossness of size and excessive good-humour as inseparable allies was equivalent to declaring, either that no people but amiable people ever get fat, or that the accidental addition of so many pounds of flesh has a directly favourable influence over the disposition of the person on whose body they accumulate. i have invariably combated both these absurd assertions by quoting examples of fat people who were as mean, vicious, and cruel as the leanest and the worst of their neighbours. i have asked whether henry the eighth was an amiable character? whether pope alexander the sixth was a good man? whether mr. murderer and mrs. murderess manning were not both unusually stout people? whether hired nurses, proverbially as cruel a set of women as are to be found in all england, were not, for the most part, also as fat a set of women as are to be found in all england?--and so on, through dozens of other examples, modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low. holding these strong opinions on the subject with might and main as i do at this moment, here, nevertheless, is count fosco, as fat as henry the eighth himself, established in my favour, at one day's notice, without let or hindrance from his own odious corpulence. marvellous indeed! is it his face that has recommended him? it may be his face. he is a most remarkable likeness, on a large scale, of the great napoleon. his features have napoleon's magnificent regularity--his expression recalls the grandly calm, immovable power of the great soldier's face. this striking resemblance certainly impressed me, to begin with; but there is something in him besides the resemblance, which has impressed me more. i think the influence i am now trying to find is in his eyes. they are the most unfathomable grey eyes i ever saw, and they have at times a cold, clear, beautiful, irresistible glitter in them which forces me to look at him, and yet causes me sensations, when i do look, which i would rather not feel. other parts of his face and head have their strange peculiarities. his complexion, for instance, has a singular sallow-fairness, so much at variance with the dark-brown colour of his hair, that i suspect the hair of being a wig, and his face, closely shaven all over, is smoother and freer from all marks and wrinkles than mine, though (according to sir percival's account of him) he is close on sixty years of age. but these are not the prominent personal characteristics which distinguish him, to my mind, from all the other men i have ever seen. the marked peculiarity which singles him out from the rank and file of humanity lies entirely, so far as i can tell at present, in the extraordinary expression and extraordinary power of his eyes. his manner and his command of our language may also have assisted him, in some degree, to establish himself in my good opinion. he has that quiet deference, that look of pleased, attentive interest in listening to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a woman, which, say what we may, we can none of us resist. here, too, his unusual command of the english language necessarily helps him. i had often heard of the extraordinary aptitude which many italians show in mastering our strong, hard, northern speech; but, until i saw count fosco, i had never supposed it possible that any foreigner could have spoken english as he speaks it. there are times when it is almost impossible to detect by his accent that he is not a countryman of our own, and as for fluency, there are very few born englishmen who can talk with as few stoppages and repetitions as the count. he may construct his sentences more or less in the foreign way, but i have never yet heard him use a wrong expression, or hesitate for a moment in his choice of a word. all the smallest characteristics of this strange man have something strikingly original and perplexingly contradictory in them. fat as he is and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. he is as noiseless in a room as any of us women, and more than that, with all his look of unmistakable mental firmness and power, he is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us. he starts at chance noises as inveterately as laura herself. he winced and shuddered yesterday, when sir percival beat one of the spaniels, so that i felt ashamed of my own want of tenderness and sensibility by comparison with the count. the relation of this last incident reminds me of one of his most curious peculiarities, which i have not yet mentioned--his extraordinary fondness for pet animals. some of these he has left on the continent, but he has brought with him to this house a cockatoo, two canary-birds, and a whole family of white mice. he attends to all the necessities of these strange favourites himself, and he has taught the creatures to be surprisingly fond of him and familiar with him. the cockatoo, a most vicious and treacherous bird towards every one else, absolutely seems to love him. when he lets it out of its cage, it hops on to his knee, and claws its way up his great big body, and rubs its top-knot against his sallow double chin in the most caressing manner imaginable. he has only to set the doors of the canaries' cages open, and to call them, and the pretty little cleverly trained creatures perch fearlessly on his hand, mount his fat outstretched fingers one by one, when he tells them to "go upstairs," and sing together as if they would burst their throats with delight when they get to the top finger. his white mice live in a little pagoda of gaily-painted wirework, designed and made by himself. they are almost as tame as the canaries, and they are perpetually let out like the canaries. they crawl all over him, popping in and out of his waistcoat, and sitting in couples, white as snow, on his capacious shoulders. he seems to be even fonder of his mice than of his other pets, smiles at them, and kisses them, and calls them by all sorts of endearing names. if it be possible to suppose an englishman with any taste for such childish interests and amusements as these, that englishman would certainly feel rather ashamed of them, and would be anxious to apologise for them, in the company of grown-up people. but the count, apparently, sees nothing ridiculous in the amazing contrast between his colossal self and his frail little pets. he would blandly kiss his white mice and twitter to his canary-birds amid an assembly of english fox-hunters, and would only pity them as barbarians when they were all laughing their loudest at him. it seems hardly credible while i am writing it down, but it is certainly true, that this same man, who has all the fondness of an old maid for his cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of an organ-boy in managing his white mice, can talk, when anything happens to rouse him, with a daring independence of thought, a knowledge of books in every language, and an experience of society in half the capitals of europe, which would make him the prominent personage of any assembly in the civilised world. this trainer of canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for white mice, is (as sir percival himself has told me) one of the first experimental chemists living, and has discovered, among other wonderful inventions, a means of petrifying the body after death, so as to preserve it, as hard as marble, to the end of time. this fat, indolent, elderly man, whose nerves are so finely strung that he starts at chance noises, and winces when he sees a house-spaniel get a whipping, went into the stable-yard on the morning after his arrival, and put his hand on the head of a chained bloodhound--a beast so savage that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of his reach. his wife and i were present, and i shall not forget the scene that followed, short as it was. "mind that dog, sir," said the groom; "he flies at everybody!" "he does that, my friend," replied the count quietly, "because everybody is afraid of him. let us see if he flies at me." and he laid his plump, yellow-white fingers, on which the canary-birds had been perching ten minutes before, upon the formidable brute's head, and looked him straight in the eyes. "you big dogs are all cowards," he said, addressing the animal contemptuously, with his face and the dog's within an inch of each other. "you would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward. you would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal coward. anything that you can surprise unawares--anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to fly at. you could throttle me at this moment, you mean, miserable bully, and you daren't so much as look me in the face, because i'm not afraid of you. will you think better of it, and try your teeth in my fat neck? bah! not you!" he turned away, laughing at the astonishment of the men in the yard, and the dog crept back meekly to his kennel. "ah! my nice waistcoat!" he said pathetically. "i am sorry i came here. some of that brute's slobber has got on my pretty clean waistcoat." those words express another of his incomprehensible oddities. he is as fond of fine clothes as the veriest fool in existence, and has appeared in four magnificent waistcoats already--all of light garish colours, and all immensely large even for him--in the two days of his residence at blackwater park. his tact and cleverness in small things are quite as noticeable as the singular inconsistencies in his character, and the childish triviality of his ordinary tastes and pursuits. i can see already that he means to live on excellent terms with all of us during the period of his sojourn in this place. he has evidently discovered that laura secretly dislikes him (she confessed as much to me when i pressed her on the subject)--but he has also found out that she is extravagantly fond of flowers. whenever she wants a nosegay he has got one to give her, gathered and arranged by himself, and greatly to my amusement, he is always cunningly provided with a duplicate, composed of exactly the same flowers, grouped in exactly the same way, to appease his icily jealous wife before she can so much as think herself aggrieved. his management of the countess (in public) is a sight to see. he bows to her, he habitually addresses her as "my angel," he carries his canaries to pay her little visits on his fingers and to sing to her, he kisses her hand when she gives him his cigarettes; he presents her with sugar-plums in return, which he puts into her mouth playfully, from a box in his pocket. the rod of iron with which he rules her never appears in company--it is a private rod, and is always kept upstairs. his method of recommending himself to me is entirely different. he flatters my vanity by talking to me as seriously and sensibly as if i was a man. yes! i can find him out when i am away from him--i know he flatters my vanity, when i think of him up here in my own room--and yet, when i go downstairs, and get into his company again, he will blind me again, and i shall be flattered again, just as if i had never found him out at all! he can manage me as he manages his wife and laura, as he managed the bloodhound in the stable-yard, as he manages sir percival himself, every hour in the day. "my good percival! how i like your rough english humour!"--"my good percival! how i enjoy your solid english sense!" he puts the rudest remarks sir percival can make on his effeminate tastes and amusements quietly away from him in that manner--always calling the baronet by his christian name, smiling at him with the calmest superiority, patting him on the shoulder, and bearing with him benignantly, as a good-humoured father bears with a wayward son. the interest which i really cannot help feeling in this strangely original man has led me to question sir percival about his past life. sir percival either knows little, or will tell me little, about it. he and the count first met many years ago, at rome, under the dangerous circumstances to which i have alluded elsewhere. since that time they have been perpetually together in london, in paris, and in vienna--but never in italy again; the count having, oddly enough, not crossed the frontiers of his native country for years past. perhaps he has been made the victim of some political persecution? at all events, he seems to be patriotically anxious not to lose sight of any of his own countrymen who may happen to be in england. on the evening of his arrival he asked how far we were from the nearest town, and whether we knew of any italian gentlemen who might happen to be settled there. he is certainly in correspondence with people on the continent, for his letters have all sorts of odd stamps on them, and i saw one for him this morning, waiting in his place at the breakfast-table, with a huge, official-looking seal on it. perhaps he is in correspondence with his government? and yet, that is hardly to be reconciled either with my other idea that he may be a political exile. how much i seem to have written about count fosco! and what does it all amount to?--as poor, dear mr. gilmore would ask, in his impenetrable business-like way i can only repeat that i do assuredly feel, even on this short acquaintance, a strange, half-willing, half-unwilling liking for the count. he seems to have established over me the same sort of ascendency which he has evidently gained over sir percival. free, and even rude, as he may occasionally be in his manner towards his fat friend, sir percival is nevertheless afraid, as i can plainly see, of giving any serious offence to the count. i wonder whether i am afraid too? i certainly never saw a man, in all my experience, whom i should be so sorry to have for an enemy. is this because i like him, or because i am afraid of him? chi sa?--as count fosco might say in his own language. who knows? june th.--something to chronicle to-day besides my own ideas and impressions. a visitor has arrived--quite unknown to laura and to me, and apparently quite unexpected by sir percival. we were all at lunch, in the room with the new french windows that open into the verandah, and the count (who devours pastry as i have never yet seen it devoured by any human beings but girls at boarding-schools) had just amused us by asking gravely for his fourth tart--when the servant entered to announce the visitor. "mr. merriman has just come, sir percival, and wishes to see you immediately." sir percival started, and looked at the man with an expression of angry alarm. "mr. merriman!" he repeated, as if he thought his own ears must have deceived him. "yes, sir percival--mr. merriman, from london." "where is he?" "in the library, sir percival." he left the table the instant the last answer was given, and hurried out of the room without saying a word to any of us. "who is mr. merriman?" asked laura, appealing to me. "i have not the least idea," was all i could say in reply. the count had finished his fourth tart, and had gone to a side-table to look after his vicious cockatoo. he turned round to us with the bird perched on his shoulder. "mr. merriman is sir percival's solicitor," he said quietly. sir percival's solicitor. it was a perfectly straightforward answer to laura's question, and yet, under the circumstances, it was not satisfactory. if mr. merriman had been specially sent for by his client, there would have been nothing very wonderful in his leaving town to obey the summons. but when a lawyer travels from london to hampshire without being sent for, and when his arrival at a gentleman's house seriously startles the gentleman himself, it may be safely taken for granted that the legal visitor is the bearer of some very important and very unexpected news--news which may be either very good or very bad, but which cannot, in either case, be of the common everyday kind. laura and i sat silent at the table for a quarter of an hour or more, wondering uneasily what had happened, and waiting for the chance of sir percival's speedy return. there were no signs of his return, and we rose to leave the room. the count, attentive as usual, advanced from the corner in which he had been feeding his cockatoo, with the bird still perched on his shoulder, and opened the door for us. laura and madame fosco went out first. just as i was on the point of following them he made a sign with his hand, and spoke to me, before i passed him, in the oddest manner. "yes," he said, quietly answering the unexpressed idea at that moment in my mind, as if i had plainly confided it to him in so many words--"yes, miss halcombe, something has happened." i was on the point of answering, "i never said so," but the vicious cockatoo ruffled his clipped wings and gave a screech that set all my nerves on edge in an instant, and made me only too glad to get out of the room. i joined laura at the foot of the stairs. the thought in her mind was the same as the thought in mine, which count fosco had surprised, and when she spoke her words were almost the echo of his. she, too, said to me secretly that she was afraid something had happened. iii june th.--i have a few lines more to add to this day's entry before i go to bed to-night. about two hours after sir percival rose from the luncheon-table to receive his solicitor, mr. merriman, in the library, i left my room alone to take a walk in the plantations. just as i was at the end of the landing the library door opened and the two gentlemen came out. thinking it best not to disturb them by appearing on the stairs, i resolved to defer going down till they had crossed the hall. although they spoke to each other in guarded tones, their words were pronounced with sufficient distinctness of utterance to reach my ears. "make your mind easy, sir percival," i heard the lawyer say; "it all rests with lady glyde." i had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two, but the sound of laura's name on the lips of a stranger stopped me instantly. i daresay it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the other? i listened--and under similar circumstances i would listen again--yes! with my ear at the keyhole, if i could not possibly manage it in any other way. "you quite understand, sir percival," the lawyer went on. "lady glyde is to sign her name in the presence of a witness--or of two witnesses, if you wish to be particularly careful--and is then to put her finger on the seal and say, 'i deliver this as my act and deed.' if that is done in a week's time the arrangement will be perfectly successful, and the anxiety will be all over. if not----" "what do you mean by 'if not'?" asked sir percival angrily. "if the thing must be done it shall be done. i promise you that, merriman." "just so, sir percival--just so; but there are two alternatives in all transactions, and we lawyers like to look both of them in the face boldly. if through any extraordinary circumstance the arrangement should not be made, i think i may be able to get the parties to accept bills at three months. but how the money is to be raised when the bills fall due----" "damn the bills! the money is only to be got in one way, and in that way, i tell you again, it shall be got. take a glass of wine, merriman, before you go." "much obliged, sir percival, i have not a moment to lose if i am to catch the up-train. you will let me know as soon as the arrangement is complete? and you will not forget the caution i recommended----" "of course i won't. there's the dog-cart at the door for you. my groom will get you to the station in no time. benjamin, drive like mad! jump in. if mr. merriman misses the train you lose your place. hold fast, merriman, and if you are upset trust to the devil to save his own." with that parting benediction the baronet turned about and walked back to the library. i had not heard much, but the little that had reached my ears was enough to make me feel uneasy. the "something" that "had happened" was but too plainly a serious money embarrassment, and sir percival's relief from it depended upon laura. the prospect of seeing her involved in her husband's secret difficulties filled me with dismay, exaggerated, no doubt, by my ignorance of business and my settled distrust of sir percival. instead of going out, as i proposed, i went back immediately to laura's room to tell her what i had heard. she received my bad news so composedly as to surprise me. she evidently knows more of her husband's character and her husband's embarrassments than i have suspected up to this time. "i feared as much," she said, "when i heard of that strange gentleman who called, and declined to leave his name." "who do you think the gentleman was, then?" i asked. "some person who has heavy claims on sir percival," she answered, "and who has been the cause of mr. merriman's visit here to-day." "do you know anything about those claims?" "no, i know no particulars." "you will sign nothing, laura, without first looking at it?" "certainly not, marian. whatever i can harmlessly and honestly do to help him i will do--for the sake of making your life and mine, love, as easy and as happy as possible. but i will do nothing ignorantly, which we might, one day, have reason to feel ashamed of. let us say no more about it now. you have got your hat on--suppose we go and dream away the afternoon in the grounds?" on leaving the house we directed our steps to the nearest shade. as we passed an open space among the trees in front of the house, there was count fosco, slowly walking backwards and forwards on the grass, sunning himself in the full blaze of the hot june afternoon. he had a broad straw hat on, with a violet-coloured ribbon round it. a blue blouse, with profuse white fancy-work over the bosom, covered his prodigious body, and was girt about the place where his waist might once have been with a broad scarlet leather belt. nankeen trousers, displaying more white fancy-work over the ankles, and purple morocco slippers, adorned his lower extremities. he was singing figaro's famous song in the barber of seville, with that crisply fluent vocalisation which is never heard from any other than an italian throat, accompanying himself on the concertina, which he played with ecstatic throwings-up of his arms, and graceful twistings and turnings of his head, like a fat st. cecilia masquerading in male attire. "figaro qua! figaro la! figaro su! figaro giu!" sang the count, jauntily tossing up the concertina at arm's length, and bowing to us, on one side of the instrument, with the airy grace and elegance of figaro himself at twenty years of age. "take my word for it, laura, that man knows something of sir percival's embarrassments," i said, as we returned the count's salutation from a safe distance. "what makes you think that?" she asked. "how should he have known, otherwise, that mr. merriman was sir percival's solicitor?" i rejoined. "besides, when i followed you out of the luncheon-room, he told me, without a single word of inquiry on my part, that something had happened. depend upon it, he knows more than we do." "don't ask him any questions if he does. don't take him into our confidence!" "you seem to dislike him, laura, in a very determined manner. what has he said or done to justify you?" "nothing, marian. on the contrary, he was all kindness and attention on our journey home, and he several times checked sir percival's outbreaks of temper, in the most considerate manner towards me. perhaps i dislike him because he has so much more power over my husband than i have. perhaps it hurts my pride to be under any obligations to his interference. all i know is, that i do dislike him." the rest of the day and evening passed quietly enough. the count and i played at chess. for the first two games he politely allowed me to conquer him, and then, when he saw that i had found him out, begged my pardon, and at the third game checkmated me in ten minutes. sir percival never once referred, all through the evening, to the lawyer's visit. but either that event, or something else, had produced a singular alteration for the better in him. he was as polite and agreeable to all of us, as he used to be in the days of his probation at limmeridge, and he was so amazingly attentive and kind to his wife, that even icy madame fosco was roused into looking at him with a grave surprise. what does this mean? i think i can guess--i am afraid laura can guess--and i am sure count fosco knows. i caught sir percival looking at him for approval more than once in the course of the evening. june th.--a day of events. i most fervently hope i may not have to add, a day of disasters as well. sir percival was as silent at breakfast as he had been the evening before, on the subject of the mysterious "arrangement" (as the lawyer called it) which is hanging over our heads. an hour afterwards, however, he suddenly entered the morning-room, where his wife and i were waiting, with our hats on, for madame fosco to join us, and inquired for the count. "we expect to see him here directly," i said. "the fact is," sir percival went on, walking nervously about the room, "i want fosco and his wife in the library, for a mere business formality, and i want you there, laura, for a minute too." he stopped, and appeared to notice, for the first time, that we were in our walking costume. "have you just come in?" he asked, "or were you just going out?" "we were all thinking of going to the lake this morning," said laura. "but if you have any other arrangement to propose----" "no, no," he answered hastily. "my arrangement can wait. after lunch will do as well for it as after breakfast. all going to the lake, eh? a good idea. let's have an idle morning--i'll be one of the party." there was no mistaking his manner, even if it had been possible to mistake the uncharacteristic readiness which his words expressed, to submit his own plans and projects to the convenience of others. he was evidently relieved at finding any excuse for delaying the business formality in the library, to which his own words had referred. my heart sank within me as i drew the inevitable inference. the count and his wife joined us at that moment. the lady had her husband's embroidered tobacco-pouch, and her store of paper in her hand, for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. the gentleman, dressed, as usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda-cage, with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and on us, with a bland amiability which it was impossible to resist. "with your kind permission," said the count, "i will take my small family here--my poor-little-harmless-pretty-mouseys, out for an airing along with us. there are dogs about the house, and shall i leave my forlorn white children at the mercies of the dogs? ah, never!" he chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of the pagoda, and we all left the house for the lake. in the plantation sir percival strayed away from us. it seems to be part of his restless disposition always to separate himself from his companions on these occasions, and always to occupy himself when he is alone in cutting new walking-sticks for his own use. the mere act of cutting and lopping at hazard appears to please him. he has filled the house with walking-sticks of his own making, not one of which he ever takes up for a second time. when they have been once used his interest in them is all exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going on and making more. at the old boat-house he joined us again. i will put down the conversation that ensued when we were all settled in our places exactly as it passed. it is an important conversation, so far as i am concerned, for it has seriously disposed me to distrust the influence which count fosco has exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to resist it for the future as resolutely as i can. the boat-house was large enough to hold us all, but sir percival remained outside trimming the last new stick with his pocket-axe. we three women found plenty of room on the large seat. laura took her work, and madame fosco began her cigarettes. i, as usual, had nothing to do. my hands always were, and always will be, as awkward as a man's. the count good-humouredly took a stool many sizes too small for him, and balanced himself on it with his back against the side of the shed, which creaked and groaned under his weight. he put the pagoda-cage on his lap, and let out the mice to crawl over him as usual. they are pretty, innocent-looking little creatures, but the sight of them creeping about a man's body is for some reason not pleasant to me. it excites a strange responsive creeping in my own nerves, and suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison with the crawling creatures of the dungeon preying on them undisturbed. the morning was windy and cloudy, and the rapid alternations of shadow and sunlight over the waste of the lake made the view look doubly wild, weird, and gloomy. "some people call that picturesque," said sir percival, pointing over the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. "i call it a blot on a gentleman's property. in my great-grandfather's time the lake flowed to this place. look at it now! it is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. i wish i could afford to drain it, and plant it all over. my bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the dead sea. what do you think, fosco? it looks just the place for a murder, doesn't it?" "my good percival," remonstrated the count. "what is your solid english sense thinking of? the water is too shallow to hide the body, and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer's footsteps. it is, upon the whole, the very worst place for a murder that i ever set my eyes on." "humbug!" said sir percival, cutting away fiercely at his stick. "you know what i mean. the dreary scenery, the lonely situation. if you choose to understand me, you can--if you don't choose, i am not going to trouble myself to explain my meaning." "and why not," asked the count, "when your meaning can be explained by anybody in two words? if a fool was going to commit a murder, your lake is the first place he would choose for it. if a wise man was going to commit a murder, your lake is the last place he would choose for it. is that your meaning? if it is, there is your explanation for you ready made. take it, percival, with your good fosco's blessing." laura looked at the count with her dislike for him appearing a little too plainly in her face. he was so busy with his mice that he did not notice her. "i am sorry to hear the lake-view connected with anything so horrible as the idea of murder," she said. "and if count fosco must divide murderers into classes, i think he has been very unfortunate in his choice of expressions. to describe them as fools only seems like treating them with an indulgence to which they have no claim. and to describe them as wise men sounds to me like a downright contradiction in terms. i have always heard that truly wise men are truly good men, and have a horror of crime." "my dear lady," said the count, "those are admirable sentiments, and i have seen them stated at the tops of copy-books." he lifted one of the white mice in the palm of his hand, and spoke to it in his whimsical way. "my pretty little smooth white rascal," he said, "here is a moral lesson for you. a truly wise mouse is a truly good mouse. mention that, if you please, to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again as long as you live." "it is easy to turn everything into ridicule," said laura resolutely; "but you will not find it quite so easy, count fosco, to give me an instance of a wise man who has been a great criminal." the count shrugged his huge shoulders, and smiled on laura in the friendliest manner. "most true!" he said. "the fool's crime is the crime that is found out, and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out. if i could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man. dear lady glyde, your sound english common sense has been too much for me. it is checkmate for me this time, miss halcombe--ha?" "stand to your guns, laura," sneered sir percival, who had been listening in his place at the door. "tell him next, that crimes cause their own detection. there's another bit of copy-book morality for you, fosco. crimes cause their own detection. what infernal humbug!" "i believe it to be true," said laura quietly. sir percival burst out laughing, so violently, so outrageously, that he quite startled us all--the count more than any of us. "i believe it too," i said, coming to laura's rescue. sir percival, who had been unaccountably amused at his wife's remark, was just as unaccountably irritated by mine. he struck the new stick savagely on the sand, and walked away from us. "poor dear percival!" cried count fosco, looking after him gaily, "he is the victim of english spleen. but, my dear miss halcombe, my dear lady glyde, do you really believe that crimes cause their own detection? and you, my angel," he continued, turning to his wife, who had not uttered a word yet, "do you think so too?" "i wait to be instructed," replied the countess, in tones of freezing reproof, intended for laura and me, "before i venture on giving my opinion in the presence of well-informed men." "do you, indeed?" i said. "i remember the time, countess, when you advocated the rights of women, and freedom of female opinion was one of them." "what is your view of the subject, count?" asked madame fosco, calmly proceeding with her cigarettes, and not taking the least notice of me. the count stroked one of his white mice reflectively with his chubby little finger before he answered. "it is truly wonderful," he said, "how easily society can console itself for the worst of its shortcomings with a little bit of clap-trap. the machinery it has set up for the detection of crime is miserably ineffective--and yet only invent a moral epigram, saying that it works well, and you blind everybody to its blunders from that moment. crimes cause their own detection, do they? and murder will out (another moral epigram), will it? ask coroners who sit at inquests in large towns if that is true, lady glyde. ask secretaries of life-assurance companies if that is true, miss halcombe. read your own public journals. in the few cases that get into the newspapers, are there not instances of slain bodies found, and no murderers ever discovered? multiply the cases that are reported by the cases that are not reported, and the bodies that are found by the bodies that are not found, and what conclusion do you come to? this. that there are foolish criminals who are discovered, and wise criminals who escape. the hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? a trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other. when the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police in nine cases out of ten win. when the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police in nine cases out of ten lose. if the police win, you generally hear all about it. if the police lose, you generally hear nothing. and on this tottering foundation you build up your comfortable moral maxim that crime causes its own detection! yes--all the crime you know of. and what of the rest?" "devilish true, and very well put," cried a voice at the entrance of the boat-house. sir percival had recovered his equanimity, and had come back while we were listening to the count. "some of it may be true," i said, "and all of it may be very well put. but i don't see why count fosco should celebrate the victory of the criminal over society with so much exultation, or why you, sir percival, should applaud him so loudly for doing it." "do you hear that, fosco?" asked sir percival. "take my advice, and make your peace with your audience. tell them virtue's a fine thing--they like that, i can promise you." the count laughed inwardly and silently, and two of the white mice in his waistcoat, alarmed by the internal convulsion going on beneath them, darted out in a violent hurry, and scrambled into their cage again. "the ladies, my good percival, shall tell me about virtue," he said. "they are better authorities than i am, for they know what virtue is, and i don't." "you hear him?" said sir percival. "isn't it awful?" "it is true," said the count quietly. "i am a citizen of the world, and i have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue, that i am puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and which is the wrong. here, in england, there is one virtue. and there, in china, there is another virtue. and john englishman says my virtue is the genuine virtue. and john chinaman says my virtue is the genuine virtue. and i say yes to one, or no to the other, and am just as much bewildered about it in the case of john with the top-boots as i am in the case of john with the pigtail. ah, nice little mousey! come, kiss me. what is your own private notion of a virtuous man, my pret-pret-pretty? a man who keeps you warm, and gives you plenty to eat. and a good notion, too, for it is intelligible, at the least." "stay a minute, count," i interposed. "accepting your illustration, surely we have one unquestionable virtue in england which is wanting in china. the chinese authorities kill thousands of innocent people on the most frivolous pretexts. we in england are free from all guilt of that kind--we commit no such dreadful crime--we abhor reckless bloodshed with all our hearts." "quite right, marian," said laura. "well thought of, and well expressed." "pray allow the count to proceed," said madame fosco, with stern civility. "you will find, young ladies, that he never speaks without having excellent reasons for all that he says." "thank you, my angel," replied the count. "have a bon-bon?" he took out of his pocket a pretty little inlaid box, and placed it open on the table. "chocolat a la vanille," cried the impenetrable man, cheerfully rattling the sweetmeats in the box, and bowing all round. "offered by fosco as an act of homage to the charming society." "be good enough to go on, count," said his wife, with a spiteful reference to myself. "oblige me by answering miss halcombe." "miss halcombe is unanswerable," replied the polite italian; "that is to say, so far as she goes. yes! i agree with her. john bull does abhor the crimes of john chinaman. he is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours', and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. is he so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their way? english society, miss halcombe, is as often the accomplice as it is the enemy of crime. yes! yes! crime is in this country what crime is in other countries--a good friend to a man and to those about him as often as it is an enemy. a great rascal provides for his wife and family. the worse he is the more he makes them the objects for your sympathy. he often provides also for himself. a profligate spendthrift who is always borrowing money will get more from his friends than the rigidly honest man who only borrows of them once, under pressure of the direst want. in the one case the friends will not be at all surprised, and they will give. in the other case they will be very much surprised, and they will hesitate. is the prison that mr. scoundrel lives in at the end of his career a more uncomfortable place than the workhouse that mr. honesty lives in at the end of his career? when john-howard-philanthropist wants to relieve misery he goes to find it in prisons, where crime is wretched--not in huts and hovels, where virtue is wretched too. who is the english poet who has won the most universal sympathy--who makes the easiest of all subjects for pathetic writing and pathetic painting? that nice young person who began life with a forgery, and ended it by a suicide--your dear, romantic, interesting chatterton. which gets on best, do you think, of two poor starving dressmakers--the woman who resists temptation and is honest, or the woman who falls under temptation and steals? you all know that the stealing is the making of that second woman's fortune--it advertises her from length to breadth of good-humoured, charitable england--and she is relieved, as the breaker of a commandment, when she would have been left to starve, as the keeper of it. come here, my jolly little mouse! hey! presto! pass! i transform you, for the time being, into a respectable lady. stop there, in the palm of my great big hand, my dear, and listen. you marry the poor man whom you love, mouse, and one half your friends pity, and the other half blame you. and now, on the contrary, you sell yourself for gold to a man you don't care for, and all your friends rejoice over you, and a minister of public worship sanctions the base horror of the vilest of all human bargains, and smiles and smirks afterwards at your table, if you are polite enough to ask him to breakfast. hey! presto! pass! be a mouse again, and squeak. if you continue to be a lady much longer, i shall have you telling me that society abhors crime--and then, mouse, i shall doubt if your own eyes and ears are really of any use to you. ah! i am a bad man, lady glyde, am i not? i say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones beneath. i will get up on my big elephant's legs, before i do myself any more harm in your amiable estimations--i will get up and take a little airy walk of my own. dear ladies, as your excellent sheridan said, i go--and leave my character behind me." he got up, put the cage on the table, and paused for a moment to count the mice in it. "one, two, three, four----ha!" he cried, with a look of horror, "where, in the name of heaven, is the fifth--the youngest, the whitest, the most amiable of all--my benjamin of mice!" neither laura nor i were in any favorable disposition to be amused. the count's glib cynicism had revealed a new aspect of his nature from which we both recoiled. but it was impossible to resist the comical distress of so very large a man at the loss of so very small a mouse. we laughed in spite of ourselves; and when madame fosco rose to set the example of leaving the boat-house empty, so that her husband might search it to its remotest corners, we rose also to follow her out. before we had taken three steps, the count's quick eye discovered the lost mouse under the seat that we had been occupying. he pulled aside the bench, took the little animal up in his hand, and then suddenly stopped, on his knees, looking intently at a particular place on the ground just beneath him. when he rose to his feet again, his hand shook so that he could hardly put the mouse back in the cage, and his face was of a faint livid yellow hue all over. "percival!" he said, in a whisper. "percival! come here." sir percival had paid no attention to any of us for the last ten minutes. he had been entirely absorbed in writing figures on the sand, and then rubbing them out again with the point of his stick. "what's the matter now?" he asked, lounging carelessly into the boat-house. "do you see nothing there?" said the count, catching him nervously by the collar with one hand, and pointing with the other to the place near which he had found the mouse. "i see plenty of dry sand," answered sir percival, "and a spot of dirt in the middle of it." "not dirt," whispered the count, fastening the other hand suddenly on sir percival's collar, and shaking it in his agitation. "blood." laura was near enough to hear the last word, softly as he whispered it. she turned to me with a look of terror. "nonsense, my dear," i said. "there is no need to be alarmed. it is only the blood of a poor little stray dog." everybody was astonished, and everybody's eyes were fixed on me inquiringly. "how do you know that?" asked sir percival, speaking first. "i found the dog here, dying, on the day when you all returned from abroad," i replied. "the poor creature had strayed into the plantation, and had been shot by your keeper." "whose dog was it?" inquired sir percival. "not one of mine?" "did you try to save the poor thing?" asked laura earnestly. "surely you tried to save it, marian?" "yes," i said, "the housekeeper and i both did our best--but the dog was mortally wounded, and he died under our hands." "whose dog was it?" persisted sir percival, repeating his question a little irritably. "one of mine?" "no, not one of yours." "whose then? did the housekeeper know?" the housekeeper's report of mrs. catherick's desire to conceal her visit to blackwater park from sir percival's knowledge recurred to my memory the moment he put that last question, and i half doubted the discretion of answering it; but in my anxiety to quiet the general alarm, i had thoughtlessly advanced too far to draw back, except at the risk of exciting suspicion, which might only make matters worse. there was nothing for it but to answer at once, without reference to results. "yes," i said. "the housekeeper knew. she told me it was mrs. catherick's dog." sir percival had hitherto remained at the inner end of the boat-house with count fosco, while i spoke to him from the door. but the instant mrs. catherick's name passed my lips he pushed by the count roughly, and placed himself face to face with me under the open daylight. "how came the housekeeper to know it was mrs. catherick's dog?" he asked, fixing his eyes on mine with a frowning interest and attention, which half angered, half startled me. "she knew it," i said quietly, "because mrs. catherick brought the dog with her." "brought it with her? where did she bring it with her?" "to this house." "what the devil did mrs. catherick want at this house?" the manner in which he put the question was even more offensive than the language in which he expressed it. i marked my sense of his want of common politeness by silently turning away from him. just as i moved the count's persuasive hand was laid on his shoulder, and the count's mellifluous voice interposed to quiet him. "my dear percival!--gently--gently!" sir percival looked round in his angriest manner. the count only smiled and repeated the soothing application. "gently, my good friend--gently!" sir percival hesitated, followed me a few steps, and, to my great surprise, offered me an apology. "i beg your pardon, miss halcombe," he said. "i have been out of order lately, and i am afraid i am a little irritable. but i should like to know what mrs. catherick could possibly want here. when did she come? was the housekeeper the only person who saw her?" "the only person," i answered, "so far as i know." the count interposed again. "in that case why not question the housekeeper?" he said. "why not go, percival, to the fountain-head of information at once?" "quite right!" said sir percival. "of course the housekeeper is the first person to question. excessively stupid of me not to see it myself." with those words he instantly left us to return to the house. the motive of the count's interference, which had puzzled me at first, betrayed itself when sir percival's back was turned. he had a host of questions to put to me about mrs. catherick, and the cause of her visit to blackwater park, which he could scarcely have asked in his friend's presence. i made my answers as short as i civilly could, for i had already determined to check the least approach to any exchanging of confidences between count fosco and myself. laura, however, unconsciously helped him to extract all my information, by making inquiries herself, which left me no alternative but to reply to her, or to appear in the very unenviable and very false character of a depositary of sir percival's secrets. the end of it was, that, in about ten minutes' time, the count knew as much as i know of mrs. catherick, and of the events which have so strangely connected us with her daughter, anne, from the time when hartright met with her to this day. the effect of my information on him was, in one respect, curious enough. intimately as he knows sir percival, and closely as he appears to be associated with sir percival's private affairs in general, he is certainly as far as i am from knowing anything of the true story of anne catherick. the unsolved mystery in connection with this unhappy woman is now rendered doubly suspicious, in my eyes, by the absolute conviction which i feel, that the clue to it has been hidden by sir percival from the most intimate friend he has in the world. it was impossible to mistake the eager curiosity of the count's look and manner while he drank in greedily every word that fell from my lips. there are many kinds of curiosity, i know--but there is no misinterpreting the curiosity of blank surprise: if i ever saw it in my life i saw it in the count's face. while the questions and answers were going on, we had all been strolling quietly back through the plantation. as soon as we reached the house the first object that we saw in front of it was sir percival's dog-cart, with the horse put to and the groom waiting by it in his stable-jacket. if these unexpected appearances were to be trusted, the examination of the house-keeper had produced important results already. "a fine horse, my friend," said the count, addressing the groom with the most engaging familiarity of manner, "you are going to drive out?" "i am not going, sir," replied the man, looking at his stable-jacket, and evidently wondering whether the foreign gentleman took it for his livery. "my master drives himself." "aha!" said the count, "does he indeed? i wonder he gives himself the trouble when he has got you to drive for him. is he going to fatigue that nice, shining, pretty horse by taking him very far to-day?" "i don't know, sir," answered the man. "the horse is a mare, if you please, sir. she's the highest-couraged thing we've got in the stables. her name's brown molly, sir, and she'll go till she drops. sir percival usually takes isaac of york for the short distances." "and your shining courageous brown molly for the long?" "logical inference, miss halcombe," continued the count, wheeling round briskly, and addressing me. "sir percival is going a long distance to-day." i made no reply. i had my own inferences to draw, from what i knew through the housekeeper and from what i saw before me, and i did not choose to share them with count fosco. when sir percival was in cumberland (i thought to myself), he walked away a long distance, on anne's account, to question the family at todd's corner. now he is in hampshire, is he going to drive away a long distance, on anne's account again, to question mrs. catherick at welmingham? we all entered the house. as we crossed the hall sir percival came out from the library to meet us. he looked hurried and pale and anxious--but for all that, he was in his most polite mood when he spoke to us. "i am sorry to say i am obliged to leave you," he began--"a long drive--a matter that i can't very well put off. i shall be back in good time to-morrow--but before i go i should like that little business-formality, which i spoke of this morning, to be settled. laura, will you come into the library? it won't take a minute--a mere formality. countess, may i trouble you also? i want you and the countess, fosco, to be witnesses to a signature--nothing more. come in at once and get it over." he held the library door open until they had passed in, followed them, and shut it softly. i remained, for a moment afterwards, standing alone in the hall, with my heart beating fast and my mind misgiving me sadly. then i went on to the staircase, and ascended slowly to my own room. iv june th.--just as my hand was on the door of my room, i heard sir percival's voice calling to me from below. "i must beg you to come downstairs again," he said. "it is fosco's fault, miss halcombe, not mine. he has started some nonsensical objection to his wife being one of the witnesses, and has obliged me to ask you to join us in the library." i entered the room immediately with sir percival. laura was waiting by the writing-table, twisting and turning her garden hat uneasily in her hands. madame fosco sat near her, in an arm-chair, imperturbably admiring her husband, who stood by himself at the other end of the library, picking off the dead leaves from the flowers in the window. the moment i appeared the count advanced to meet me, and to offer his explanations. "a thousand pardons, miss halcombe," he said. "you know the character which is given to my countrymen by the english? we italians are all wily and suspicious by nature, in the estimation of the good john bull. set me down, if you please, as being no better than the rest of my race. i am a wily italian and a suspicious italian. you have thought so yourself, dear lady, have you not? well! it is part of my wiliness and part of my suspicion to object to madame fosco being a witness to lady glyde's signature, when i am also a witness myself." "there is not the shadow of a reason for his objection," interposed sir percival. "i have explained to him that the law of england allows madame fosco to witness a signature as well as her husband." "i admit it," resumed the count. "the law of england says, yes, but the conscience of fosco says, no." he spread out his fat fingers on the bosom of his blouse, and bowed solemnly, as if he wished to introduce his conscience to us all, in the character of an illustrious addition to the society. "what this document which lady glyde is about to sign may be," he continued, "i neither know nor desire to know. i only say this, circumstances may happen in the future which may oblige percival, or his representatives, to appeal to the two witnesses, in which case it is certainly desirable that those witnesses should represent two opinions which are perfectly independent the one of the other. this cannot be if my wife signs as well as myself, because we have but one opinion between us, and that opinion is mine. i will not have it cast in my teeth, at some future day, that madame fosco acted under my coercion, and was, in plain fact, no witness at all. i speak in percival's interest, when i propose that my name shall appear (as the nearest friend of the husband), and your name, miss halcombe (as the nearest friend of the wife). i am a jesuit, if you please to think so--a splitter of straws--a man of trifles and crochets and scruples--but you will humour me, i hope, in merciful consideration for my suspicious italian character, and my uneasy italian conscience." he bowed again, stepped back a few paces, and withdrew his conscience from our society as politely as he had introduced it. the count's scruples might have been honourable and reasonable enough, but there was something in his manner of expressing them which increased my unwillingness to be concerned in the business of the signature. no consideration of less importance than my consideration for laura would have induced me to consent to be a witness at all. one look, however, at her anxious face decided me to risk anything rather than desert her. "i will readily remain in the room," i said. "and if i find no reason for starting any small scruples on my side, you may rely on me as a witness." sir percival looked at me sharply, as if he was about to say something. but at the same moment, madame fosco attracted his attention by rising from her chair. she had caught her husband's eye, and had evidently received her orders to leave the room. "you needn't go," said sir percival. madame fosco looked for her orders again, got them again, said she would prefer leaving us to our business, and resolutely walked out. the count lit a cigarette, went back to the flowers in the window, and puffed little jets of smoke at the leaves, in a state of the deepest anxiety about killing the insects. meanwhile sir percival unlocked a cupboard beneath one of the book-cases, and produced from it a piece of parchment, folded longwise, many times over. he placed it on the table, opened the last fold only, and kept his hand on the rest. the last fold displayed a strip of blank parchment with little wafers stuck on it at certain places. every line of the writing was hidden in the part which he still held folded up under his hand. laura and i looked at each other. her face was pale, but it showed no indecision and no fear. sir percival dipped a pen in ink, and handed it to his wife. "sign your name there," he said, pointing to the place. "you and fosco are to sign afterwards, miss halcombe, opposite those two wafers. come here, fosco! witnessing a signature is not to be done by mooning out of window and smoking into the flowers." the count threw away his cigarette, and joined us at the table, with his hands carelessly thrust into the scarlet belt of his blouse, and his eyes steadily fixed on sir percival's face. laura, who was on the other side of her husband, with the pen in her hand, looked at him too. he stood between them holding the folded parchment down firmly on the table, and glancing across at me, as i sat opposite to him, with such a sinister mixture of suspicion and embarrassment on his face that he looked more like a prisoner at the bar than a gentleman in his own house. "sign there," he repeated, turning suddenly on laura, and pointing once more to the place on the parchment. "what is it i am to sign?" she asked quietly. "i have no time to explain," he answered. "the dog-cart is at the door, and i must go directly. besides, if i had time, you wouldn't understand. it is a purely formal document, full of legal technicalities, and all that sort of thing. come! come! sign your name, and let us have done as soon as possible." "i ought surely to know what i am signing, sir percival, before i write my name?" "nonsense! what have women to do with business? i tell you again, you can't understand it." "at any rate, let me try to understand it. whenever mr. gilmore had any business for me to do, he always explained it first, and i always understood him." "i dare say he did. he was your servant, and was obliged to explain. i am your husband, and am not obliged. how much longer do you mean to keep me here? i tell you again, there is no time for reading anything--the dog-cart is waiting at the door. once for all, will you sign or will you not?" she still had the pen in her hand, but she made no approach to signing her name with it. "if my signature pledges me to anything," she said, "surely i have some claim to know what that pledge is?" he lifted up the parchment, and struck it angrily on the table. "speak out!" he said. "you were always famous for telling the truth. never mind miss halcombe, never mind fosco--say, in plain terms, you distrust me." the count took one of his hands out of his belt and laid it on sir percival's shoulder. sir percival shook it off irritably. the count put it on again with unruffled composure. "control your unfortunate temper, percival," he said "lady glyde is right." "right!" cried sir percival. "a wife right in distrusting her husband!" "it is unjust and cruel to accuse me of distrusting you," said laura. "ask marian if i am not justified in wanting to know what this writing requires of me before i sign it." "i won't have any appeals made to miss halcombe," retorted sir percival. "miss halcombe has nothing to do with the matter." i had not spoken hitherto, and i would much rather not have spoken now. but the expression of distress in laura's face when she turned it towards me, and the insolent injustice of her husband's conduct, left me no other alternative than to give my opinion, for her sake, as soon as i was asked for it. "excuse me, sir percival," i said--"but as one of the witnesses to the signature, i venture to think that i have something to do with the matter. laura's objection seems to me a perfectly fair one, and speaking for myself only, i cannot assume the responsibility of witnessing her signature, unless she first understands what the writing is which you wish her to sign." "a cool declaration, upon my soul!" cried sir percival. "the next time you invite yourself to a man's house, miss halcombe, i recommend you not to repay his hospitality by taking his wife's side against him in a matter that doesn't concern you." i started to my feet as suddenly as if he had struck me. if i had been a man, i would have knocked him down on the threshold of his own door, and have left his house, never on any earthly consideration to enter it again. but i was only a woman--and i loved his wife so dearly! thank god, that faithful love helped me, and i sat down again without saying a word. she knew what i had suffered and what i had suppressed. she ran round to me, with the tears streaming from her eyes. "oh, marian!" she whispered softly. "if my mother had been alive, she could have done no more for me!" "come back and sign!" cried sir percival from the other side of the table. "shall i?" she asked in my ear; "i will, if you tell me." "no," i answered. "the right and the truth are with you--sign nothing, unless you have read it first." "come back and sign!" he reiterated, in his loudest and angriest tones. the count, who had watched laura and me with a close and silent attention, interposed for the second time. "percival!" he said. "i remember that i am in the presence of ladies. be good enough, if you please, to remember it too." sir percival turned on him speechless with passion. the count's firm hand slowly tightened its grasp on his shoulder, and the count's steady voice quietly repeated, "be good enough, if you please, to remember it too." they both looked at each other. sir percival slowly drew his shoulder from under the count's hand, slowly turned his face away from the count's eyes, doggedly looked down for a little while at the parchment on the table, and then spoke, with the sullen submission of a tamed animal, rather than the becoming resignation of a convinced man. "i don't want to offend anybody," he said, "but my wife's obstinacy is enough to try the patience of a saint. i have told her this is merely a formal document--and what more can she want? you may say what you please, but it is no part of a woman's duty to set her husband at defiance. once more, lady glyde, and for the last time, will you sign or will you not?" laura returned to his side of the table, and took up the pen again. "i will sign with pleasure," she said, "if you will only treat me as a responsible being. i care little what sacrifice is required of me, if it will affect no one else, and lead to no ill results--" "who talked of a sacrifice being required of you?" he broke in, with a half-suppressed return of his former violence. "i only meant," she resumed, "that i would refuse no concession which i could honourably make. if i have a scruple about signing my name to an engagement of which i know nothing, why should you visit it on me so severely? it is rather hard, i think, to treat count fosco's scruples so much more indulgently than you have treated mine." this unfortunate, yet most natural, reference to the count's extraordinary power over her husband, indirect as it was, set sir percival's smouldering temper on fire again in an instant. "scruples!" he repeated. "your scruples! it is rather late in the day for you to be scrupulous. i should have thought you had got over all weakness of that sort, when you made a virtue of necessity by marrying me." the instant he spoke those words, laura threw down the pen--looked at him with an expression in her eyes which, throughout all my experience of her, i had never seen in them before, and turned her back on him in dead silence. this strong expression of the most open and the most bitter contempt was so entirely unlike herself, so utterly out of her character, that it silenced us all. there was something hidden, beyond a doubt, under the mere surface-brutality of the words which her husband had just addressed to her. there was some lurking insult beneath them, of which i was wholly ignorant, but which had left the mark of its profanation so plainly on her face that even a stranger might have seen it. the count, who was no stranger, saw it as distinctly as i did. when i left my chair to join laura, i heard him whisper under his breath to sir percival, "you idiot!" laura walked before me to the door as i advanced, and at the same time her husband spoke to her once more. "you positively refuse, then, to give me your signature?" he said, in the altered tone of a man who was conscious that he had let his own licence of language seriously injure him. "after what you have just said to me," she replied firmly, "i refuse my signature until i have read every line in that parchment from the first word to the last. come away, marian, we have remained here long enough." "one moment!" interposed the count before sir percival could speak again--"one moment, lady glyde, i implore you!" laura would have left the room without noticing him, but i stopped her. "don't make an enemy of the count!" i whispered. "whatever you do, don't make an enemy of the count!" she yielded to me. i closed the door again, and we stood near it waiting. sir percival sat down at the table, with his elbow on the folded parchment, and his head resting on his clenched fist. the count stood between us--master of the dreadful position in which we were placed, as he was master of everything else. "lady glyde," he said, with a gentleness which seemed to address itself to our forlorn situation instead of to ourselves, "pray pardon me if i venture to offer one suggestion, and pray believe that i speak out of my profound respect and my friendly regard for the mistress of this house." he turned sharply towards sir percival. "is it absolutely necessary," he asked "that this thing here, under your elbow, should be signed to-day?" "it is necessary to my plans and wishes," returned the other sulkily. "but that consideration, as you may have noticed, has no influence with lady glyde." "answer my plain question plainly. can the business of the signature be put off till to-morrow--yes or no?" "yes, if you will have it so." "then what are you wasting your time for here? let the signature wait till to-morrow--let it wait till you come back." sir percival looked up with a frown and an oath. "you are taking a tone with me that i don't like," he said. "a tone i won't bear from any man." "i am advising you for your good," returned the count, with a smile of quiet contempt. "give yourself time--give lady glyde time. have you forgotten that your dog-cart is waiting at the door? my tone surprises you--ha? i dare say it does--it is the tone of a man who can keep his temper. how many doses of good advice have i given you in my time? more than you can count. have i ever been wrong? i defy you to quote me an instance of it. go! take your drive. the matter of the signature can wait till to-morrow. let it wait--and renew it when you come back." sir percival hesitated and looked at his watch. his anxiety about the secret journey which he was to take that day, revived by the count's words, was now evidently disputing possession of his mind with his anxiety to obtain laura's signature. he considered for a little while, and then got up from his chair. "it is easy to argue me down," he said, "when i have no time to answer you. i will take your advice, fosco--not because i want it, or believe in it, but because i can't stop here any longer." he paused, and looked round darkly at his wife. "if you don't give me your signature when i come back to-morrow!" the rest was lost in the noise of his opening the book-case cupboard again, and locking up the parchment once more. he took his hat and gloves off the table, and made for the door. laura and i drew back to let him pass. "remember to-morrow!" he said to his wife, and went out. we waited to give him time to cross the hall and drive away. the count approached us while we were standing near the door. "you have just seen percival at his worst, miss halcombe," he said. "as his old friend, i am sorry for him and ashamed of him. as his old friend, i promise you that he shall not break out to-morrow in the same disgraceful manner in which he has broken out to-day." laura had taken my arm while he was speaking and she pressed it significantly when he had done. it would have been a hard trial to any woman to stand by and see the office of apologist for her husband's misconduct quietly assumed by his male friend in her own house--and it was a trial to her. i thanked the count civilly, and let her out. yes! i thanked him: for i felt already, with a sense of inexpressible helplessness and humiliation, that it was either his interest or his caprice to make sure of my continuing to reside at blackwater park, and i knew after sir percival's conduct to me, that without the support of the count's influence, i could not hope to remain there. his influence, the influence of all others that i dreaded most, was actually the one tie which now held me to laura in the hour of her utmost need! we heard the wheels of the dog-cart crashing on the gravel of the drive as we came into the hall. sir percival had started on his journey. "where is he going to, marian?" laura whispered. "every fresh thing he does seems to terrify me about the future. have you any suspicions?" after what she had undergone that morning, i was unwilling to tell her my suspicions. "how should i know his secrets?" i said evasively. "i wonder if the housekeeper knows?" she persisted. "certainly not," i replied. "she must be quite as ignorant as we are." laura shook her head doubtfully. "did you not hear from the housekeeper that there was a report of anne catherick having been seen in this neighbourhood? don't you think he may have gone away to look for her?" "i would rather compose myself, laura, by not thinking about it at all, and after what has happened, you had better follow my example. come into my room, and rest and quiet yourself a little." we sat down together close to the window, and let the fragrant summer air breathe over our faces. "i am ashamed to look at you, marian," she said, "after what you submitted to downstairs, for my sake. oh, my own love, i am almost heartbroken when i think of it! but i will try to make it up to you--i will indeed!" "hush! hush!" i replied; "don't talk so. what is the trifling mortification of my pride compared to the dreadful sacrifice of your happiness?" "you heard what he said to me?" she went on quickly and vehemently. "you heard the words--but you don't know what they meant--you don't know why i threw down the pen and turned my back on him." she rose in sudden agitation, and walked about the room. "i have kept many things from your knowledge, marian, for fear of distressing you, and making you unhappy at the outset of our new lives. you don't know how he has used me. and yet you ought to know, for you saw how he used me to-day. you heard him sneer at my presuming to be scrupulous--you heard him say i had made a virtue of necessity in marrying him." she sat down again, her face flushed deeply, and her hands twisted and twined together in her lap. "i can't tell you about it now," she said; "i shall burst out crying if i tell you now--later, marian, when i am more sure of myself. my poor head aches, darling--aches, aches, aches. where is your smelling-bottle? let me talk to you about yourself. i wish i had given him my signature, for your sake. shall i give it to him to-morrow? i would rather compromise myself than compromise you. after your taking my part against him, he will lay all the blame on you if i refuse again. what shall we do? oh, for a friend to help us and advise us!--a friend we could really trust!" she sighed bitterly. i saw in her face that she was thinking of hartright--saw it the more plainly because her last words set me thinking of him too. in six months only from her marriage we wanted the faithful service he had offered to us in his farewell words. how little i once thought that we should ever want it at all! "we must do what we can to help ourselves," i said. "let us try to talk it over calmly, laura--let us do all in our power to decide for the best." putting what she knew of her husband's embarrassments and what i had heard of his conversation with the lawyer together, we arrived necessarily at the conclusion that the parchment in the library had been drawn up for the purpose of borrowing money, and that laura's signature was absolutely necessary to fit it for the attainment of sir percival's object. the second question, concerning the nature of the legal contract by which the money was to be obtained, and the degree of personal responsibility to which laura might subject herself if she signed it in the dark, involved considerations which lay far beyond any knowledge and experience that either of us possessed. my own convictions led me to believe that the hidden contents of the parchment concealed a transaction of the meanest and the most fraudulent kind. i had not formed this conclusion in consequence of sir percival's refusal to show the writing or to explain it, for that refusal might well have proceeded from his obstinate disposition and his domineering temper alone. my sole motive for distrusting his honesty sprang from the change which i had observed in his language and his manners at blackwater park, a change which convinced me that he had been acting a part throughout the whole period of his probation at limmeridge house. his elaborate delicacy, his ceremonious politeness which harmonised so agreeably with mr. gilmore's old-fashioned notions, his modesty with laura, his candour with me, his moderation with mr. fairlie--all these were the artifices of a mean, cunning, and brutal man, who had dropped his disguise when his practised duplicity had gained its end, and had openly shown himself in the library on that very day. i say nothing of the grief which this discovery caused me on laura's account, for it is not to be expressed by any words of mine. i only refer to it at all, because it decided me to oppose her signing the parchment, whatever the consequences might be, unless she was first made acquainted with the contents. under these circumstances, the one chance for us when to-morrow came was to be provided with an objection to giving the signature, which might rest on sufficiently firm commercial or legal grounds to shake sir percival's resolution, and to make him suspect that we two women understood the laws and obligations of business as well as himself. after some pondering, i determined to write to the only honest man within reach whom we could trust to help us discreetly in our forlorn situation. that man was mr. gilmore's partner, mr. kyrle, who conducted the business now that our old friend had been obliged to withdraw from it, and to leave london on account of his health. i explained to laura that i had mr. gilmore's own authority for placing implicit confidence in his partner's integrity, discretion, and accurate knowledge of all her affairs, and with her full approval i sat down at once to write the letter, i began by stating our position to mr. kyrle exactly as it was, and then asked for his advice in return, expressed in plain, downright terms which he could comprehend without any danger of misinterpretations and mistakes. my letter was as short as i could possibly make it, and was, i hope, unencumbered by needless apologies and needless details. just as i was about to put the address on the envelope an obstacle was discovered by laura, which in the effort and preoccupation of writing had escaped my mind altogether. "how are we to get the answer in time?" she asked. "your letter will not be delivered in london before to-morrow morning, and the post will not bring the reply here till the morning after." the only way of overcoming this difficulty was to have the answer brought to us from the lawyer's office by a special messenger. i wrote a postscript to that effect, begging that the messenger might be despatched with the reply by the eleven o'clock morning train, which would bring him to our station at twenty minutes past one, and so enable him to reach blackwater park by two o'clock at the latest. he was to be directed to ask for me, to answer no questions addressed to him by any one else, and to deliver his letter into no hands but mine. "in case sir percival should come back to-morrow before two o'clock," i said to laura, "the wisest plan for you to adopt is to be out in the grounds all the morning with your book or your work, and not to appear at the house till the messenger has had time to arrive with the letter. i will wait here for him all the morning, to guard against any misadventures or mistakes. by following this arrangement i hope and believe we shall avoid being taken by surprise. let us go down to the drawing-room now. we may excite suspicion if we remain shut up together too long." "suspicion?" she repeated. "whose suspicion can we excite, now that sir percival has left the house? do you mean count fosco?" "perhaps i do, laura." "you are beginning to dislike him as much as i do, marian." "no, not to dislike him. dislike is always more or less associated with contempt--i can see nothing in the count to despise." "you are not afraid of him, are you?" "perhaps i am--a little." "afraid of him, after his interference in our favour to-day!" "yes. i am more afraid of his interference than i am of sir percival's violence. remember what i said to you in the library. whatever you do, laura, don't make an enemy of the count!" we went downstairs. laura entered the drawing-room, while i proceeded across the hall, with my letter in my hand, to put it into the post-bag, which hung against the wall opposite to me. the house door was open, and as i crossed past it, i saw count fosco and his wife standing talking together on the steps outside, with their faces turned towards me. the countess came into the hall rather hastily, and asked if i had leisure enough for five minutes' private conversation. feeling a little surprised by such an appeal from such a person, i put my letter into the bag, and replied that i was quite at her disposal. she took my arm with unaccustomed friendliness and familiarity, and instead of leading me into an empty room, drew me out with her to the belt of turf which surrounded the large fish-pond. as we passed the count on the steps he bowed and smiled, and then went at once into the house, pushing the hall door to after him, but not actually closing it. the countess walked me gently round the fish-pond. i expected to be made the depositary of some extraordinary confidence, and i was astonished to find that madame fosco's communication for my private ear was nothing more than a polite assurance of her sympathy for me, after what had happened in the library. her husband had told her of all that had passed, and of the insolent manner in which sir percival had spoken to me. this information had so shocked and distressed her, on my account and on laura's, that she had made up her mind, if anything of the sort happened again, to mark her sense of sir percival's outrageous conduct by leaving the house. the count had approved of her idea, and she now hoped that i approved of it too. i thought this a very strange proceeding on the part of such a remarkably reserved woman as madame fosco, especially after the interchange of sharp speeches which had passed between us during the conversation in the boat-house on that very morning. however, it was my plain duty to meet a polite and friendly advance on the part of one of my elders with a polite and friendly reply. i answered the countess accordingly in her own tone, and then, thinking we had said all that was necessary on either side, made an attempt to get back to the house. but madame fosco seemed resolved not to part with me, and to my unspeakable amazement, resolved also to talk. hitherto the most silent of women, she now persecuted me with fluent conventionalities on the subject of married life, on the subject of sir percival and laura, on the subject of her own happiness, on the subject of the late mr. fairlie's conduct to her in the matter of her legacy, and on half a dozen other subjects besides, until she had detained me walking round and round the fish-pond for more than half an hour, and had quite wearied me out. whether she discovered this or not, i cannot say, but she stopped as abruptly as she had begun--looked towards the house door, resumed her icy manner in a moment, and dropped my arm of her own accord before i could think of an excuse for accomplishing my own release from her. as i pushed open the door and entered the hall, i found myself suddenly face to face with the count again. he was just putting a letter into the post-bag. after he had dropped it in and had closed the bag, he asked me where i had left madame fosco. i told him, and he went out at the hall door immediately to join his wife. his manner when he spoke to me was so unusually quiet and subdued that i turned and looked after him, wondering if he were ill or out of spirits. why my next proceeding was to go straight up to the post-bag and take out my own letter and look at it again, with a vague distrust on me, and why the looking at it for the second time instantly suggested the idea to my mind of sealing the envelope for its greater security--are mysteries which are either too deep or too shallow for me to fathom. women, as everybody knows, constantly act on impulses which they cannot explain even to themselves, and i can only suppose that one of those impulses was the hidden cause of my unaccountable conduct on this occasion. whatever influence animated me, i found cause to congratulate myself on having obeyed it as soon as i prepared to seal the letter in my own room. i had originally closed the envelope in the usual way by moistening the adhesive point and pressing it on the paper beneath, and when i now tried it with my finger, after a lapse of full three-quarters of an hour, the envelope opened on the instant, without sticking or tearing. perhaps i had fastened it insufficiently? perhaps there might have been some defect in the adhesive gum? or, perhaps----no! it is quite revolting enough to feel that third conjecture stirring in my mind. i would rather not see it confronting me in plain black and white. i almost dread to-morrow--so much depends on my discretion and self-control. there are two precautions, at all events, which i am sure not to forget. i must be careful to keep up friendly appearances with the count, and i must be well on my guard when the messenger from the office comes here with the answer to my letter. v june th.--when the dinner hour brought us together again, count fosco was in his usual excellent spirits. he exerted himself to interest and amuse us, as if he was determined to efface from our memories all recollection of what had passed in the library that afternoon. lively descriptions of his adventures in travelling, amusing anecdotes of remarkable people whom he had met with abroad, quaint comparisons between the social customs of various nations, illustrated by examples drawn from men and women indiscriminately all over europe, humorous confessions of the innocent follies of his own early life, when he ruled the fashions of a second-rate italian town, and wrote preposterous romances on the french model for a second-rate italian newspaper--all flowed in succession so easily and so gaily from his lips, and all addressed our various curiosities and various interests so directly and so delicately, that laura and i listened to him with as much attention and, inconsistent as it may seem, with as much admiration also, as madame fosco herself. women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money, but they cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them. after dinner, while the favourable impression which he had produced on us was still vivid in our minds, the count modestly withdrew to read in the library. laura proposed a stroll in the grounds to enjoy the close of the long evening. it was necessary in common politeness to ask madame fosco to join us, but this time she had apparently received her orders beforehand, and she begged we would kindly excuse her. "the count will probably want a fresh supply of cigarettes," she remarked by way of apology, "and nobody can make them to his satisfaction but myself." her cold blue eyes almost warmed as she spoke the words--she looked actually proud of being the officiating medium through which her lord and master composed himself with tobacco-smoke! laura and i went out together alone. it was a misty, heavy evening. there was a sense of blight in the air; the flowers were drooping in the garden, and the ground was parched and dewless. the western heaven, as we saw it over the quiet trees, was of a pale yellow hue, and the sun was setting faintly in a haze. coming rain seemed near--it would fall probably with the fall of night. "which way shall we go?" i asked "towards the lake, marian, if you like," she answered. "you seem unaccountably fond, laura, of that dismal lake." "no, not of the lake but of the scenery about it. the sand and heath and the fir-trees are the only objects i can discover, in all this large place, to remind me of limmeridge. but we will walk in some other direction if you prefer it." "i have no favourite walks at blackwater park, my love. one is the same as another to me. let us go to the lake--we may find it cooler in the open space than we find it here." we walked through the shadowy plantation in silence. the heaviness in the evening air oppressed us both, and when we reached the boat-house we were glad to sit down and rest inside. a white fog hung low over the lake. the dense brown line of the trees on the opposite bank appeared above it, like a dwarf forest floating in the sky. the sandy ground, shelving downward from where we sat, was lost mysteriously in the outward layers of the fog. the silence was horrible. no rustling of the leaves--no bird's note in the wood--no cry of water-fowl from the pools of the hidden lake. even the croaking of the frogs had ceased to-night. "it is very desolate and gloomy," said laura. "but we can be more alone here than anywhere else." she spoke quietly and looked at the wilderness of sand and mist with steady, thoughtful eyes. i could see that her mind was too much occupied to feel the dreary impressions from without which had fastened themselves already on mine. "i promised, marian, to tell you the truth about my married life, instead of leaving you any longer to guess it for yourself," she began. "that secret is the first i have ever had from you, love, and i am determined it shall be the last. i was silent, as you know, for your sake--and perhaps a little for my own sake as well. it is very hard for a woman to confess that the man to whom she has given her whole life is the man of all others who cares least for the gift. if you were married yourself, marian--and especially if you were happily married--you would feel for me as no single woman can feel, however kind and true she may be." what answer could i make? i could only take her hand and look at her with my whole heart as well as my eyes would let me. "how often," she went on, "i have heard you laughing over what you used to call your 'poverty!' how often you have made me mock-speeches of congratulation on my wealth! oh, marian, never laugh again. thank god for your poverty--it has made you your own mistress, and has saved you from the lot that has fallen on me." a sad beginning on the lips of a young wife!--sad in its quiet plain-spoken truth. the few days we had all passed together at blackwater park had been many enough to show me--to show any one--what her husband had married her for. "you shall not be distressed," she said, "by hearing how soon my disappointments and my trials began--or even by knowing what they were. it is bad enough to have them on my memory. if i tell you how he received the first and last attempt at remonstrance that i ever made, you will know how he has always treated me, as well as if i had described it in so many words. it was one day at rome when we had ridden out together to the tomb of cecilia metella. the sky was calm and lovely, and the grand old ruin looked beautiful, and the remembrance that a husband's love had raised it in the old time to a wife's memory, made me feel more tenderly and more anxiously towards my husband than i had ever felt yet. 'would you build such a tomb for me, percival?' i asked him. 'you said you loved me dearly before we were married, and yet, since that time----' i could get no farther. marian! he was not even looking at me! i pulled down my veil, thinking it best not to let him see that the tears were in my eyes. i fancied he had not paid any attention to me, but he had. he said, 'come away,' and laughed to himself as he helped me on to my horse. he mounted his own horse and laughed again as we rode away. 'if i do build you a tomb,' he said, 'it will be done with your own money. i wonder whether cecilia metella had a fortune and paid for hers.' i made no reply--how could i, when i was crying behind my veil? 'ah, you light-complexioned women are all sulky,' he said. 'what do you want? compliments and soft speeches? well! i'm in a good humour this morning. consider the compliments paid and the speeches said.' men little know when they say hard things to us how well we remember them, and how much harm they do us. it would have been better for me if i had gone on crying, but his contempt dried up my tears and hardened my heart. from that time, marian, i never checked myself again in thinking of walter hartright. i let the memory of those happy days, when we were so fond of each other in secret, come back and comfort me. what else had i to look to for consolation? if we had been together you would have helped me to better things. i know it was wrong, darling, but tell me if i was wrong without any excuse." i was obliged to turn my face from her. "don't ask me!" i said. "have i suffered as you have suffered? what right have i to decide?" "i used to think of him," she pursued, dropping her voice and moving closer to me, "i used to think of him when percival left me alone at night to go among the opera people. i used to fancy what i might have been if it had pleased god to bless me with poverty, and if i had been his wife. i used to see myself in my neat cheap gown, sitting at home and waiting for him while he was earning our bread--sitting at home and working for him and loving him all the better because i had to work for him--seeing him come in tired and taking off his hat and coat for him, and, marian, pleasing him with little dishes at dinner that i had learnt to make for his sake. oh! i hope he is never lonely enough and sad enough to think of me and see me as i have thought of him and see him!" as she said those melancholy words, all the lost tenderness returned to her voice, and all the lost beauty trembled back into her face. her eyes rested as lovingly on the blighted, solitary, ill-omened view before us, as if they saw the friendly hills of cumberland in the dim and threatening sky. "don't speak of walter any more," i said, as soon as i could control myself. "oh, laura, spare us both the wretchedness of talking of him now!" she roused herself, and looked at me tenderly. "i would rather be silent about him for ever," she answered, "than cause you a moment's pain." "it is in your interests," i pleaded; "it is for your sake that i speak. if your husband heard you----" "it would not surprise him if he did hear me." she made that strange reply with a weary calmness and coldness. the change in her manner, when she gave the answer, startled me almost as much as the answer itself. "not surprise him!" i repeated. "laura! remember what you are saying--you frighten me!" "it is true," she said; "it is what i wanted to tell you to-day, when we were talking in your room. my only secret when i opened my heart to him at limmeridge was a harmless secret, marian--you said so yourself. the name was all i kept from him, and he has discovered it." i heard her, but i could say nothing. her last words had killed the little hope that still lived in me. "it happened at rome," she went on, as wearily calm and cold as ever. "we were at a little party given to the english by some friends of sir percival's--mr. and mrs. markland. mrs. markland had the reputation of sketching very beautifully, and some of the guests prevailed on her to show us her drawings. we all admired them, but something i said attracted her attention particularly to me. 'surely you draw yourself?' she asked. 'i used to draw a little once,' i answered, 'but i have given it up.' 'if you have once drawn,' she said, 'you may take to it again one of these days, and if you do, i wish you would let me recommend you a master.' i said nothing--you know why, marian--and tried to change the conversation. but mrs. markland persisted. 'i have had all sorts of teachers,' she went on, 'but the best of all, the most intelligent and the most attentive, was a mr. hartright. if you ever take up your drawing again, do try him as a master. he is a young man--modest and gentlemanlike--i am sure you will like him.' think of those words being spoken to me publicly, in the presence of strangers--strangers who had been invited to meet the bride and bridegroom! i did all i could to control myself--i said nothing, and looked down close at the drawings. when i ventured to raise my head again, my eyes and my husband's eyes met, and i knew, by his look, that my face had betrayed me. 'we will see about mr. hartright,' he said, looking at me all the time, 'when we get back to england. i agree with you, mrs. markland--i think lady glyde is sure to like him.' he laid an emphasis on the last words which made my cheeks burn, and set my heart beating as if it would stifle me. nothing more was said. we came away early. he was silent in the carriage driving back to the hotel. he helped me out, and followed me upstairs as usual. but the moment we were in the drawing-room, he locked the door, pushed me down into a chair, and stood over me with his hands on my shoulders. 'ever since that morning when you made your audacious confession to me at limmeridge,' he said, 'i have wanted to find out the man, and i found him in your face to-night. your drawing-master was the man, and his name is hartright. you shall repent it, and he shall repent it, to the last hour of your lives. now go to bed and dream of him if you like, with the marks of my horsewhip on his shoulders.' whenever he is angry with me now he refers to what i acknowledged to him in your presence with a sneer or a threat. i have no power to prevent him from putting his own horrible construction on the confidence i placed in him. i have no influence to make him believe me, or to keep him silent. you looked surprised to-day when you heard him tell me that i had made a virtue of necessity in marrying him. you will not be surprised again when you hear him repeat it, the next time he is out of temper----oh, marian! don't! don't! you hurt me!" i had caught her in my arms, and the sting and torment of my remorse had closed them round her like a vice. yes! my remorse. the white despair of walter's face, when my cruel words struck him to the heart in the summer-house at limmeridge, rose before me in mute, unendurable reproach. my hand had pointed the way which led the man my sister loved, step by step, far from his country and his friends. between those two young hearts i had stood, to sunder them for ever, the one from the other, and his life and her life lay wasted before me alike in witness of the deed. i had done this, and done it for sir percival glyde. for sir percival glyde. i heard her speaking, and i knew by the tone of her voice that she was comforting me--i, who deserved nothing but the reproach of her silence! how long it was before i mastered the absorbing misery of my own thoughts, i cannot tell. i was first conscious that she was kissing me, and then my eyes seemed to wake on a sudden to their sense of outward things, and i knew that i was looking mechanically straight before me at the prospect of the lake. "it is late," i heard her whisper. "it will be dark in the plantation." she shook my arm and repeated, "marian! it will be dark in the plantation." "give me a minute longer," i said--"a minute, to get better in." i was afraid to trust myself to look at her yet, and i kept my eyes fixed on the view. it was late. the dense brown line of trees in the sky had faded in the gathering darkness to the faint resemblance of a long wreath of smoke. the mist over the lake below had stealthily enlarged, and advanced on us. the silence was as breathless as ever, but the horror of it had gone, and the solemn mystery of its stillness was all that remained. "we are far from the house," she whispered. "let us go back." she stopped suddenly, and turned her face from me towards the entrance of the boat-house. "marian!" she said, trembling violently. "do you see nothing? look!" "where?" "down there, below us." she pointed. my eyes followed her hand, and i saw it too. a living figure was moving over the waste of heath in the distance. it crossed our range of view from the boat-house, and passed darkly along the outer edge of the mist. it stopped far off, in front of us--waited--and passed on; moving slowly, with the white cloud of mist behind it and above it--slowly, slowly, till it glided by the edge of the boat-house, and we saw it no more. we were both unnerved by what had passed between us that evening. some minutes elapsed before laura would venture into the plantation, and before i could make up my mind to lead her back to the house. "was it a man or a woman?" she asked in a whisper, as we moved at last into the dark dampness of the outer air. "i am not certain." "which do you think?" "it looked like a woman." "i was afraid it was a man in a long cloak." "it may be a man. in this dim light it is not possible to be certain." "wait, marian! i'm frightened--i don't see the path. suppose the figure should follow us?" "not at all likely, laura. there is really nothing to be alarmed about. the shores of the lake are not far from the village, and they are free to any one to walk on by day or night. it is only wonderful we have seen no living creature there before." we were now in the plantation. it was very dark--so dark, that we found some difficulty in keeping the path. i gave laura my arm, and we walked as fast as we could on our way back. before we were half-way through she stopped, and forced me to stop with her. she was listening. "hush," she whispered. "i hear something behind us." "dead leaves," i said to cheer her, "or a twig blown off the trees." "it is summer time, marian, and there is not a breath of wind. listen!" i heard the sound too--a sound like a light footstep following us. "no matter who it is, or what it is," i said, "let us walk on. in another minute, if there is anything to alarm us, we shall be near enough to the house to be heard." we went on quickly--so quickly, that laura was breathless by the time we were nearly through the plantation, and within sight of the lighted windows. i waited a moment to give her breathing-time. just as we were about to proceed she stopped me again, and signed to me with her hand to listen once more. we both heard distinctly a long, heavy sigh behind us, in the black depths of the trees. "who's there?" i called out. there was no answer. "who's there?" i repeated. an instant of silence followed, and then we heard the light fall of the footsteps again, fainter and fainter--sinking away into the darkness--sinking, sinking, sinking--till they were lost in the silence. we hurried out from the trees to the open lawn beyond, crossed it rapidly; and without another word passing between us, reached the house. in the light of the hall-lamp laura looked at me, with white cheeks and startled eyes. "i am half dead with fear," she said. "who could it have been?" "we will try to guess to-morrow," i replied. "in the meantime say nothing to any one of what we have heard and seen." "why not?" "because silence is safe, and we have need of safety in this house." i sent laura upstairs immediately, waited a minute to take off my hat and put my hair smooth, and then went at once to make my first investigations in the library, on pretence of searching for a book. there sat the count, filling out the largest easy-chair in the house, smoking and reading calmly, with his feet on an ottoman, his cravat across his knees, and his shirt collar wide open. and there sat madame fosco, like a quiet child, on a stool by his side, making cigarettes. neither husband nor wife could, by any possibility, have been out late that evening, and have just got back to the house in a hurry. i felt that my object in visiting the library was answered the moment i set eyes on them. count fosco rose in polite confusion and tied his cravat on when i entered the room. "pray don't let me disturb you," i said. "i have only come here to get a book." "all unfortunate men of my size suffer from the heat," said the count, refreshing himself gravely with a large green fan. "i wish i could change places with my excellent wife. she is as cool at this moment as a fish in the pond outside." the countess allowed herself to thaw under the influence of her husband's quaint comparison. "i am never warm, miss halcombe," she remarked, with the modest air of a woman who was confessing to one of her own merits. "have you and lady glyde been out this evening?" asked the count, while i was taking a book from the shelves to preserve appearances. "yes, we went out to get a little air." "may i ask in what direction?" "in the direction of the lake--as far as the boat-house." "aha? as far as the boat-house?" under other circumstances i might have resented his curiosity. but to-night i hailed it as another proof that neither he nor his wife were connected with the mysterious appearance at the lake. "no more adventures, i suppose, this evening?" he went on. "no more discoveries, like your discovery of the wounded dog?" he fixed his unfathomable grey eyes on me, with that cold, clear, irresistible glitter in them which always forces me to look at him, and always makes me uneasy while i do look. an unutterable suspicion that his mind is prying into mine overcomes me at these times, and it overcame me now. "no," i said shortly; "no adventures--no discoveries." i tried to look away from him and leave the room. strange as it seems, i hardly think i should have succeeded in the attempt if madame fosco had not helped me by causing him to move and look away first. "count, you are keeping miss halcombe standing," she said. the moment he turned round to get me a chair, i seized my opportunity--thanked him--made my excuses--and slipped out. an hour later, when laura's maid happened to be in her mistress's room, i took occasion to refer to the closeness of the night, with a view to ascertaining next how the servants had been passing their time. "have you been suffering much from the heat downstairs?" i asked. "no, miss," said the girl, "we have not felt it to speak of." "you have been out in the woods then, i suppose?" "some of us thought of going, miss. but cook said she should take her chair into the cool court-yard, outside the kitchen door, and on second thoughts, all the rest of us took our chairs out there too." the housekeeper was now the only person who remained to be accounted for. "is mrs. michelson gone to bed yet?" i inquired. "i should think not, miss," said the girl, smiling. "mrs. michelson is more likely to be getting up just now than going to bed." "why? what do you mean? has mrs. michelson been taking to her bed in the daytime?" "no, miss, not exactly, but the next thing to it. she's been asleep all the evening on the sofa in her own room." putting together what i observed for myself in the library, and what i have just heard from laura's maid, one conclusion seems inevitable. the figure we saw at the lake was not the figure of madame fosco, of her husband, or of any of the servants. the footsteps we heard behind us were not the footsteps of any one belonging to the house. who could it have been? it seems useless to inquire. i cannot even decide whether the figure was a man's or a woman's. i can only say that i think it was a woman's. vi june th.--the misery of self-reproach which i suffered yesterday evening, on hearing what laura told me in the boat-house, returned in the loneliness of the night, and kept me waking and wretched for hours. i lighted my candle at last, and searched through my old journals to see what my share in the fatal error of her marriage had really been, and what i might have once done to save her from it. the result soothed me a little for it showed that, however blindly and ignorantly i acted, i acted for the best. crying generally does me harm; but it was not so last night--i think it relieved me. i rose this morning with a settled resolution and a quiet mind. nothing sir percival can say or do shall ever irritate me again, or make me forget for one moment that i am staying here in defiance of mortifications, insults, and threats, for laura's service and for laura's sake. the speculations in which we might have indulged this morning, on the subject of the figure at the lake and the footsteps in the plantation, have been all suspended by a trifling accident which has caused laura great regret. she has lost the little brooch i gave her for a keepsake on the day before her marriage. as she wore it when we went out yesterday evening we can only suppose that it must have dropped from her dress, either in the boat-house or on our way back. the servants have been sent to search, and have returned unsuccessful. and now laura herself has gone to look for it. whether she finds it or not the loss will help to excuse her absence from the house, if sir percival returns before the letter from mr. gilmore's partner is placed in my hands. one o'clock has just struck. i am considering whether i had better wait here for the arrival of the messenger from london, or slip away quietly, and watch for him outside the lodge gate. my suspicion of everybody and everything in this house inclines me to think that the second plan may be the best. the count is safe in the breakfast-room. i heard him, through the door, as i ran upstairs ten minutes since, exercising his canary-birds at their tricks:--"come out on my little finger, my pret-pret-pretties! come out, and hop upstairs! one, two, three--and up! three, two, one--and down! one, two, three--twit-twit-twit-tweet!" the birds burst into their usual ecstasy of singing, and the count chirruped and whistled at them in return, as if he was a bird himself. my room door is open, and i can hear the shrill singing and whistling at this very moment. if i am really to slip out without being observed, now is my time. four o'clock. the three hours that have passed since i made my last entry have turned the whole march of events at blackwater park in a new direction. whether for good or for evil, i cannot and dare not decide. let me get back first to the place at which i left off, or i shall lose myself in the confusion of my own thoughts. i went out, as i had proposed, to meet the messenger with my letter from london at the lodge gate. on the stairs i saw no one. in the hall i heard the count still exercising his birds. but on crossing the quadrangle outside, i passed madame fosco, walking by herself in her favourite circle, round and round the great fish-pond. i at once slackened my pace, so as to avoid all appearance of being in a hurry, and even went the length, for caution's sake, of inquiring if she thought of going out before lunch. she smiled at me in the friendliest manner--said she preferred remaining near the house, nodded pleasantly, and re-entered the hall. i looked back, and saw that she had closed the door before i had opened the wicket by the side of the carriage gates. in less than a quarter of an hour i reached the lodge. the lane outside took a sudden turn to the left, ran on straight for a hundred yards or so, and then took another sharp turn to the right to join the high-road. between these two turns, hidden from the lodge on one side, and from the way to the station on the other, i waited, walking backwards and forwards. high hedges were on either side of me, and for twenty minutes, by my watch, i neither saw nor heard anything. at the end of that time the sound of a carriage caught my ear, and i was met, as i advanced towards the second turning, by a fly from the railway. i made a sign to the driver to stop. as he obeyed me a respectable-looking man put his head out of the window to see what was the matter. "i beg your pardon," i said, "but am i right in supposing that you are going to blackwater park?" "yes, ma'am." "with a letter for any one?" "with a letter for miss halcombe, ma'am." "you may give me the letter. i am miss halcombe." the man touched his hat, got out of the fly immediately, and gave me the letter. i opened it at once and read these lines. i copy them here, thinking it best to destroy the original for caution's sake. "dear madam,--your letter received this morning has caused me very great anxiety. i will reply to it as briefly and plainly as possible. "my careful consideration of the statement made by yourself, and my knowledge of lady glyde's position, as defined in the settlement, lead me, i regret to say, to the conclusion that a loan of the trust money to sir percival (or, in other words, a loan of some portion of the twenty thousand pounds of lady glyde's fortune) is in contemplation, and that she is made a party to the deed, in order to secure her approval of a flagrant breach of trust, and to have her signature produced against her if she should complain hereafter. it is impossible, on any other supposition, to account, situated as she is, for her execution to a deed of any kind being wanted at all. "in the event of lady glyde's signing such a document, as i am compelled to suppose the deed in question to be, her trustees would be at liberty to advance money to sir percival out of her twenty thousand pounds. if the amount so lent should not be paid back, and if lady glyde should have children, their fortune will then be diminished by the sum, large or small, so advanced. in plainer terms still, the transaction, for anything that lady glyde knows to the contrary, may be a fraud upon her unborn children. "under these serious circumstances, i would recommend lady glyde to assign as a reason for withholding her signature, that she wishes the deed to be first submitted to myself, as her family solicitor (in the absence of my partner, mr. gilmore). no reasonable objection can be made to taking this course--for, if the transaction is an honourable one, there will necessarily be no difficulty in my giving my approval. "sincerely assuring you of my readiness to afford any additional help or advice that may be wanted, i beg to remain, madam, your faithful servant, "william kyrle." i read this kind and sensible letter very thankfully. it supplied laura with a reason for objecting to the signature which was unanswerable, and which we could both of us understand. the messenger waited near me while i was reading to receive his directions when i had done. "will you be good enough to say that i understand the letter, and that i am very much obliged?" i said. "there is no other reply necessary at present." exactly at the moment when i was speaking those words, holding the letter open in my hand, count fosco turned the corner of the lane from the high-road, and stood before me as if he had sprung up out of the earth. the suddenness of his appearance, in the very last place under heaven in which i should have expected to see him, took me completely by surprise. the messenger wished me good-morning, and got into the fly again. i could not say a word to him--i was not even able to return his bow. the conviction that i was discovered--and by that man, of all others--absolutely petrified me. "are you going back to the house, miss halcombe?" he inquired, without showing the least surprise on his side, and without even looking after the fly, which drove off while he was speaking to me. i collected myself sufficiently to make a sign in the affirmative. "i am going back too," he said. "pray allow me the pleasure of accompanying you. will you take my arm? you look surprised at seeing me!" i took his arm. the first of my scattered senses that came back was the sense that warned me to sacrifice anything rather than make an enemy of him. "you look surprised at seeing me!" he repeated in his quietly pertinacious way. "i thought, count, i heard you with your birds in the breakfast-room," i answered, as quietly and firmly as i could. "surely. but my little feathered children, dear lady, are only too like other children. they have their days of perversity, and this morning was one of them. my wife came in as i was putting them back in their cage, and said she had left you going out alone for a walk. you told her so, did you not?" "certainly." "well, miss halcombe, the pleasure of accompanying you was too great a temptation for me to resist. at my age there is no harm in confessing so much as that, is there? i seized my hat, and set off to offer myself as your escort. even so fat an old man as fosco is surely better than no escort at all? i took the wrong path--i came back in despair, and here i am, arrived (may i say it?) at the height of my wishes." he talked on in this complimentary strain with a fluency which left me no exertion to make beyond the effort of maintaining my composure. he never referred in the most distant manner to what he had seen in the lane, or to the letter which i still had in my hand. this ominous discretion helped to convince me that he must have surprised, by the most dishonourable means, the secret of my application in laura's interest to the lawyer; and that, having now assured himself of the private manner in which i had received the answer, he had discovered enough to suit his purposes, and was only bent on trying to quiet the suspicions which he knew he must have aroused in my mind. i was wise enough, under these circumstances, not to attempt to deceive him by plausible explanations, and woman enough, notwithstanding my dread of him, to feel as if my hand was tainted by resting on his arm. on the drive in front of the house we met the dog-cart being taken round to the stables. sir percival had just returned. he came out to meet us at the house-door. whatever other results his journey might have had, it had not ended in softening his savage temper. "oh! here are two of you come back," he said, with a lowering face. "what is the meaning of the house being deserted in this way? where is lady glyde?" i told him of the loss of the brooch, and said that laura had gone into the plantation to look for it. "brooch or no brooch," he growled sulkily, "i recommend her not to forget her appointment in the library this afternoon. i shall expect to see her in half an hour." i took my hand from the count's arm, and slowly ascended the steps. he honoured me with one of his magnificent bows, and then addressed himself gaily to the scowling master of the house. "tell me, percival," he said, "have you had a pleasant drive? and has your pretty shining brown molly come back at all tired?" "brown molly be hanged--and the drive too! i want my lunch." "and i want five minutes' talk with you, percival, first," returned the count. "five minutes' talk, my friend, here on the grass." "what about?" "about business that very much concerns you." i lingered long enough in passing through the hall-door to hear this question and answer, and to see sir percival thrust his hands into his pockets in sullen hesitation. "if you want to badger me with any more of your infernal scruples," he said, "i for one won't hear them. i want my lunch." "come out here and speak to me," repeated the count, still perfectly uninfluenced by the rudest speech that his friend could make to him. sir percival descended the steps. the count took him by the arm, and walked him away gently. the "business," i was sure, referred to the question of the signature. they were speaking of laura and of me beyond a doubt. i felt heart-sick and faint with anxiety. it might be of the last importance to both of us to know what they were saying to each other at that moment, and not one word of it could by any possibility reach my ears. i walked about the house, from room to room, with the lawyer's letter in my bosom (i was afraid by this time even to trust it under lock and key), till the oppression of my suspense half maddened me. there were no signs of laura's return, and i thought of going out to look for her. but my strength was so exhausted by the trials and anxieties of the morning that the heat of the day quite overpowered me, and after an attempt to get to the door i was obliged to return to the drawing-room and lie down on the nearest sofa to recover. i was just composing myself when the door opened softly and the count looked in. "a thousand pardons, miss halcombe," he said; "i only venture to disturb you because i am the bearer of good news. percival--who is capricious in everything, as you know--has seen fit to alter his mind at the last moment, and the business of the signature is put off for the present. a great relief to all of us, miss halcombe, as i see with pleasure in your face. pray present my best respects and felicitations, when you mention this pleasant change of circumstances to lady glyde." he left me before i had recovered my astonishment. there could be no doubt that this extraordinary alteration of purpose in the matter of the signature was due to his influence, and that his discovery of my application to london yesterday, and of my having received an answer to it to-day, had offered him the means of interfering with certain success. i felt these impressions, but my mind seemed to share the exhaustion of my body, and i was in no condition to dwell on them with any useful reference to the doubtful present or the threatening future. i tried a second time to run out and find laura, but my head was giddy and my knees trembled under me. there was no choice but to give it up again and return to the sofa, sorely against my will. the quiet in the house, and the low murmuring hum of summer insects outside the open window, soothed me. my eyes closed of themselves, and i passed gradually into a strange condition, which was not waking--for i knew nothing of what was going on about me, and not sleeping--for i was conscious of my own repose. in this state my fevered mind broke loose from me, while my weary body was at rest, and in a trance, or day-dream of my fancy--i know not what to call it--i saw walter hartright. i had not thought of him since i rose that morning--laura had not said one word to me either directly or indirectly referring to him--and yet i saw him now as plainly as if the past time had returned, and we were both together again at limmeridge house. he appeared to me as one among many other men, none of whose faces i could plainly discern. they were all lying on the steps of an immense ruined temple. colossal tropical trees--with rank creepers twining endlessly about their trunks, and hideous stone idols glimmering and grinning at intervals behind leaves and stalks and branches--surrounded the temple and shut out the sky, and threw a dismal shadow over the forlorn band of men on the steps. white exhalations twisted and curled up stealthily from the ground, approached the men in wreaths like smoke, touched them, and stretched them out dead, one by one, in the places where they lay. an agony of pity and fear for walter loosened my tongue, and i implored him to escape. "come back, come back!" i said. "remember your promise to her and to me. come back to us before the pestilence reaches you and lays you dead like the rest!" he looked at me with an unearthly quiet in his face. "wait," he said, "i shall come back. the night when i met the lost woman on the highway was the night which set my life apart to be the instrument of a design that is yet unseen. here, lost in the wilderness, or there, welcomed back in the land of my birth, i am still walking on the dark road which leads me, and you, and the sister of your love and mine, to the unknown retribution and the inevitable end. wait and look. the pestilence which touches the rest will pass me." i saw him again. he was still in the forest, and the numbers of his lost companions had dwindled to very few. the temple was gone, and the idols were gone--and in their place the figures of dark, dwarfish men lurked murderously among the trees, with bows in their hands, and arrows fitted to the string. once more i feared for walter, and cried out to warn him. once more he turned to me, with the immovable quiet in his face. "another step," he said, "on the dark road. wait and look. the arrows that strike the rest will spare me." i saw him for the third time in a wrecked ship, stranded on a wild, sandy shore. the overloaded boats were making away from him for the land, and he alone was left to sink with the ship. i cried to him to hail the hindmost boat, and to make a last effort for his life. the quiet face looked at me in return, and the unmoved voice gave me back the changeless reply. "another step on the journey. wait and look. the sea which drowns the rest will spare me." i saw him for the last time. he was kneeling by a tomb of white marble, and the shadow of a veiled woman rose out of the grave beneath and waited by his side. the unearthly quiet of his face had changed to an unearthly sorrow. but the terrible certainty of his words remained the same. "darker and darker," he said; "farther and farther yet. death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young--and spares me. the pestilence that wastes, the arrow that strikes, the sea that drowns, the grave that closes over love and hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the end." my heart sank under a dread beyond words, under a grief beyond tears. the darkness closed round the pilgrim at the marble tomb--closed round the veiled woman from the grave--closed round the dreamer who looked on them. i saw and heard no more. i was aroused by a hand laid on my shoulder. it was laura's. she had dropped on her knees by the side of the sofa. her face was flushed and agitated, and her eyes met mine in a wild bewildered manner. i started the instant i saw her. "what has happened?" i asked. "what has frightened you?" she looked round at the half-open door, put her lips close to my ear, and answered in a whisper-- "marian!--the figure at the lake--the footsteps last night--i've just seen her! i've just spoken to her!" "who, for heaven's sake?" "anne catherick." i was so startled by the disturbance in laura's face and manner, and so dismayed by the first waking impressions of my dream, that i was not fit to bear the revelation which burst upon me when that name passed her lips. i could only stand rooted to the floor, looking at her in breathless silence. she was too much absorbed by what had happened to notice the effect which her reply had produced on me. "i have seen anne catherick! i have spoken to anne catherick!" she repeated as if i had not heard her. "oh, marian, i have such things to tell you! come away--we may be interrupted here--come at once into my room." with those eager words she caught me by the hand, and led me through the library, to the end room on the ground floor, which had been fitted up for her own especial use. no third person, except her maid, could have any excuse for surprising us here. she pushed me in before her, locked the door, and drew the chintz curtains that hung over the inside. the strange, stunned feeling which had taken possession of me still remained. but a growing conviction that the complications which had long threatened to gather about her, and to gather about me, had suddenly closed fast round us both, was now beginning to penetrate my mind. i could not express it in words--i could hardly even realise it dimly in my own thoughts. "anne catherick!" i whispered to myself, with useless, helpless reiteration--"anne catherick!" laura drew me to the nearest seat, an ottoman in the middle of the room. "look!" she said, "look here!"--and pointed to the bosom of her dress. i saw, for the first time, that the lost brooch was pinned in its place again. there was something real in the sight of it, something real in the touching of it afterwards, which seemed to steady the whirl and confusion in my thoughts, and to help me to compose myself. "where did you find your brooch?" the first words i could say to her were the words which put that trivial question at that important moment. "she found it, marian." "where?" "on the floor of the boat-house. oh, how shall i begin--how shall i tell you about it! she talked to me so strangely--she looked so fearfully ill--she left me so suddenly!" her voice rose as the tumult of her recollections pressed upon her mind. the inveterate distrust which weighs, night and day, on my spirits in this house, instantly roused me to warn her--just as the sight of the brooch had roused me to question her, the moment before. "speak low," i said. "the window is open, and the garden path runs beneath it. begin at the beginning, laura. tell me, word for word, what passed between that woman and you." "shall i close the window?" "no, only speak low--only remember that anne catherick is a dangerous subject under your husband's roof. where did you first see her?" "at the boat-house, marian. i went out, as you know, to find my brooch, and i walked along the path through the plantation, looking down on the ground carefully at every step. in that way i got on, after a long time, to the boat-house, and as soon as i was inside it, i went on my knees to hunt over the floor. i was still searching with my back to the doorway, when i heard a soft, strange voice behind me say, 'miss fairlie.'" "miss fairlie!" "yes, my old name--the dear, familiar name that i thought i had parted from for ever. i started up--not frightened, the voice was too kind and gentle to frighten anybody--but very much surprised. there, looking at me from the doorway, stood a woman, whose face i never remembered to have seen before--" "how was she dressed?" "she had a neat, pretty white gown on, and over it a poor worn thin dark shawl. her bonnet was of brown straw, as poor and worn as the shawl. i was struck by the difference between her gown and the rest of her dress, and she saw that i noticed it. 'don't look at my bonnet and shawl,' she said, speaking in a quick, breathless, sudden way; 'if i mustn't wear white, i don't care what i wear. look at my gown as much as you please--i'm not ashamed of that.' very strange, was it not? before i could say anything to soothe her, she held out one of her hands, and i saw my brooch in it. i was so pleased and so grateful, that i went quite close to her to say what i really felt. 'are you thankful enough to do me one little kindness?' she asked. 'yes, indeed,' i answered, 'any kindness in my power i shall be glad to show you.' 'then let me pin your brooch on for you, now i have found it.' her request was so unexpected, marian, and she made it with such extraordinary eagerness, that i drew back a step or two, not well knowing what to do. 'ah!' she said, 'your mother would have let me pin on the brooch.' there was something in her voice and her look, as well as in her mentioning my mother in that reproachful manner, which made me ashamed of my distrust. i took her hand with the brooch in it, and put it up gently on the bosom of my dress. 'you knew my mother?' i said. 'was it very long ago? have i ever seen you before?' her hands were busy fastening the brooch: she stopped and pressed them against my breast. 'you don't remember a fine spring day at limmeridge,' she said, 'and your mother walking down the path that led to the school, with a little girl on each side of her? i have had nothing else to think of since, and i remember it. you were one of the little girls, and i was the other. pretty, clever miss fairlie, and poor dazed anne catherick were nearer to each other then than they are now!'" "did you remember her, laura, when she told you her name?" "yes, i remembered your asking me about anne catherick at limmeridge, and your saying that she had once been considered like me." "what reminded you of that, laura?" "she reminded me. while i was looking at her, while she was very close to me, it came over my mind suddenly that we were like each other! her face was pale and thin and weary--but the sight of it startled me, as if it had been the sight of my own face in the glass after a long illness. the discovery--i don't know why--gave me such a shock, that i was perfectly incapable of speaking to her for the moment." "did she seem hurt by your silence?" "i am afraid she was hurt by it. 'you have not got your mother's face,' she said, 'or your mother's heart. your mother's face was dark, and your mother's heart, miss fairlie, was the heart of an angel.' 'i am sure i feel kindly towards you,' i said, 'though i may not be able to express it as i ought. why do you call me miss fairlie?----' 'because i love the name of fairlie and hate the name of glyde,' she broke out violently. i had seen nothing like madness in her before this, but i fancied i saw it now in her eyes. 'i only thought you might not know i was married,' i said, remembering the wild letter she wrote to me at limmeridge, and trying to quiet her. she sighed bitterly, and turned away from me. 'not know you were married?' she repeated. 'i am here because you are married. i am here to make atonement to you, before i meet your mother in the world beyond the grave.' she drew farther and farther away from me, till she was out of the boat-house, and then she watched and listened for a little while. when she turned round to speak again, instead of coming back, she stopped where she was, looking in at me, with a hand on each side of the entrance. 'did you see me at the lake last night?' she said. 'did you hear me following you in the wood? i have been waiting for days together to speak to you alone--i have left the only friend i have in the world, anxious and frightened about me--i have risked being shut up again in the mad-house--and all for your sake, miss fairlie, all for your sake.' her words alarmed me, marian, and yet there was something in the way she spoke that made me pity her with all my heart. i am sure my pity must have been sincere, for it made me bold enough to ask the poor creature to come in, and sit down in the boat-house, by my side." "did she do so?" "no. she shook her head, and told me she must stop where she was, to watch and listen, and see that no third person surprised us. and from first to last, there she waited at the entrance, with a hand on each side of it, sometimes bending in suddenly to speak to me, sometimes drawing back suddenly to look about her. 'i was here yesterday,' she said, 'before it came dark, and i heard you, and the lady with you, talking together. i heard you tell her about your husband. i heard you say you had no influence to make him believe you, and no influence to keep him silent. ah! i knew what those words meant--my conscience told me while i was listening. why did i ever let you marry him! oh, my fear--my mad, miserable, wicked fear!' she covered up her face in her poor worn shawl, and moaned and murmured to herself behind it. i began to be afraid she might break out into some terrible despair which neither she nor i could master. 'try to quiet yourself,' i said; 'try to tell me how you might have prevented my marriage.' she took the shawl from her face, and looked at me vacantly. 'i ought to have had heart enough to stop at limmeridge,' she answered. 'i ought never to have let the news of his coming there frighten me away. i ought to have warned you and saved you before it was too late. why did i only have courage enough to write you that letter? why did i only do harm, when i wanted and meant to do good? oh, my fear--my mad, miserable, wicked fear!' she repeated those words again, and hid her face again in the end of her poor worn shawl. it was dreadful to see her, and dreadful to hear her." "surely, laura, you asked what the fear was which she dwelt on so earnestly?" "yes, i asked that." "and what did she say?" "she asked me in return, if i should not be afraid of a man who had shut me up in a mad-house, and who would shut me up again, if he could? i said, 'are you afraid still? surely you would not be here if you were afraid now?' 'no,' she said, 'i am not afraid now.' i asked why not. she suddenly bent forward into the boat-house, and said, 'can't you guess why?' i shook my head. 'look at me,' she went on. i told her i was grieved to see that she looked very sorrowful and very ill. she smiled for the first time. 'ill?' she repeated; 'i'm dying. you know why i'm not afraid of him now. do you think i shall meet your mother in heaven? will she forgive me if i do?' i was so shocked and so startled, that i could make no reply. 'i have been thinking of it,' she went on, 'all the time i have been in hiding from your husband, all the time i lay ill. my thoughts have driven me here--i want to make atonement--i want to undo all i can of the harm i once did.' i begged her as earnestly as i could to tell me what she meant. she still looked at me with fixed vacant eyes. 'shall i undo the harm?' she said to herself doubtfully. 'you have friends to take your part. if you know his secret, he will be afraid of you, he won't dare use you as he used me. he must treat you mercifully for his own sake, if he is afraid of you and your friends. and if he treats you mercifully, and if i can say it was my doing----' i listened eagerly for more, but she stopped at those words." "you tried to make her go on?" "i tried, but she only drew herself away from me again, and leaned her face and arms against the side of the boat-house. 'oh!' i heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted tenderness in her voice, 'oh! if i could only be buried with your mother! if i could only wake at her side, when the angel's trumpet sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!'--marian! i trembled from head to foot--it was horrible to hear her. 'but there is no hope of that,' she said, moving a little, so as to look at me again, 'no hope for a poor stranger like me. i shall not rest under the marble cross that i washed with my own hands, and made so white and pure for her sake. oh no! oh no! god's mercy, not man's, will take me to her, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.' she spoke those words quietly and sorrowfully, with a heavy, hopeless sigh, and then waited a little. her face was confused and troubled, she seemed to be thinking, or trying to think. 'what was it i said just now?' she asked after a while. 'when your mother is in my mind, everything else goes out of it. what was i saying? what was i saying?' i reminded the poor creature, as kindly and delicately as i could. 'ah, yes, yes,' she said, still in a vacant, perplexed manner. 'you are helpless with your wicked husband. yes. and i must do what i have come to do here--i must make it up to you for having been afraid to speak out at a better time.' 'what is it you have to tell me?' i asked. 'the secret that your cruel husband is afraid of,' she answered. 'i once threatened him with the secret, and frightened him. you shall threaten him with the secret, and frighten him too.' her face darkened, and a hard, angry stare fixed itself in her eyes. she began waving her hand at me in a vacant, unmeaning manner. 'my mother knows the secret,' she said. 'my mother has wasted under the secret half her lifetime. one day, when i was grown up, she said something to me. and the next day your husband----'" "yes! yes! go on. what did she tell you about your husband?" "she stopped again, marian, at that point----" "and said no more?" "and listened eagerly. 'hush!' she whispered, still waving her hand at me. 'hush!' she moved aside out of the doorway, moved slowly and stealthily, step by step, till i lost her past the edge of the boat-house." "surely you followed her?" "yes, my anxiety made me bold enough to rise and follow her. just as i reached the entrance, she appeared again suddenly, round the side of the boat-house. 'the secret,' i whispered to her--'wait and tell me the secret!' she caught hold of my arm, and looked at me with wild frightened eyes. 'not now,' she said, 'we are not alone--we are watched. come here to-morrow at this time--by yourself--mind--by yourself.' she pushed me roughly into the boat-house again, and i saw her no more." "oh, laura, laura, another chance lost! if i had only been near you she should not have escaped us. on which side did you lose sight of her?" "on the left side, where the ground sinks and the wood is thickest." "did you run out again? did you call after her?" "how could i? i was too terrified to move or speak." "but when you did move--when you came out?" "i ran back here, to tell you what had happened." "did you see any one, or hear any one, in the plantation?" "no, it seemed to be all still and quiet when i passed through it." i waited for a moment to consider. was this third person, supposed to have been secretly present at the interview, a reality, or the creature of anne catherick's excited fancy? it was impossible to determine. the one thing certain was, that we had failed again on the very brink of discovery--failed utterly and irretrievably, unless anne catherick kept her appointment at the boat-house for the next day. "are you quite sure you have told me everything that passed? every word that was said?" i inquired. "i think so," she answered. "my powers of memory, marian, are not like yours. but i was so strongly impressed, so deeply interested, that nothing of any importance can possibly have escaped me." "my dear laura, the merest trifles are of importance where anne catherick is concerned. think again. did no chance reference escape her as to the place in which she is living at the present time?" "none that i can remember." "did she not mention a companion and friend--a woman named mrs. clements?" "oh yes! yes! i forgot that. she told me mrs. clements wanted sadly to go with her to the lake and take care of her, and begged and prayed that she would not venture into this neighbourhood alone." "was that all she said about mrs. clements?" "yes, that was all." "she told you nothing about the place in which she took refuge after leaving todd's corner?" "nothing--i am quite sure." "nor where she has lived since? nor what her illness had been?" "no, marian, not a word. tell me, pray tell me, what you think about it. i don't know what to think, or what to do next." "you must do this, my love: you must carefully keep the appointment at the boat-house to-morrow. it is impossible to say what interests may not depend on your seeing that woman again. you shall not be left to yourself a second time. i will follow you at a safe distance. nobody shall see me, but i will keep within hearing of your voice, if anything happens. anne catherick has escaped walter hartright, and has escaped you. whatever happens, she shall not escape me." laura's eyes read mine attentively. "you believe," she said, "in this secret that my husband is afraid of? suppose, marian, it should only exist after all in anne catherick's fancy? suppose she only wanted to see me and to speak to me, for the sake of old remembrances? her manner was so strange--i almost doubted her. would you trust her in other things?" "i trust nothing, laura, but my own observation of your husband's conduct. i judge anne catherick's words by his actions, and i believe there is a secret." i said no more, and got up to leave the room. thoughts were troubling me which i might have told her if we had spoken together longer, and which it might have been dangerous for her to know. the influence of the terrible dream from which she had awakened me hung darkly and heavily over every fresh impression which the progress of her narrative produced on my mind. i felt the ominous future coming close, chilling me with an unutterable awe, forcing on me the conviction of an unseen design in the long series of complications which had now fastened round us. i thought of hartright--as i saw him in the body when he said farewell; as i saw him in the spirit in my dream--and i too began to doubt now whether we were not advancing blindfold to an appointed and an inevitable end. leaving laura to go upstairs alone, i went out to look about me in the walks near the house. the circumstances under which anne catherick had parted from her had made me secretly anxious to know how count fosco was passing the afternoon, and had rendered me secretly distrustful of the results of that solitary journey from which sir percival had returned but a few hours since. after looking for them in every direction and discovering nothing, i returned to the house, and entered the different rooms on the ground floor one after another. they were all empty. i came out again into the hall, and went upstairs to return to laura. madame fosco opened her door as i passed it in my way along the passage, and i stopped to see if she could inform me of the whereabouts of her husband and sir percival. yes, she had seen them both from her window more than an hour since. the count had looked up with his customary kindness, and had mentioned with his habitual attention to her in the smallest trifles, that he and his friend were going out together for a long walk. for a long walk! they had never yet been in each other's company with that object in my experience of them. sir percival cared for no exercise but riding, and the count (except when he was polite enough to be my escort) cared for no exercise at all. when i joined laura again, i found that she had called to mind in my absence the impending question of the signature to the deed, which, in the interest of discussing her interview with anne catherick, we had hitherto overlooked. her first words when i saw her expressed her surprise at the absence of the expected summons to attend sir percival in the library. "you may make your mind easy on that subject," i said. "for the present, at least, neither your resolution nor mine will be exposed to any further trial. sir percival has altered his plans--the business of the signature is put off." "put off?" laura repeated amazedly. "who told you so?" "my authority is count fosco. i believe it is to his interference that we are indebted for your husband's sudden change of purpose." "it seems impossible, marian. if the object of my signing was, as we suppose, to obtain money for sir percival that he urgently wanted, how can the matter be put off?" "i think, laura, we have the means at hand of setting that doubt at rest. have you forgotten the conversation that i heard between sir percival and the lawyer as they were crossing the hall?" "no, but i don't remember----" "i do. there were two alternatives proposed. one was to obtain your signature to the parchment. the other was to gain time by giving bills at three months. the last resource is evidently the resource now adopted, and we may fairly hope to be relieved from our share in sir percival's embarrassments for some time to come." "oh, marian, it sounds too good to be true!" "does it, my love? you complimented me on my ready memory not long since, but you seem to doubt it now. i will get my journal, and you shall see if i am right or wrong." i went away and got the book at once. on looking back to the entry referring to the lawyer's visit, we found that my recollection of the two alternatives presented was accurately correct. it was almost as great a relief to my mind as to laura's, to find that my memory had served me, on this occasion, as faithfully as usual. in the perilous uncertainty of our present situation, it is hard to say what future interests may not depend upon the regularity of the entries in my journal, and upon the reliability of my recollection at the time when i make them. laura's face and manner suggested to me that this last consideration had occurred to her as well as to myself. anyway, it is only a trifling matter, and i am almost ashamed to put it down here in writing--it seems to set the forlornness of our situation in such a miserably vivid light. we must have little indeed to depend on, when the discovery that my memory can still be trusted to serve us is hailed as if it was the discovery of a new friend! the first bell for dinner separated us. just as it had done ringing, sir percival and the count returned from their walk. we heard the master of the house storming at the servants for being five minutes late, and the master's guest interposing, as usual, in the interests of propriety, patience, and peace. * * * * * * * * * * the evening has come and gone. no extraordinary event has happened. but i have noticed certain peculiarities in the conduct of sir percival and the count, which have sent me to my bed feeling very anxious and uneasy about anne catherick, and about the results which to-morrow may produce. i know enough by this time, to be sure, that the aspect of sir percival which is the most false, and which, therefore, means the worst, is his polite aspect. that long walk with his friend had ended in improving his manners, especially towards his wife. to laura's secret surprise and to my secret alarm, he called her by her christian name, asked if she had heard lately from her uncle, inquired when mrs. vesey was to receive her invitation to blackwater, and showed her so many other little attentions that he almost recalled the days of his hateful courtship at limmeridge house. this was a bad sign to begin with, and i thought it more ominous still that he should pretend after dinner to fall asleep in the drawing-room, and that his eyes should cunningly follow laura and me when he thought we neither of us suspected him. i have never had any doubt that his sudden journey by himself took him to welmingham to question mrs. catherick--but the experience of to-night has made me fear that the expedition was not undertaken in vain, and that he has got the information which he unquestionably left us to collect. if i knew where anne catherick was to be found, i would be up to-morrow with sunrise and warn her. while the aspect under which sir percival presented himself to-night was unhappily but too familiar to me, the aspect under which the count appeared was, on the other hand, entirely new in my experience of him. he permitted me, this evening, to make his acquaintance, for the first time, in the character of a man of sentiment--of sentiment, as i believe, really felt, not assumed for the occasion. for instance, he was quiet and subdued--his eyes and his voice expressed a restrained sensibility. he wore (as if there was some hidden connection between his showiest finery and his deepest feeling) the most magnificent waistcoat he has yet appeared in--it was made of pale sea-green silk, and delicately trimmed with fine silver braid. his voice sank into the tenderest inflections, his smile expressed a thoughtful, fatherly admiration, whenever he spoke to laura or to me. he pressed his wife's hand under the table when she thanked him for trifling little attentions at dinner. he took wine with her. "your health and happiness, my angel!" he said, with fond glistening eyes. he ate little or nothing, and sighed, and said "good percival!" when his friend laughed at him. after dinner, he took laura by the hand, and asked her if she would be "so sweet as to play to him." she complied, through sheer astonishment. he sat by the piano, with his watch-chain resting in folds, like a golden serpent, on the sea-green protuberance of his waistcoat. his immense head lay languidly on one side, and he gently beat time with two of his yellow-white fingers. he highly approved of the music, and tenderly admired laura's manner of playing--not as poor hartright used to praise it, with an innocent enjoyment of the sweet sounds, but with a clear, cultivated, practical knowledge of the merits of the composition, in the first place, and of the merits of the player's touch in the second. as the evening closed in, he begged that the lovely dying light might not be profaned, just yet, by the appearance of the lamps. he came, with his horribly silent tread, to the distant window at which i was standing, to be out of his way and to avoid the very sight of him--he came to ask me to support his protest against the lamps. if any one of them could only have burnt him up at that moment, i would have gone down to the kitchen and fetched it myself. "surely you like this modest, trembling english twilight?" he said softly. "ah! i love it. i feel my inborn admiration of all that is noble, and great, and good, purified by the breath of heaven on an evening like this. nature has such imperishable charms, such inextinguishable tenderness for me!--i am an old, fat man--talk which would become your lips, miss halcombe, sounds like a derision and a mockery on mine. it is hard to be laughed at in my moments of sentiment, as if my soul was like myself, old and overgrown. observe, dear lady, what a light is dying on the trees! does it penetrate your heart, as it penetrates mine?" he paused, looked at me, and repeated the famous lines of dante on the evening-time, with a melody and tenderness which added a charm of their own to the matchless beauty of the poetry itself. "bah!" he cried suddenly, as the last cadence of those noble italian words died away on his lips; "i make an old fool of myself, and only weary you all! let us shut up the window in our bosoms and get back to the matter-of-fact world. percival! i sanction the admission of the lamps. lady glyde--miss halcombe--eleanor, my good wife--which of you will indulge me with a game at dominoes?" he addressed us all, but he looked especially at laura. she had learnt to feel my dread of offending him, and she accepted his proposal. it was more than i could have done at that moment. i could not have sat down at the same table with him for any consideration. his eyes seemed to reach my inmost soul through the thickening obscurity of the twilight. his voice trembled along every nerve in my body, and turned me hot and cold alternately. the mystery and terror of my dream, which had haunted me at intervals all through the evening, now oppressed my mind with an unendurable foreboding and an unutterable awe. i saw the white tomb again, and the veiled woman rising out of it by hartright's side. the thought of laura welled up like a spring in the depths of my heart, and filled it with waters of bitterness, never, never known to it before. i caught her by the hand as she passed me on her way to the table, and kissed her as if that night was to part us for ever. while they were all gazing at me in astonishment, i ran out through the low window which was open before me to the ground--ran out to hide from them in the darkness, to hide even from myself. we separated that evening later than usual. towards midnight the summer silence was broken by the shuddering of a low, melancholy wind among the trees. we all felt the sudden chill in the atmosphere, but the count was the first to notice the stealthy rising of the wind. he stopped while he was lighting my candle for me, and held up his hand warningly-- "listen!" he said. "there will be a change to-morrow." vii june th.--the events of yesterday warned me to be ready, sooner or later, to meet the worst. to-day is not yet at an end, and the worst has come. judging by the closest calculation of time that laura and i could make, we arrived at the conclusion that anne catherick must have appeared at the boat-house at half-past two o'clock on the afternoon of yesterday. i accordingly arranged that laura should just show herself at the luncheon-table to-day, and should then slip out at the first opportunity, leaving me behind to preserve appearances, and to follow her as soon as i could safely do so. this mode of proceeding, if no obstacles occurred to thwart us, would enable her to be at the boat-house before half-past two, and (when i left the table, in my turn) would take me to a safe position in the plantation before three. the change in the weather, which last night's wind warned us to expect, came with the morning. it was raining heavily when i got up, and it continued to rain until twelve o'clock--when the clouds dispersed, the blue sky appeared, and the sun shone again with the bright promise of a fine afternoon. my anxiety to know how sir percival and the count would occupy the early part of the day was by no means set at rest, so far as sir percival was concerned, by his leaving us immediately after breakfast, and going out by himself, in spite of the rain. he neither told us where he was going nor when we might expect him back. we saw him pass the breakfast-room window hastily, with his high boots and his waterproof coat on--and that was all. the count passed the morning quietly indoors, some part of it in the library, some part in the drawing-room, playing odds and ends of music on the piano, and humming to himself. judging by appearances, the sentimental side of his character was persistently inclined to betray itself still. he was silent and sensitive, and ready to sigh and languish ponderously (as only fat men can sigh and languish) on the smallest provocation. luncheon-time came and sir percival did not return. the count took his friend's place at the table, plaintively devoured the greater part of a fruit tart, submerged under a whole jugful of cream, and explained the full merit of the achievement to us as soon as he had done. "a taste for sweets," he said in his softest tones and his tenderest manner, "is the innocent taste of women and children. i love to share it with them--it is another bond, dear ladies, between you and me." laura left the table in ten minutes' time. i was sorely tempted to accompany her. but if we had both gone out together we must have excited suspicion, and worse still, if we allowed anne catherick to see laura, accompanied by a second person who was a stranger to her, we should in all probability forfeit her confidence from that moment, never to regain it again. i waited, therefore, as patiently as i could, until the servant came in to clear the table. when i quitted the room, there were no signs, in the house or out of it, of sir percival's return. i left the count with a piece of sugar between his lips, and the vicious cockatoo scrambling up his waistcoat to get at it, while madame fosco, sitting opposite to her husband, watched the proceedings of his bird and himself as attentively as if she had never seen anything of the sort before in her life. on my way to the plantation i kept carefully beyond the range of view from the luncheon-room window. nobody saw me and nobody followed me. it was then a quarter to three o'clock by my watch. once among the trees i walked rapidly, until i had advanced more than half-way through the plantation. at that point i slackened my pace and proceeded cautiously, but i saw no one, and heard no voices. by little and little i came within view of the back of the boat-house--stopped and listened--then went on, till i was close behind it, and must have heard any persons who were talking inside. still the silence was unbroken--still far and near no sign of a living creature appeared anywhere. after skirting round by the back of the building, first on one side and then on the other, and making no discoveries, i ventured in front of it, and fairly looked in. the place was empty. i called, "laura!"--at first softly, then louder and louder. no one answered and no one appeared. for all that i could see and hear, the only human creature in the neighbourhood of the lake and the plantation was myself. my heart began to beat violently, but i kept my resolution, and searched, first the boat-house and then the ground in front of it, for any signs which might show me whether laura had really reached the place or not. no mark of her presence appeared inside the building, but i found traces of her outside it, in footsteps on the sand. i detected the footsteps of two persons--large footsteps like a man's, and small footsteps, which, by putting my own feet into them and testing their size in that manner, i felt certain were laura's. the ground was confusedly marked in this way just before the boat-house. close against one side of it, under shelter of the projecting roof, i discovered a little hole in the sand--a hole artificially made, beyond a doubt. i just noticed it, and then turned away immediately to trace the footsteps as far as i could, and to follow the direction in which they might lead me. they led me, starting from the left-hand side of the boat-house, along the edge of the trees, a distance, i should think, of between two and three hundred yards, and then the sandy ground showed no further trace of them. feeling that the persons whose course i was tracking must necessarily have entered the plantation at this point, i entered it too. at first i could find no path, but i discovered one afterwards, just faintly traced among the trees, and followed it. it took me, for some distance, in the direction of the village, until i stopped at a point where another foot-track crossed it. the brambles grew thickly on either side of this second path. i stood looking down it, uncertain which way to take next, and while i looked i saw on one thorny branch some fragments of fringe from a woman's shawl. a closer examination of the fringe satisfied me that it had been torn from a shawl of laura's, and i instantly followed the second path. it brought me out at last, to my great relief, at the back of the house. i say to my great relief, because i inferred that laura must, for some unknown reason, have returned before me by this roundabout way. i went in by the court-yard and the offices. the first person whom i met in crossing the servants' hall was mrs. michelson, the housekeeper. "do you know," i asked, "whether lady glyde has come in from her walk or not?" "my lady came in a little while ago with sir percival," answered the housekeeper. "i am afraid, miss halcombe, something very distressing has happened." my heart sank within me. "you don't mean an accident?" i said faintly. "no, no--thank god, no accident. but my lady ran upstairs to her own room in tears, and sir percival has ordered me to give fanny warning to leave in an hour's time." fanny was laura's maid--a good affectionate girl who had been with her for years--the only person in the house whose fidelity and devotion we could both depend upon. "where is fanny?" i inquired. "in my room, miss halcombe. the young woman is quite overcome, and i told her to sit down and try to recover herself." i went to mrs. michelson's room, and found fanny in a corner, with her box by her side, crying bitterly. she could give me no explanation whatever of her sudden dismissal. sir percival had ordered that she should have a month's wages, in place of a month's warning, and go. no reason had been assigned--no objection had been made to her conduct. she had been forbidden to appeal to her mistress, forbidden even to see her for a moment to say good-bye. she was to go without explanations or farewells, and to go at once. after soothing the poor girl by a few friendly words, i asked where she proposed to sleep that night. she replied that she thought of going to the little inn in the village, the landlady of which was a respectable woman, known to the servants at blackwater park. the next morning, by leaving early, she might get back to her friends in cumberland without stopping in london, where she was a total stranger. i felt directly that fanny's departure offered us a safe means of communication with london and with limmeridge house, of which it might be very important to avail ourselves. accordingly, i told her that she might expect to hear from her mistress or from me in the course of the evening, and that she might depend on our both doing all that lay in our power to help her, under the trial of leaving us for the present. those words said, i shook hands with her and went upstairs. the door which led to laura's room was the door of an ante-chamber opening on to the passage. when i tried it, it was bolted on the inside. i knocked, and the door was opened by the same heavy, overgrown housemaid whose lumpish insensibility had tried my patience so severely on the day when i found the wounded dog. i had, since that time, discovered that her name was margaret porcher, and that she was the most awkward, slatternly, and obstinate servant in the house. on opening the door she instantly stepped out to the threshold, and stood grinning at me in stolid silence. "why do you stand there?" i said. "don't you see that i want to come in?" "ah, but you mustn't come in," was the answer, with another and a broader grin still. "how dare you talk to me in that way? stand back instantly!" she stretched out a great red hand and arm on each side of her, so as to bar the doorway, and slowly nodded her addle head at me. "master's orders," she said, and nodded again. i had need of all my self-control to warn me against contesting the matter with her, and to remind me that the next words i had to say must be addressed to her master. i turned my back on her, and instantly went downstairs to find him. my resolution to keep my temper under all the irritations that sir percival could offer was, by this time, as completely forgotten--i say so to my shame--as if i had never made it. it did me good, after all i had suffered and suppressed in that house--it actually did me good to feel how angry i was. the drawing-room and the breakfast-room were both empty. i went on to the library, and there i found sir percival, the count, and madame fosco. they were all three standing up, close together, and sir percival had a little slip of paper in his hand. as i opened the door i heard the count say to him, "no--a thousand times over, no." i walked straight up to him, and looked him full in the face. "am i to understand, sir percival, that your wife's room is a prison, and that your housemaid is the gaoler who keeps it?" i asked. "yes, that is what you are to understand," he answered. "take care my gaoler hasn't got double duty to do--take care your room is not a prison too." "take you care how you treat your wife, and how you threaten me," i broke out in the heat of my anger. "there are laws in england to protect women from cruelty and outrage. if you hurt a hair of laura's head, if you dare to interfere with my freedom, come what may, to those laws i will appeal." instead of answering me he turned round to the count. "what did i tell you?" he asked. "what do you say now?" "what i said before," replied the count--"no." even in the vehemence of my anger i felt his calm, cold, grey eyes on my face. they turned away from me as soon as he had spoken, and looked significantly at his wife. madame fosco immediately moved close to my side, and in that position addressed sir percival before either of us could speak again. "favour me with your attention for one moment," she said, in her clear icily-suppressed tones. "i have to thank you, sir percival, for your hospitality, and to decline taking advantage of it any longer. i remain in no house in which ladies are treated as your wife and miss halcombe have been treated here to-day!" sir percival drew back a step, and stared at her in dead silence. the declaration he had just heard--a declaration which he well knew, as i well knew, madame fosco would not have ventured to make without her husband's permission--seemed to petrify him with surprise. the count stood by, and looked at his wife with the most enthusiastic admiration. "she is sublime!" he said to himself. he approached her while he spoke, and drew her hand through his arm. "i am at your service, eleanor," he went on, with a quiet dignity that i had never noticed in him before. "and at miss halcombe's service, if she will honour me by accepting all the assistance i can offer her." "damn it! what do you mean?" cried sir percival, as the count quietly moved away with his wife to the door. "at other times i mean what i say, but at this time i mean what my wife says," replied the impenetrable italian. "we have changed places, percival, for once, and madame fosco's opinion is--mine." sir percival crumpled up the paper in his hand, and pushing past the count, with another oath, stood between him and the door. "have your own way," he said, with baffled rage in his low, half-whispering tones. "have your own way--and see what comes of it." with those words he left the room. madame fosco glanced inquiringly at her husband. "he has gone away very suddenly," she said. "what does it mean?" "it means that you and i together have brought the worst-tempered man in all england to his senses," answered the count. "it means, miss halcombe, that lady glyde is relieved from a gross indignity, and you from the repetition of an unpardonable insult. suffer me to express my admiration of your conduct and your courage at a very trying moment." "sincere admiration," suggested madame fosco. "sincere admiration," echoed the count. i had no longer the strength of my first angry resistance to outrage and injury to support me. my heart-sick anxiety to see laura, my sense of my own helpless ignorance of what had happened at the boat-house, pressed on me with an intolerable weight. i tried to keep up appearances by speaking to the count and his wife in the tone which they had chosen to adopt in speaking to me, but the words failed on my lips--my breath came short and thick--my eyes looked longingly, in silence, at the door. the count, understanding my anxiety, opened it, went out, and pulled it to after him. at the same time sir percival's heavy step descended the stairs. i heard them whispering together outside, while madame fosco was assuring me, in her calmest and most conventional manner, that she rejoiced, for all our sakes, that sir percival's conduct had not obliged her husband and herself to leave blackwater park. before she had done speaking the whispering ceased, the door opened, and the count looked in. "miss halcombe," he said, "i am happy to inform you that lady glyde is mistress again in her own house. i thought it might be more agreeable to you to hear of this change for the better from me than from sir percival, and i have therefore expressly returned to mention it." "admirable delicacy!" said madame fosco, paying back her husband's tribute of admiration with the count's own coin, in the count's own manner. he smiled and bowed as if he had received a formal compliment from a polite stranger, and drew back to let me pass out first. sir percival was standing in the hall. as i hurried to the stairs i heard him call impatiently to the count to come out of the library. "what are you waiting there for?" he said. "i want to speak to you." "and i want to think a little by myself," replied the other. "wait till later, percival, wait till later." neither he nor his friend said any more. i gained the top of the stairs and ran along the passage. in my haste and my agitation i left the door of the ante-chamber open, but i closed the door of the bedroom the moment i was inside it. laura was sitting alone at the far end of the room, her arms resting wearily on a table, and her face hidden in her hands. she started up with a cry of delight when she saw me. "how did you get here?" she asked. "who gave you leave? not sir percival?" in my overpowering anxiety to hear what she had to tell me, i could not answer her--i could only put questions on my side. laura's eagerness to know what had passed downstairs proved, however, too strong to be resisted. she persistently repeated her inquiries. "the count, of course," i answered impatiently. "whose influence in the house----" she stopped me with a gesture of disgust. "don't speak of him," she cried. "the count is the vilest creature breathing! the count is a miserable spy----!" before we could either of us say another word we were alarmed by a soft knocking at the door of the bedroom. i had not yet sat down, and i went first to see who it was. when i opened the door madame fosco confronted me with my handkerchief in her hand. "you dropped this downstairs, miss halcombe," she said, "and i thought i could bring it to you, as i was passing by to my own room." her face, naturally pale, had turned to such a ghastly whiteness that i started at the sight of it. her hands, so sure and steady at all other times, trembled violently, and her eyes looked wolfishly past me through the open door, and fixed on laura. she had been listening before she knocked! i saw it in her white face, i saw it in her trembling hands, i saw it in her look at laura. after waiting an instant she turned from me in silence, and slowly walked away. i closed the door again. "oh, laura! laura! we shall both rue the day when you called the count a spy!" "you would have called him so yourself, marian, if you had known what i know. anne catherick was right. there was a third person watching us in the plantation yesterday, and that third person---" "are you sure it was the count?" "i am absolutely certain. he was sir percival's spy--he was sir percival's informer--he set sir percival watching and waiting, all the morning through, for anne catherick and for me." "is anne found? did you see her at the lake?" "no. she has saved herself by keeping away from the place. when i got to the boat-house no one was there." "yes? yes?" "i went in and sat waiting for a few minutes. but my restlessness made me get up again, to walk about a little. as i passed out i saw some marks on the sand, close under the front of the boat-house. i stooped down to examine them, and discovered a word written in large letters on the sand. the word was--look." "and you scraped away the sand, and dug a hollow place in it?" "how do you know that, marian?" "i saw the hollow place myself when i followed you to the boat-house. go on--go on!" "yes, i scraped away the sand on the surface, and in a little while i came to a strip of paper hidden beneath, which had writing on it. the writing was signed with anne catherick's initials." "where is it?" "sir percival has taken it from me." "can you remember what the writing was? do you think you can repeat it to me?" "in substance i can, marian. it was very short. you would have remembered it, word for word." "try to tell me what the substance was before we go any further." she complied. i write the lines down here exactly as she repeated them to me. they ran thus-- "i was seen with you, yesterday, by a tall, stout old man, and had to run to save myself. he was not quick enough on his feet to follow me, and he lost me among the trees. i dare not risk coming back here to-day at the same time. i write this, and hide it in the sand, at six in the morning, to tell you so. when we speak next of your wicked husband's secret we must speak safely, or not at all. try to have patience. i promise you shall see me again and that soon.--a. c." the reference to the "tall, stout old man" (the terms of which laura was certain that she had repeated to me correctly) left no doubt as to who the intruder had been. i called to mind that i had told sir percival, in the count's presence the day before, that laura had gone to the boat-house to look for her brooch. in all probability he had followed her there, in his officious way, to relieve her mind about the matter of the signature, immediately after he had mentioned the change in sir percival's plans to me in the drawing-room. in this case he could only have got to the neighbourhood of the boat-house at the very moment when anne catherick discovered him. the suspiciously hurried manner in which she parted from laura had no doubt prompted his useless attempt to follow her. of the conversation which had previously taken place between them he could have heard nothing. the distance between the house and the lake, and the time at which he left me in the drawing-room, as compared with the time at which laura and anne catherick had been speaking together, proved that fact to us at any rate, beyond a doubt. having arrived at something like a conclusion so far, my next great interest was to know what discoveries sir percival had made after count fosco had given him his information. "how came you to lose possession of the letter?" i asked. "what did you do with it when you found it in the sand?" "after reading it once through," she replied, "i took it into the boat-house with me to sit down and look over it a second time. while i was reading a shadow fell across the paper. i looked up, and saw sir percival standing in the doorway watching me." "did you try to hide the letter?" "i tried, but he stopped me. 'you needn't trouble to hide that,' he said. 'i happen to have read it.' i could only look at him helplessly--i could say nothing. 'you understand?' he went on; 'i have read it. i dug it up out of the sand two hours since, and buried it again, and wrote the word above it again, and left it ready to your hands. you can't lie yourself out of the scrape now. you saw anne catherick in secret yesterday, and you have got her letter in your hand at this moment. i have not caught her yet, but i have caught you. give me the letter.' he stepped close up to me--i was alone with him, marian--what could i do?--i gave him the letter." "what did he say when you gave it to him?" "at first he said nothing. he took me by the arm, and led me out of the boat-house, and looked about him on all sides, as if he was afraid of our being seen or heard. then he clasped his hand fast round my arm, and whispered to me, 'what did anne catherick say to you yesterday? i insist on hearing every word, from first to last.'" "did you tell him?" "i was alone with him, marian--his cruel hand was bruising my arm--what could i do?" "is the mark on your arm still? let me see it." "why do you want to see it?" "i want to see it, laura, because our endurance must end, and our resistance must begin to-day. that mark is a weapon to strike him with. let me see it now--i may have to swear to it at some future time." "oh, marian, don't look so--don't talk so! it doesn't hurt me now!" "let me see it!" she showed me the marks. i was past grieving over them, past crying over them, past shuddering over them. they say we are either better than men, or worse. if the temptation that has fallen in some women's way, and made them worse, had fallen in mine at that moment--thank god! my face betrayed nothing that his wife could read. the gentle, innocent, affectionate creature thought i was frightened for her and sorry for her, and thought no more. "don't think too seriously of it, marian," she said simply, as she pulled her sleeve down again. "it doesn't hurt me now." "i will try to think quietly of it, my love, for your sake.--well! well! and you told him all that anne catherick had said to you--all that you told me?" "yes, all. he insisted on it--i was alone with him--i could conceal nothing." "did he say anything when you had done?" "he looked at me, and laughed to himself in a mocking, bitter way. 'i mean to have the rest out of you,' he said, 'do you hear?--the rest.' i declared to him solemnly that i had told him everything i knew. 'not you,' he answered, 'you know more than you choose to tell. won't you tell it? you shall! i'll wring it out of you at home if i can't wring it out of you here.' he led me away by a strange path through the plantation--a path where there was no hope of our meeting you--and he spoke no more till we came within sight of the house. then he stopped again, and said, 'will you take a second chance, if i give it to you? will you think better of it, and tell me the rest?' i could only repeat the same words i had spoken before. he cursed my obstinacy, and went on, and took me with him to the house. 'you can't deceive me,' he said, 'you know more than you choose to tell. i'll have your secret out of you, and i'll have it out of that sister of yours as well. there shall be no more plotting and whispering between you. neither you nor she shall see each other again till you have confessed the truth. i'll have you watched morning, noon, and night, till you confess the truth.' he was deaf to everything i could say. he took me straight upstairs into my own room. fanny was sitting there, doing some work for me, and he instantly ordered her out. 'i'll take good care you're not mixed up in the conspiracy,' he said. 'you shall leave this house to-day. if your mistress wants a maid, she shall have one of my choosing.' he pushed me into the room, and locked the door on me. he set that senseless woman to watch me outside, marian! he looked and spoke like a madman. you may hardly understand it--he did indeed." "i do understand it, laura. he is mad--mad with the terrors of a guilty conscience. every word you have said makes me positively certain that when anne catherick left you yesterday you were on the eve of discovering a secret which might have been your vile husband's ruin, and he thinks you have discovered it. nothing you can say or do will quiet that guilty distrust, and convince his false nature of your truth. i don't say this, my love, to alarm you. i say it to open your eyes to your position, and to convince you of the urgent necessity of letting me act, as i best can, for your protection while the chance is our own. count fosco's interference has secured me access to you to-day, but he may withdraw that interference to-morrow. sir percival has already dismissed fanny because she is a quick-witted girl, and devotedly attached to you, and has chosen a woman to take her place who cares nothing for your interests, and whose dull intelligence lowers her to the level of the watch-dog in the yard. it is impossible to say what violent measures he may take next, unless we make the most of our opportunities while we have them." "what can we do, marian? oh, if we could only leave this house, never to see it again!" "listen to me, my love, and try to think that you are not quite helpless so long as i am here with you." "i will think so--i do think so. don't altogether forget poor fanny in thinking of me. she wants help and comfort too." "i will not forget her. i saw her before i came up here, and i have arranged to communicate with her to-night. letters are not safe in the post-bag at blackwater park, and i shall have two to write to-day, in your interests, which must pass through no hands but fanny's." "what letters?" "i mean to write first, laura, to mr. gilmore's partner, who has offered to help us in any fresh emergency. little as i know of the law, i am certain that it can protect a woman from such treatment as that ruffian has inflicted on you to-day. i will go into no details about anne catherick, because i have no certain information to give. but the lawyer shall know of those bruises on your arm, and of the violence offered to you in this room--he shall, before i rest to-night!" "but think of the exposure, marian!" "i am calculating on the exposure. sir percival has more to dread from it than you have. the prospect of an exposure may bring him to terms when nothing else will." i rose as i spoke, but laura entreated me not to leave her. "you will drive him to desperation," she said, "and increase our dangers tenfold." i felt the truth--the disheartening truth--of those words. but i could not bring myself plainly to acknowledge it to her. in our dreadful position there was no help and no hope for us but in risking the worst. i said so in guarded terms. she sighed bitterly, but did not contest the matter. she only asked about the second letter that i had proposed writing. to whom was it to be addressed? "to mr. fairlie," i said. "your uncle is your nearest male relative, and the head of the family. he must and shall interfere." laura shook her head sorrowfully. "yes, yes," i went on, "your uncle is a weak, selfish, worldly man, i know, but he is not sir percival glyde, and he has no such friend about him as count fosco. i expect nothing from his kindness or his tenderness of feeling towards you or towards me, but he will do anything to pamper his own indolence, and to secure his own quiet. let me only persuade him that his interference at this moment will save him inevitable trouble and wretchedness and responsibility hereafter, and he will bestir himself for his own sake. i know how to deal with him, laura--i have had some practice." "if you could only prevail on him to let me go back to limmeridge for a little while and stay there quietly with you, marian, i could be almost as happy again as i was before i was married!" those words set me thinking in a new direction. would it be possible to place sir percival between the two alternatives of either exposing himself to the scandal of legal interference on his wife's behalf, or of allowing her to be quietly separated from him for a time under pretext of a visit to her uncle's house? and could he, in that case, be reckoned on as likely to accept the last resource? it was doubtful--more than doubtful. and yet, hopeless as the experiment seemed, surely it was worth trying. i resolved to try it in sheer despair of knowing what better to do. "your uncle shall know the wish you have just expressed," i said, "and i will ask the lawyer's advice on the subject as well. good may come of it--and will come of it, i hope." saying that i rose again, and again laura tried to make me resume my seat. "don't leave me," she said uneasily. "my desk is on that table. you can write here." it tried me to the quick to refuse her, even in her own interests. but we had been too long shut up alone together already. our chance of seeing each other again might entirely depend on our not exciting any fresh suspicions. it was full time to show myself, quietly and unconcernedly, among the wretches who were at that very moment, perhaps, thinking of us and talking of us downstairs. i explained the miserable necessity to laura, and prevailed on her to recognise it as i did. "i will come back again, love, in an hour or less," i said. "the worst is over for to-day. keep yourself quiet and fear nothing." "is the key in the door, marian? can i lock it on the inside?" "yes, here is the key. lock the door, and open it to nobody until i come upstairs again." i kissed her and left her. it was a relief to me as i walked away to hear the key turned in the lock, and to know that the door was at her own command. viii june th.--i had only got as far as the top of the stairs when the locking of laura's door suggested to me the precaution of also locking my own door, and keeping the key safely about me while i was out of the room. my journal was already secured with other papers in the table drawer, but my writing materials were left out. these included a seal bearing the common device of two doves drinking out of the same cup, and some sheets of blotting-paper, which had the impression on them of the closing lines of my writing in these pages traced during the past night. distorted by the suspicion which had now become a part of myself, even such trifles as these looked too dangerous to be trusted without a guard--even the locked table drawer seemed to be not sufficiently protected in my absence until the means of access to it had been carefully secured as well. i found no appearance of any one having entered the room while i had been talking with laura. my writing materials (which i had given the servant instructions never to meddle with) were scattered over the table much as usual. the only circumstance in connection with them that at all struck me was that the seal lay tidily in the tray with the pencils and the wax. it was not in my careless habits (i am sorry to say) to put it there, neither did i remember putting it there. but as i could not call to mind, on the other hand, where else i had thrown it down, and as i was also doubtful whether i might not for once have laid it mechanically in the right place, i abstained from adding to the perplexity with which the day's events had filled my mind by troubling it afresh about a trifle. i locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and went downstairs. madame fosco was alone in the hall looking at the weather-glass. "still falling," she said. "i am afraid we must expect more rain." her face was composed again to its customary expression and its customary colour. but the hand with which she pointed to the dial of the weather-glass still trembled. could she have told her husband already that she had overheard laura reviling him, in my company, as a "spy?" my strong suspicion that she must have told him, my irresistible dread (all the more overpowering from its very vagueness) of the consequences which might follow, my fixed conviction, derived from various little self-betrayals which women notice in each other, that madame fosco, in spite of her well-assumed external civility, had not forgiven her niece for innocently standing between her and the legacy of ten thousand pounds--all rushed upon my mind together, all impelled me to speak in the vain hope of using my own influence and my own powers of persuasion for the atonement of laura's offence. "may i trust to your kindness to excuse me, madame fosco, if i venture to speak to you on an exceedingly painful subject?" she crossed her hands in front of her and bowed her head solemnly, without uttering a word, and without taking her eyes off mine for a moment. "when you were so good as to bring me back my handkerchief," i went on, "i am very, very much afraid you must have accidentally heard laura say something which i am unwilling to repeat, and which i will not attempt to defend. i will only venture to hope that you have not thought it of sufficient importance to be mentioned to the count?" "i think it of no importance whatever," said madame fosco sharply and suddenly. "but," she added, resuming her icy manner in a moment, "i have no secrets from my husband even in trifles. when he noticed just now that i looked distressed, it was my painful duty to tell him why i was distressed, and i frankly acknowledge to you, miss halcombe, that i have told him." i was prepared to hear it, and yet she turned me cold all over when she said those words. "let me earnestly entreat you, madame fosco--let me earnestly entreat the count--to make some allowances for the sad position in which my sister is placed. she spoke while she was smarting under the insult and injustice inflicted on her by her husband, and she was not herself when she said those rash words. may i hope that they will be considerately and generously forgiven?" "most assuredly," said the count's quiet voice behind me. he had stolen on us with his noiseless tread and his book in his hand from the library. "when lady glyde said those hasty words," he went on, "she did me an injustice which i lament--and forgive. let us never return to the subject, miss halcombe; let us all comfortably combine to forget it from this moment." "you are very kind," i said, "you relieve me inexpressibly." i tried to continue, but his eyes were on me; his deadly smile that hides everything was set, hard, and unwavering on his broad, smooth face. my distrust of his unfathomable falseness, my sense of my own degradation in stooping to conciliate his wife and himself, so disturbed and confused me, that the next words failed on my lips, and i stood there in silence. "i beg you on my knees to say no more, miss halcombe--i am truly shocked that you should have thought it necessary to say so much." with that polite speech he took my hand--oh, how i despise myself! oh, how little comfort there is even in knowing that i submitted to it for laura's sake!--he took my hand and put it to his poisonous lips. never did i know all my horror of him till then. that innocent familiarity turned my blood as if it had been the vilest insult that a man could offer me. yet i hid my disgust from him--i tried to smile--i, who once mercilessly despised deceit in other women, was as false as the worst of them, as false as the judas whose lips had touched my hand. i could not have maintained my degrading self-control--it is all that redeems me in my own estimation to know that i could not--if he had still continued to keep his eyes on my face. his wife's tigerish jealousy came to my rescue and forced his attention away from me the moment he possessed himself of my hand. her cold blue eyes caught light, her dull white cheeks flushed into bright colour, she looked years younger than her age in an instant. "count!" she said. "your foreign forms of politeness are not understood by englishwomen." "pardon me, my angel! the best and dearest englishwoman in the world understands them." with those words he dropped my hand and quietly raised his wife's hand to his lips in place of it. i ran back up the stairs to take refuge in my own room. if there had been time to think, my thoughts, when i was alone again, would have caused me bitter suffering. but there was no time to think. happily for the preservation of my calmness and my courage there was time for nothing but action. the letters to the lawyer and to mr. fairlie were still to be written, and i sat down at once without a moment's hesitation to devote myself to them. there was no multitude of resources to perplex me--there was absolutely no one to depend on, in the first instance, but myself. sir percival had neither friends nor relatives in the neighbourhood whose intercession i could attempt to employ. he was on the coldest terms--in some cases on the worst terms with the families of his own rank and station who lived near him. we two women had neither father nor brother to come to the house and take our parts. there was no choice but to write those two doubtful letters, or to put laura in the wrong and myself in the wrong, and to make all peaceable negotiation in the future impossible by secretly escaping from blackwater park. nothing but the most imminent personal peril could justify our taking that second course. the letters must be tried first, and i wrote them. i said nothing to the lawyer about anne catherick, because (as i had already hinted to laura) that topic was connected with a mystery which we could not yet explain, and which it would therefore be useless to write about to a professional man. i left my correspondent to attribute sir percival's disgraceful conduct, if he pleased, to fresh disputes about money matters, and simply consulted him on the possibility of taking legal proceedings for laura's protection in the event of her husband's refusal to allow her to leave blackwater park for a time and return with me to limmeridge. i referred him to mr. fairlie for the details of this last arrangement--i assured him that i wrote with laura's authority--and i ended by entreating him to act in her name to the utmost extent of his power and with the least possible loss of time. the letter to mr. fairlie occupied me next. i appealed to him on the terms which i had mentioned to laura as the most likely to make him bestir himself; i enclosed a copy of my letter to the lawyer to show him how serious the case was, and i represented our removal to limmeridge as the only compromise which would prevent the danger and distress of laura's present position from inevitably affecting her uncle as well as herself at no very distant time. when i had done, and had sealed and directed the two envelopes, i went back with the letters to laura's room, to show her that they were written. "has anybody disturbed you?" i asked, when she opened the door to me. "nobody has knocked," she replied. "but i heard some one in the outer room." "was it a man or a woman?" "a woman. i heard the rustling of her gown." "a rustling like silk?" "yes, like silk." madame fosco had evidently been watching outside. the mischief she might do by herself was little to be feared. but the mischief she might do, as a willing instrument in her husband's hands, was too formidable to be overlooked. "what became of the rustling of the gown when you no longer heard it in the ante-room?" i inquired. "did you hear it go past your wall, along the passage?" "yes. i kept still and listened, and just heard it." "which way did it go?" "towards your room." i considered again. the sound had not caught my ears. but i was then deeply absorbed in my letters, and i write with a heavy hand and a quill pen, scraping and scratching noisily over the paper. it was more likely that madame fosco would hear the scraping of my pen than that i should hear the rustling of her dress. another reason (if i had wanted one) for not trusting my letters to the post-bag in the hall. laura saw me thinking. "more difficulties!" she said wearily; "more difficulties and more dangers!" "no dangers," i replied. "some little difficulty, perhaps. i am thinking of the safest way of putting my two letters into fanny's hands." "you have really written them, then? oh, marian, run no risks--pray, pray run no risks!" "no, no--no fear. let me see--what o'clock is it now?" it was a quarter to six. there would be time for me to get to the village inn, and to come back again before dinner. if i waited till the evening i might find no second opportunity of safely leaving the house. "keep the key turned in the lock. laura," i said, "and don't be afraid about me. if you hear any inquiries made, call through the door, and say that i am gone out for a walk." "when shall you be back?" "before dinner, without fail. courage, my love. by this time to-morrow you will have a clear-headed, trustworthy man acting for your good. mr. gilmore's partner is our next best friend to mr. gilmore himself." a moment's reflection, as soon as i was alone, convinced me that i had better not appear in my walking-dress until i had first discovered what was going on in the lower part of the house. i had not ascertained yet whether sir percival was indoors or out. the singing of the canaries in the library, and the smell of tobacco-smoke that came through the door, which was not closed, told me at once where the count was. i looked over my shoulder as i passed the doorway, and saw to my surprise that he was exhibiting the docility of the birds in his most engagingly polite manner to the housekeeper. he must have specially invited her to see them--for she would never have thought of going into the library of her own accord. the man's slightest actions had a purpose of some kind at the bottom of every one of them. what could be his purpose here? it was no time then to inquire into his motives. i looked about for madame fosco next, and found her following her favourite circle round and round the fish-pond. i was a little doubtful how she would meet me, after the outbreak of jealousy of which i had been the cause so short a time since. but her husband had tamed her in the interval, and she now spoke to me with the same civility as usual. my only object in addressing myself to her was to ascertain if she knew what had become of sir percival. i contrived to refer to him indirectly, and after a little fencing on either side she at last mentioned that he had gone out. "which of the horses has he taken?" i asked carelessly. "none of them," she replied. "he went away two hours since on foot. as i understood it, his object was to make fresh inquiries about the woman named anne catherick. he appears to be unreasonably anxious about tracing her. do you happen to know if she is dangerously mad, miss halcombe?" "i do not, countess." "are you going in?" "yes, i think so. i suppose it will soon be time to dress for dinner." we entered the house together. madame fosco strolled into the library, and closed the door. i went at once to fetch my hat and shawl. every moment was of importance, if i was to get to fanny at the inn and be back before dinner. when i crossed the hall again no one was there, and the singing of the birds in the library had ceased. i could not stop to make any fresh investigations. i could only assure myself that the way was clear, and then leave the house with the two letters safe in my pocket. on my way to the village i prepared myself for the possibility of meeting sir percival. as long as i had him to deal with alone i felt certain of not losing my presence of mind. any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his own temper. i had no such fear of sir percival as i had of the count. instead of fluttering, it had composed me, to hear of the errand on which he had gone out. while the tracing of anne catherick was the great anxiety that occupied him, laura and i might hope for some cessation of any active persecution at his hands. for our sakes now, as well as for anne's, i hoped and prayed fervently that she might still escape him. i walked on as briskly as the heat would let me till i reached the cross-road which led to the village, looking back from time to time to make sure that i was not followed by any one. nothing was behind me all the way but an empty country waggon. the noise made by the lumbering wheels annoyed me, and when i found that the waggon took the road to the village, as well as myself, i stopped to let it go by and pass out of hearing. as i looked toward it, more attentively than before, i thought i detected at intervals the feet of a man walking close behind it, the carter being in front, by the side of his horses. the part of the cross-road which i had just passed over was so narrow that the waggon coming after me brushed the trees and thickets on either side, and i had to wait until it went by before i could test the correctness of my impression. apparently that impression was wrong, for when the waggon had passed me the road behind it was quite clear. i reached the inn without meeting sir percival, and without noticing anything more, and was glad to find that the landlady had received fanny with all possible kindness. the girl had a little parlour to sit in, away from the noise of the taproom, and a clean bedchamber at the top of the house. she began crying again at the sight of me, and said, poor soul, truly enough, that it was dreadful to feel herself turned out into the world as if she had committed some unpardonable fault, when no blame could be laid at her door by anybody--not even by her master, who had sent her away. "try to make the best of it, fanny," i said. "your mistress and i will stand your friends, and will take care that your character shall not suffer. now, listen to me. i have very little time to spare, and i am going to put a great trust in your hands. i wish you to take care of these two letters. the one with the stamp on it you are to put into the post when you reach london to-morrow. the other, directed to mr. fairlie, you are to deliver to him yourself as soon as you get home. keep both the letters about you and give them up to no one. they are of the last importance to your mistress's interests." fanny put the letters into the bosom of her dress. "there they shall stop, miss," she said, "till i have done what you tell me." "mind you are at the station in good time to-morrow morning," i continued. "and when you see the housekeeper at limmeridge give her my compliments, and say that you are in my service until lady glyde is able to take you back. we may meet again sooner than you think. so keep a good heart, and don't miss the seven o'clock train." "thank you, miss--thank you kindly. it gives one courage to hear your voice again. please to offer my duty to my lady, and say i left all the things as tidy as i could in the time. oh, dear! dear! who will dress her for dinner to-day? it really breaks my heart, miss, to think of it." when i got back to the house i had only a quarter of an hour to spare to put myself in order for dinner, and to say two words to laura before i went downstairs. "the letters are in fanny's hands," i whispered to her at the door. "do you mean to join us at dinner?" "oh, no, no--not for the world." "has anything happened? has any one disturbed you?" "yes--just now--sir percival----" "did he come in?" "no, he frightened me by a thump on the door outside. i said, 'who's there?' 'you know,' he answered. 'will you alter your mind, and tell me the rest? you shall! sooner or later i'll wring it out of you. you know where anne catherick is at this moment.' 'indeed, indeed,' i said, 'i don't.' 'you do!' he called back. 'i'll crush your obstinacy--mind that!--i'll wring it out of you!' he went away with those words--went away, marian, hardly five minutes ago." he had not found anne! we were safe for that night--he had not found her yet. "you are going downstairs, marian? come up again in the evening." "yes, yes. don't be uneasy if i am a little late--i must be careful not to give offence by leaving them too soon." the dinner-bell rang and i hastened away. sir percival took madame fosco into the dining-room, and the count gave me his arm. he was hot and flushed, and was not dressed with his customary care and completeness. had he, too, been out before dinner, and been late in getting back? or was he only suffering from the heat a little more severely than usual? however this might be, he was unquestionably troubled by some secret annoyance or anxiety, which, with all his powers of deception, he was not able entirely to conceal. through the whole of dinner he was almost as silent as sir percival himself, and he, every now and then, looked at his wife with an expression of furtive uneasiness which was quite new in my experience of him. the one social obligation which he seemed to be self-possessed enough to perform as carefully as ever was the obligation of being persistently civil and attentive to me. what vile object he has in view i cannot still discover, but be the design what it may, invariable politeness towards myself, invariable humility towards laura, and invariable suppression (at any cost) of sir percival's clumsy violence, have been the means he has resolutely and impenetrably used to get to his end ever since he set foot in this house. i suspected it when he first interfered in our favour, on the day when the deed was produced in the library, and i feel certain of it now. when madame fosco and i rose to leave the table, the count rose also to accompany us back to the drawing-room. "what are you going away for?" asked sir percival--"i mean you, fosco." "i am going away because i have had dinner enough, and wine enough," answered the count. "be so kind, percival, as to make allowances for my foreign habit of going out with the ladies, as well as coming in with them." "nonsense! another glass of claret won't hurt you. sit down again like an englishman. i want half an hour's quiet talk with you over our wine." "a quiet talk, percival, with all my heart, but not now, and not over the wine. later in the evening, if you please--later in the evening." "civil!" said sir percival savagely. "civil behaviour, upon my soul, to a man in his own house!" i had more than once seen him look at the count uneasily during dinner-time, and had observed that the count carefully abstained from looking at him in return. this circumstance, coupled with the host's anxiety for a little quiet talk over the wine, and the guest's obstinate resolution not to sit down again at the table, revived in my memory the request which sir percival had vainly addressed to his friend earlier in the day to come out of the library and speak to him. the count had deferred granting that private interview, when it was first asked for in the afternoon, and had again deferred granting it, when it was a second time asked for at the dinner-table. whatever the coming subject of discussion between them might be, it was clearly an important subject in sir percival's estimation--and perhaps (judging from his evident reluctance to approach it) a dangerous subject as well, in the estimation of the count. these considerations occurred to me while we were passing from the dining-room to the drawing-room. sir percival's angry commentary on his friend's desertion of him had not produced the slightest effect. the count obstinately accompanied us to the tea-table--waited a minute or two in the room--went out into the hall--and returned with the post-bag in his hands. it was then eight o'clock--the hour at which the letters were always despatched from blackwater park. "have you any letter for the post, miss halcombe?" he asked, approaching me with the bag. i saw madame fosco, who was making the tea, pause, with the sugar-tongs in her hand, to listen for my answer. "no, count, thank you. no letters to-day." he gave the bag to the servant, who was then in the room; sat down at the piano, and played the air of the lively neapolitan street-song, "la mia carolina," twice over. his wife, who was usually the most deliberate of women in all her movements, made the tea as quickly as i could have made it myself--finished her own cup in two minutes, and quietly glided out of the room. i rose to follow her example--partly because i suspected her of attempting some treachery upstairs with laura, partly because i was resolved not to remain alone in the same room with her husband. before i could get to the door the count stopped me, by a request for a cup of tea. i gave him the cup of tea, and tried a second time to get away. he stopped me again--this time by going back to the piano, and suddenly appealing to me on a musical question in which he declared that the honour of his country was concerned. i vainly pleaded my own total ignorance of music, and total want of taste in that direction. he only appealed to me again with a vehemence which set all further protest on my part at defiance. "the english and the germans (he indignantly declared) were always reviling the italians for their inability to cultivate the higher kinds of music. we were perpetually talking of our oratorios, and they were perpetually talking of their symphonies. did we forget and did they forget his immortal friend and countryman, rossini? what was moses in egypt but a sublime oratorio, which was acted on the stage instead of being coldly sung in a concert-room? what was the overture to guillaume tell but a symphony under another name? had i heard moses in egypt? would i listen to this, and this, and this, and say if anything more sublimely sacred and grand had ever been composed by mortal man?"--and without waiting for a word of assent or dissent on my part, looking me hard in the face all the time, he began thundering on the piano, and singing to it with loud and lofty enthusiasm--only interrupting himself, at intervals, to announce to me fiercely the titles of the different pieces of music: "chorus of egyptians in the plague of darkness, miss halcombe!"--"recitativo of moses with the tables of the law."--"prayer of israelites, at the passage of the red sea. aha! aha! is that sacred? is that sublime?" the piano trembled under his powerful hands, and the teacups on the table rattled, as his big bass voice thundered out the notes, and his heavy foot beat time on the floor. there was something horrible--something fierce and devilish--in the outburst of his delight at his own singing and playing, and in the triumph with which he watched its effect upon me as i shrank nearer and nearer to the door. i was released at last, not by my own efforts, but by sir percival's interposition. he opened the dining-room door, and called out angrily to know what "that infernal noise" meant. the count instantly got up from the piano. "ah! if percival is coming," he said, "harmony and melody are both at an end. the muse of music, miss halcombe, deserts us in dismay, and i, the fat old minstrel, exhale the rest of my enthusiasm in the open air!" he stalked out into the verandah, put his hands in his pockets, and resumed the recitativo of moses, sotto voce, in the garden. i heard sir percival call after him from the dining-room window. but he took no notice--he seemed determined not to hear. that long-deferred quiet talk between them was still to be put off, was still to wait for the count's absolute will and pleasure. he had detained me in the drawing-room nearly half an hour from the time when his wife left us. where had she been, and what had she been doing in that interval? i went upstairs to ascertain, but i made no discoveries, and when i questioned laura, i found that she had not heard anything. nobody had disturbed her, no faint rustling of the silk dress had been audible, either in the ante-room or in the passage. it was then twenty minutes to nine. after going to my room to get my journal, i returned, and sat with laura, sometimes writing, sometimes stopping to talk with her. nobody came near us, and nothing happened. we remained together till ten o'clock. i then rose, said my last cheering words, and wished her good-night. she locked her door again after we had arranged that i should come in and see her the first thing in the morning. i had a few sentences more to add to my diary before going to bed myself, and as i went down again to the drawing-room after leaving laura for the last time that weary day, i resolved merely to show myself there, to make my excuses, and then to retire an hour earlier than usual for the night. sir percival, and the count and his wife, were sitting together. sir percival was yawning in an easy-chair, the count was reading, madame fosco was fanning herself. strange to say, her face was flushed now. she, who never suffered from the heat, was most undoubtedly suffering from it to-night. "i am afraid, countess, you are not quite so well as usual?" i said. "the very remark i was about to make to you," she replied. "you are looking pale, my dear." my dear! it was the first time she had ever addressed me with that familiarity! there was an insolent smile too on her face when she said the words. "i am suffering from one of my bad headaches," i answered coldly. "ah, indeed? want of exercise, i suppose? a walk before dinner would have been just the thing for you." she referred to the "walk" with a strange emphasis. had she seen me go out? no matter if she had. the letters were safe now in fanny's hands. "come and have a smoke, fosco," said sir percival, rising, with another uneasy look at his friend. "with pleasure, percival, when the ladies have gone to bed," replied the count. "excuse me, countess, if i set you the example of retiring," i said. "the only remedy for such a headache as mine is going to bed." i took my leave. there was the same insolent smile on the woman's face when i shook hands with her. sir percival paid no attention to me. he was looking impatiently at madame fosco, who showed no signs of leaving the room with me. the count smiled to himself behind his book. there was yet another delay to that quiet talk with sir percival--and the countess was the impediment this time. ix june th.--once safely shut into my own room, i opened these pages, and prepared to go on with that part of the day's record which was still left to write. for ten minutes or more i sat idle, with the pen in my hand, thinking over the events of the last twelve hours. when i at last addressed myself to my task, i found a difficulty in proceeding with it which i had never experienced before. in spite of my efforts to fix my thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered away with the strangest persistency in the one direction of sir percival and the count, and all the interest which i tried to concentrate on my journal centred instead in that private interview between them which had been put off all through the day, and which was now to take place in the silence and solitude of the night. in this perverse state of my mind, the recollection of what had passed since the morning would not come back to me, and there was no resource but to close my journal and to get away from it for a little while. i opened the door which led from my bedroom into my sitting-room, and having passed through, pulled it to again, to prevent any accident in case of draught with the candle left on the dressing-table. my sitting-room window was wide open, and i leaned out listlessly to look at the night. it was dark and quiet. neither moon nor stars were visible. there was a smell like rain in the still, heavy air, and i put my hand out of window. no. the rain was only threatening, it had not come yet. i remained leaning on the window-sill for nearly a quarter of an hour, looking out absently into the black darkness, and hearing nothing, except now and then the voices of the servants, or the distant sound of a closing door, in the lower part of the house. just as i was turning away wearily from the window to go back to the bedroom and make a second attempt to complete the unfinished entry in my journal, i smelt the odour of tobacco-smoke stealing towards me on the heavy night air. the next moment i saw a tiny red spark advancing from the farther end of the house in the pitch darkness. i heard no footsteps, and i could see nothing but the spark. it travelled along in the night, passed the window at which i was standing, and stopped opposite my bedroom window, inside which i had left the light burning on the dressing-table. the spark remained stationary for a moment, then moved back again in the direction from which it had advanced. as i followed its progress i saw a second red spark, larger than the first, approaching from the distance. the two met together in the darkness. remembering who smoked cigarettes and who smoked cigars, i inferred immediately that the count had come out first to look and listen under my window, and that sir percival had afterwards joined him. they must both have been walking on the lawn--or i should certainly have heard sir percival's heavy footfall, though the count's soft step might have escaped me, even on the gravel walk. i waited quietly at the window, certain that they could neither of them see me in the darkness of the room. "what's the matter?" i heard sir percival say in a low voice. "why don't you come in and sit down?" "i want to see the light out of that window," replied the count softly. "what harm does the light do?" "it shows she is not in bed yet. she is sharp enough to suspect something, and bold enough to come downstairs and listen, if she can get the chance. patience, percival--patience." "humbug! you're always talking of patience." "i shall talk of something else presently. my good friend, you are on the edge of your domestic precipice, and if i let you give the women one other chance, on my sacred word of honour they will push you over it!" "what the devil do you mean?" "we will come to our explanations, percival, when the light is out of that window, and when i have had one little look at the rooms on each side of the library, and a peep at the staircase as well." they slowly moved away, and the rest of the conversation between them (which had been conducted throughout in the same low tones) ceased to be audible. it was no matter. i had heard enough to determine me on justifying the count's opinion of my sharpness and my courage. before the red sparks were out of sight in the darkness i had made up my mind that there should be a listener when those two men sat down to their talk--and that the listener, in spite of all the count's precautions to the contrary, should be myself. i wanted but one motive to sanction the act to my own conscience, and to give me courage enough for performing it--and that motive i had. laura's honour, laura's happiness--laura's life itself--might depend on my quick ears and my faithful memory to-night. i had heard the count say that he meant to examine the rooms on each side of the library, and the staircase as well, before he entered on any explanation with sir percival. this expression of his intentions was necessarily sufficient to inform me that the library was the room in which he proposed that the conversation should take place. the one moment of time which was long enough to bring me to that conclusion was also the moment which showed me a means of baffling his precautions--or, in other words, of hearing what he and sir percival said to each other, without the risk of descending at all into the lower regions of the house. in speaking of the rooms on the ground floor i have mentioned incidentally the verandah outside them, on which they all opened by means of french windows, extending from the cornice to the floor. the top of this verandah was flat, the rain-water being carried off from it by pipes into tanks which helped to supply the house. on the narrow leaden roof, which ran along past the bedrooms, and which was rather less, i should think, than three feet below the sills of the window, a row of flower-pots was ranged, with wide intervals between each pot--the whole being protected from falling in high winds by an ornamental iron railing along the edge of the roof. the plan which had now occurred to me was to get out at my sitting-room window on to this roof, to creep along noiselessly till i reached that part of it which was immediately over the library window, and to crouch down between the flower-pots, with my ear against the outer railing. if sir percival and the count sat and smoked to-night, as i had seen them sitting and smoking many nights before, with their chairs close at the open window, and their feet stretched on the zinc garden seats which were placed under the verandah, every word they said to each other above a whisper (and no long conversation, as we all know by experience, can be carried on in a whisper) must inevitably reach my ears. if, on the other hand, they chose to-night to sit far back inside the room, then the chances were that i should hear little or nothing--and in that case, i must run the far more serious risk of trying to outwit them downstairs. strongly as i was fortified in my resolution by the desperate nature of our situation, i hoped most fervently that i might escape this last emergency. my courage was only a woman's courage after all, and it was very near to failing me when i thought of trusting myself on the ground floor, at the dead of night, within reach of sir percival and the count. i went softly back to my bedroom to try the safer experiment of the verandah roof first. a complete change in my dress was imperatively necessary for many reasons. i took off my silk gown to begin with, because the slightest noise from it on that still night might have betrayed me. i next removed the white and cumbersome parts of my underclothing, and replaced them by a petticoat of dark flannel. over this i put my black travelling cloak, and pulled the hood on to my head. in my ordinary evening costume i took up the room of three men at least. in my present dress, when it was held close about me, no man could have passed through the narrowest spaces more easily than i. the little breadth left on the roof of the verandah, between the flower-pots on one side and the wall and the windows of the house on the other, made this a serious consideration. if i knocked anything down, if i made the least noise, who could say what the consequences might be? i only waited to put the matches near the candle before i extinguished it, and groped my way back into the sitting-room, i locked that door, as i had locked my bedroom door--then quietly got out of the window, and cautiously set my feet on the leaden roof of the verandah. my two rooms were at the inner extremity of the new wing of the house in which we all lived, and i had five windows to pass before i could reach the position it was necessary to take up immediately over the library. the first window belonged to a spare room which was empty. the second and third windows belonged to laura's room. the fourth window belonged to sir percival's room. the fifth belonged to the countess's room. the others, by which it was not necessary for me to pass, were the windows of the count's dressing-room, of the bathroom, and of the second empty spare room. no sound reached my ears--the black blinding darkness of the night was all round me when i first stood on the verandah, except at that part of it which madame fosco's window overlooked. there, at the very place above the library to which my course was directed--there i saw a gleam of light! the countess was not yet in bed. it was too late to draw back--it was no time to wait. i determined to go on at all hazards, and trust for security to my own caution and to the darkness of the night. "for laura's sake!" i thought to myself, as i took the first step forward on the roof, with one hand holding my cloak close round me, and the other groping against the wall of the house. it was better to brush close by the wall than to risk striking my feet against the flower-pots within a few inches of me, on the other side. i passed the dark window of the spare room, trying the leaden roof at each step with my foot before i risked resting my weight on it. i passed the dark windows of laura's room ("god bless her and keep her to-night!"). i passed the dark window of sir percival's room. then i waited a moment, knelt down with my hands to support me, and so crept to my position, under the protection of the low wall between the bottom of the lighted window and the verandah roof. when i ventured to look up at the window itself i found that the top of it only was open, and that the blind inside was drawn down. while i was looking i saw the shadow of madame fosco pass across the white field of the blind--then pass slowly back again. thus far she could not have heard me, or the shadow would surely have stopped at the blind, even if she had wanted courage enough to open the window and look out? i placed myself sideways against the railing of the verandah--first ascertaining, by touching them, the position of the flower-pots on either side of me. there was room enough for me to sit between them and no more. the sweet-scented leaves of the flower on my left hand just brushed my cheek as i lightly rested my head against the railing. the first sounds that reached me from below were caused by the opening or closing (most probably the latter) of three doors in succession--the doors, no doubt, leading into the hall and into the rooms on each side of the library, which the count had pledged himself to examine. the first object that i saw was the red spark again travelling out into the night from under the verandah, moving away towards my window, waiting a moment, and then returning to the place from which it had set out. "the devil take your restlessness! when do you mean to sit down?" growled sir percival's voice beneath me. "ouf! how hot it is!" said the count, sighing and puffing wearily. his exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs on the tiled pavement under the verandah--the welcome sound which told me they were going to sit close at the window as usual. so far the chance was mine. the clock in the turret struck the quarter to twelve as they settled themselves in their chairs. i heard madame fosco through the open window yawning, and saw her shadow pass once more across the white field of the blind. meanwhile, sir percival and the count began talking together below, now and then dropping their voices a little lower than usual, but never sinking them to a whisper. the strangeness and peril of my situation, the dread, which i could not master, of madame fosco's lighted window, made it difficult, almost impossible, for me, at first, to keep my presence of mind, and to fix my attention solely on the conversation beneath. for some minutes i could only succeed in gathering the general substance of it. i understood the count to say that the one window alight was his wife's, that the ground floor of the house was quite clear, and that they might now speak to each other without fear of accidents. sir percival merely answered by upbraiding his friend with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his interests all through the day. the count thereupon defended himself by declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles and anxieties which had absorbed all his attention, and that the only safe time to come to an explanation was a time when they could feel certain of being neither interrupted nor overheard. "we are at a serious crisis in our affairs, percival," he said, "and if we are to decide on the future at all, we must decide secretly to-night." that sentence of the count's was the first which my attention was ready enough to master exactly as it was spoken. from this point, with certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed breathlessly on the conversation, and i followed it word for word. "crisis?" repeated sir percival. "it's a worse crisis than you think for, i can tell you." "so i should suppose, from your behaviour for the last day or two," returned the other coolly. "but wait a little. before we advance to what i do not know, let us be quite certain of what i do know. let us first see if i am right about the time that is past, before i make any proposal to you for the time that is to come." "stop till i get the brandy and water. have some yourself." "thank you, percival. the cold water with pleasure, a spoon, and the basin of sugar. eau sucree, my friend--nothing more." "sugar-and-water for a man of your age!--there! mix your sickly mess. you foreigners are all alike." "now listen, percival. i will put our position plainly before you, as i understand it, and you shall say if i am right or wrong. you and i both came back to this house from the continent with our affairs very seriously embarrassed--" "cut it short! i wanted some thousands and you some hundreds, and without the money we were both in a fair way to go to the dogs together. there's the situation. make what you can of it. go on." "well, percival, in your own solid english words, you wanted some thousands and i wanted some hundreds, and the only way of getting them was for you to raise the money for your own necessity (with a small margin beyond for my poor little hundreds) by the help of your wife. what did i tell you about your wife on our way to england?--and what did i tell you again when we had come here, and when i had seen for myself the sort of woman miss halcombe was?" "how should i know? you talked nineteen to the dozen, i suppose, just as usual." "i said this: human ingenuity, my friend, has hitherto only discovered two ways in which a man can manage a woman. one way is to knock her down--a method largely adopted by the brutal lower orders of the people, but utterly abhorrent to the refined and educated classes above them. the other way (much longer, much more difficult, but in the end not less certain) is never to accept a provocation at a woman's hands. it holds with animals, it holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing but children grown up. quiet resolution is the one quality the animals, the children, and the women all fail in. if they can once shake this superior quality in their master, they get the better of him. if they can never succeed in disturbing it, he gets the better of them. i said to you, remember that plain truth when you want your wife to help you to the money. i said, remember it doubly and trebly in the presence of your wife's sister, miss halcombe. have you remembered it? not once in all the implications that have twisted themselves about us in this house. every provocation that your wife and her sister could offer to you, you instantly accepted from them. your mad temper lost the signature to the deed, lost the ready money, set miss halcombe writing to the lawyer for the first time." "first time! has she written again?" "yes, she has written again to-day." a chair fell on the pavement of the verandah--fell with a crash, as if it had been kicked down. it was well for me that the count's revelation roused sir percival's anger as it did. on hearing that i had been once more discovered i started so that the railing against which i leaned cracked again. had he followed me to the inn? did he infer that i must have given my letters to fanny when i told him i had none for the post-bag. even if it was so, how could he have examined the letters when they had gone straight from my hand to the bosom of the girl's dress? "thank your lucky star," i heard the count say next, "that you have me in the house to undo the harm as fast as you do it. thank your lucky star that i said no when you were mad enough to talk of turning the key to-day on miss halcombe, as you turned it in your mischievous folly on your wife. where are your eyes? can you look at miss halcombe and not see that she has the foresight and the resolution of a man? with that woman for my friend i would snap these fingers of mine at the world. with that woman for my enemy, i, with all my brains and experience--i, fosco, cunning as the devil himself, as you have told me a hundred times--i walk, in your english phrase, upon egg-shells! and this grand creature--i drink her health in my sugar-and-water--this grand creature, who stands in the strength of her love and her courage, firm as a rock, between us two and that poor, flimsy, pretty blonde wife of yours--this magnificent woman, whom i admire with all my soul, though i oppose her in your interests and in mine, you drive to extremities as if she was no sharper and no bolder than the rest of her sex. percival! percival! you deserve to fail, and you have failed." there was a pause. i write the villain's words about myself because i mean to remember them--because i hope yet for the day when i may speak out once for all in his presence, and cast them back one by one in his teeth. sir percival was the first to break the silence again. "yes, yes, bully and bluster as much as you like," he said sulkily; "the difficulty about the money is not the only difficulty. you would be for taking strong measures with the women yourself--if you knew as much as i do." "we will come to that second difficulty all in good time," rejoined the count. "you may confuse yourself, percival, as much as you please, but you shall not confuse me. let the question of the money be settled first. have i convinced your obstinacy? have i shown you that your temper will not let you help yourself?--or must i go back, and (as you put it in your dear straightforward english) bully and bluster a little more?" "pooh! it's easy enough to grumble at me. say what is to be done--that's a little harder." "is it? bah! this is what is to be done: you give up all direction in the business from to-night--you leave it for the future in my hands only. i am talking to a practical british man--ha? well, practical, will that do for you?" "what do you propose if i leave it all to you?" "answer me first. is it to be in my hands or not?" "say it is in your hands--what then?" "a few questions, percival, to begin with. i must wait a little yet, to let circumstances guide me, and i must know, in every possible way, what those circumstances are likely to be. there is no time to lose. i have told you already that miss halcombe has written to the lawyer to-day for the second time." "how did you find it out? what did she say?" "if i told you, percival, we should only come back at the end to where we are now. enough that i have found it out--and the finding has caused that trouble and anxiety which made me so inaccessible to you all through to-day. now, to refresh my memory about your affairs--it is some time since i talked them over with you. the money has been raised, in the absence of your wife's signature, by means of bills at three months--raised at a cost that makes my poverty-stricken foreign hair stand on end to think of it! when the bills are due, is there really and truly no earthly way of paying them but by the help of your wife?" "none." "what! you have no money at the bankers?" "a few hundreds, when i want as many thousands." "have you no other security to borrow upon?" "not a shred." "what have you actually got with your wife at the present moment?" "nothing but the interest of her twenty thousand pounds--barely enough to pay our daily expenses." "what do you expect from your wife?" "three thousand a year when her uncle dies." "a fine fortune, percival. what sort of a man is this uncle? old?" "no--neither old nor young." "a good-tempered, freely-living man? married? no--i think my wife told me, not married." "of course not. if he was married, and had a son, lady glyde would not be next heir to the property. i'll tell you what he is. he's a maudlin, twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who comes near him about the state of his health." "men of that sort, percival, live long, and marry malevolently when you least expect it. i don't give you much, my friend, for your chance of the three thousand a year. is there nothing more that comes to you from your wife?" "nothing." "absolutely nothing?" "absolutely nothing--except in case of her death." "aha! in the case of her death." there was another pause. the count moved from the verandah to the gravel walk outside. i knew that he had moved by his voice. "the rain has come at last," i heard him say. it had come. the state of my cloak showed that it had been falling thickly for some little time. the count went back under the verandah--i heard the chair creak beneath his weight as he sat down in it again. "well, percival," he said, "and in the case of lady glyde's death, what do you get then?" "if she leaves no children----" "which she is likely to do?" "which she is not in the least likely to do----" "yes?" "why, then i get her twenty thousand pounds." "paid down?" "paid down." they were silent once more. as their voices ceased madame fosco's shadow darkened the blind again. instead of passing this time, it remained, for a moment, quite still. i saw her fingers steal round the corner of the blind, and draw it on one side. the dim white outline of her face, looking out straight over me, appeared behind the window. i kept still, shrouded from head to foot in my black cloak. the rain, which was fast wetting me, dripped over the glass, blurred it, and prevented her from seeing anything. "more rain!" i heard her say to herself. she dropped the blind, and i breathed again freely. the talk went on below me, the count resuming it this time. "percival! do you care about your wife?" "fosco! that's rather a downright question." "i am a downright man, and i repeat it." "why the devil do you look at me in that way?" "you won't answer me? well, then, let us say your wife dies before the summer is out----" "drop it, fosco!" "let us say your wife dies----" "drop it, i tell you!" "in that case, you would gain twenty thousand pounds, and you would lose----" "i should lose the chance of three thousand a year." "the remote chance, percival--the remote chance only. and you want money, at once. in your position the gain is certain--the loss doubtful." "speak for yourself as well as for me. some of the money i want has been borrowed for you. and if you come to gain, my wife's death would be ten thousand pounds in your wife's pocket. sharp as you are, you seem to have conveniently forgotten madame fosco's legacy. don't look at me in that way! i won't have it! what with your looks and your questions, upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!" "your flesh? does flesh mean conscience in english? i speak of your wife's death as i speak of a possibility. why not? the respectable lawyers who scribble-scrabble your deeds and your wills look the deaths of living people in the face. do lawyers make your flesh creep? why should i? it is my business to-night to clear up your position beyond the possibility of mistake, and i have now done it. here is your position. if your wife lives, you pay those bills with her signature to the parchment. if your wife dies, you pay them with her death." as he spoke the light in madame fosco's room was extinguished, and the whole second floor of the house was now sunk in darkness. "talk! talk!" grumbled sir percival. "one would think, to hear you, that my wife's signature to the deed was got already." "you have left the matter in my hands," retorted the count, "and i have more than two months before me to turn round in. say no more about it, if you please, for the present. when the bills are due, you will see for yourself if my 'talk! talk!' is worth something, or if it is not. and now, percival, having done with the money matters for to-night, i can place my attention at your disposal, if you wish to consult me on that second difficulty which has mixed itself up with our little embarrassments, and which has so altered you for the worse, that i hardly know you again. speak, my friend--and pardon me if i shock your fiery national tastes by mixing myself a second glass of sugar-and-water." "it's very well to say speak," replied sir percival, in a far more quiet and more polite tone than he had yet adopted, "but it's not so easy to know how to begin." "shall i help you?" suggested the count. "shall i give this private difficulty of yours a name? what if i call it--anne catherick?" "look here, fosco, you and i have known each other for a long time, and if you have helped me out of one or two scrapes before this, i have done the best i could to help you in return, as far as money would go. we have made as many friendly sacrifices, on both sides, as men could, but we have had our secrets from each other, of course--haven't we?" "you have had a secret from me, percival. there is a skeleton in your cupboard here at blackwater park that has peeped out in these last few days at other people besides yourself." "well, suppose it has. if it doesn't concern you, you needn't be curious about it, need you?" "do i look curious about it?" "yes, you do." "so! so! my face speaks the truth, then? what an immense foundation of good there must be in the nature of a man who arrives at my age, and whose face has not yet lost the habit of speaking the truth!--come, glyde! let us be candid one with the other. this secret of yours has sought me: i have not sought it. let us say i am curious--do you ask me, as your old friend, to respect your secret, and to leave it, once for all, in your own keeping?" "yes--that's just what i do ask." "then my curiosity is at an end. it dies in me from this moment." "do you really mean that?" "what makes you doubt me?" "i have had some experience, fosco, of your roundabout ways, and i am not so sure that you won't worm it out of me after all." the chair below suddenly creaked again--i felt the trellis-work pillar under me shake from top to bottom. the count had started to his feet, and had struck it with his hand in indignation. "percival! percival!" he cried passionately, "do you know me no better than that? has all your experience shown you nothing of my character yet? i am a man of the antique type! i am capable of the most exalted acts of virtue--when i have the chance of performing them. it has been the misfortune of my life that i have had few chances. my conception of friendship is sublime! is it my fault that your skeleton has peeped out at me? why do i confess my curiosity? you poor superficial englishman, it is to magnify my own self-control. i could draw your secret out of you, if i liked, as i draw this finger out of the palm of my hand--you know i could! but you have appealed to my friendship, and the duties of friendship are sacred to me. see! i trample my base curiosity under my feet. my exalted sentiments lift me above it. recognise them, percival! imitate them, percival! shake hands--i forgive you." his voice faltered over the last words--faltered, as if he were actually shedding tears! sir percival confusedly attempted to excuse himself, but the count was too magnanimous to listen to him. "no!" he said. "when my friend has wounded me, i can pardon him without apologies. tell me, in plain words, do you want my help?" "yes, badly enough." "and you can ask for it without compromising yourself?" "i can try, at any rate." "try, then." "well, this is how it stands:--i told you to-day that i had done my best to find anne catherick, and failed." "yes, you did." "fosco! i'm a lost man if i don't find her." "ha! is it so serious as that?" a little stream of light travelled out under the verandah, and fell over the gravel-walk. the count had taken the lamp from the inner part of the room to see his friend clearly by the light of it. "yes!" he said. "your face speaks the truth this time. serious, indeed--as serious as the money matters themselves." "more serious. as true as i sit here, more serious!" the light disappeared again and the talk went on. "i showed you the letter to my wife that anne catherick hid in the sand," sir percival continued. "there's no boasting in that letter, fosco--she does know the secret." "say as little as possible, percival, in my presence, of the secret. does she know it from you?" "no, from her mother." "two women in possession of your private mind--bad, bad, bad, my friend! one question here, before we go any farther. the motive of your shutting up the daughter in the asylum is now plain enough to me, but the manner of her escape is not quite so clear. do you suspect the people in charge of her of closing their eyes purposely, at the instance of some enemy who could afford to make it worth their while?" "no, she was the best-behaved patient they had--and, like fools, they trusted her. she's just mad enough to be shut up, and just sane enough to ruin me when she's at large--if you understand that?" "i do understand it. now, percival, come at once to the point, and then i shall know what to do. where is the danger of your position at the present moment?" "anne catherick is in this neighbourhood, and in communication with lady glyde--there's the danger, plain enough. who can read the letter she hid in the sand, and not see that my wife is in possession of the secret, deny it as she may?" "one moment, percival. if lady glyde does know the secret, she must know also that it is a compromising secret for you. as your wife, surely it is her interest to keep it?" "is it? i'm coming to that. it might be her interest if she cared two straws about me. but i happen to be an encumbrance in the way of another man. she was in love with him before she married me--she's in love with him now--an infernal vagabond of a drawing-master, named hartright." "my dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? they are all in love with some other man. who gets the first of a woman's heart? in all my experience i have never yet met with the man who was number one. number two, sometimes. number three, four, five, often. number one, never! he exists, of course--but i have not met with him." "wait! i haven't done yet. who do you think helped anne catherick to get the start, when the people from the mad-house were after her? hartright. who do you think saw her again in cumberland? hartright. both times he spoke to her alone. stop! don't interrupt me. the scoundrel's as sweet on my wife as she is on him. he knows the secret, and she knows the secret. once let them both get together again, and it's her interest and his interest to turn their information against me." "gently, percival--gently! are you insensible to the virtue of lady glyde?" "that for the virtue of lady glyde! i believe in nothing about her but her money. don't you see how the case stands? she might be harmless enough by herself; but if she and that vagabond hartright----" "yes, yes, i see. where is mr. hartright?" "out of the country. if he means to keep a whole skin on his bones, i recommend him not to come back in a hurry." "are you sure he is out of the country?" "certain. i had him watched from the time he left cumberland to the time he sailed. oh, i've been careful, i can tell you! anne catherick lived with some people at a farmhouse near limmeridge. i went there myself, after she had given me the slip, and made sure that they knew nothing. i gave her mother a form of letter to write to miss halcombe, exonerating me from any bad motive in putting her under restraint. i've spent, i'm afraid to say how much, in trying to trace her, and in spite of it all, she turns up here and escapes me on my own property! how do i know who else may see her, who else may speak to her? that prying scoundrel, hartright, may come back without my knowing it, and may make use of her to-morrow----" "not he, percival! while i am on the spot, and while that woman is in the neighbourhood, i will answer for our laying hands on her before mr. hartright--even if he does come back. i see! yes, yes, i see! the finding of anne catherick is the first necessity--make your mind easy about the rest. your wife is here, under your thumb--miss halcombe is inseparable from her, and is, therefore, under your thumb also--and mr. hartright is out of the country. this invisible anne of yours is all we have to think of for the present. you have made your inquiries?" "yes. i have been to her mother, i have ransacked the village--and all to no purpose." "is her mother to be depended on?" "yes." "she has told your secret once." "she won't tell it again." "why not? are her own interests concerned in keeping it, as well as yours?" "yes--deeply concerned." "i am glad to hear it, percival, for your sake. don't be discouraged, my friend. our money matters, as i told you, leave me plenty of time to turn round in, and i may search for anne catherick to-morrow to better purpose than you. one last question before we go to bed." "what is it?" "it is this. when i went to the boat-house to tell lady glyde that the little difficulty of her signature was put off, accident took me there in time to see a strange woman parting in a very suspicious manner from your wife. but accident did not bring me near enough to see this same woman's face plainly. i must know how to recognise our invisible anne. what is she like?" "like? come! i'll tell you in two words. she's a sickly likeness of my wife." the chair creaked, and the pillar shook once more. the count was on his feet again--this time in astonishment. "what!!!" he exclaimed eagerly. "fancy my wife, after a bad illness, with a touch of something wrong in her head--and there is anne catherick for you," answered sir percival. "are they related to each other?" "not a bit of it." "and yet so like?" "yes, so like. what are you laughing about?" there was no answer, and no sound of any kind. the count was laughing in his smooth silent internal way. "what are you laughing about?" reiterated sir percival. "perhaps at my own fancies, my good friend. allow me my italian humour--do i not come of the illustrious nation which invented the exhibition of punch? well, well, well, i shall know anne catherick when i see her--and so enough for to-night. make your mind easy, percival. sleep, my son, the sleep of the just, and see what i will do for you when daylight comes to help us both. i have my projects and my plans here in my big head. you shall pay those bills and find anne catherick--my sacred word of honour on it, but you shall! am i a friend to be treasured in the best corner of your heart, or am i not? am i worth those loans of money which you so delicately reminded me of a little while since? whatever you do, never wound me in my sentiments any more. recognise them, percival! imitate them, percival! i forgive you again--i shake hands again. good-night!" not another word was spoken. i heard the count close the library door. i heard sir percival barring up the window-shutters. it had been raining, raining all the time. i was cramped by my position and chilled to the bones. when i first tried to move, the effort was so painful to me that i was obliged to desist. i tried a second time, and succeeded in rising to my knees on the wet roof. as i crept to the wall, and raised myself against it, i looked back, and saw the window of the count's dressing-room gleam into light. my sinking courage flickered up in me again, and kept my eyes fixed on his window, as i stole my way back, step by step, past the wall of the house. the clock struck the quarter after one, when i laid my hands on the window-sill of my own room. i had seen nothing and heard nothing which could lead me to suppose that my retreat had been discovered. x june th.--eight o'clock. the sun is shining in a clear sky. i have not been near my bed--i have not once closed my weary wakeful eyes. from the same window at which i looked out into the darkness of last night, i look out now at the bright stillness of the morning. i count the hours that have passed since i escaped to the shelter of this room by my own sensations--and those hours seem like weeks. how short a time, and yet how long to me--since i sank down in the darkness, here, on the floor--drenched to the skin, cramped in every limb, cold to the bones, a useless, helpless, panic-stricken creature. i hardly know when i roused myself. i hardly know when i groped my way back to the bedroom, and lighted the candle, and searched (with a strange ignorance, at first, of where to look for them) for dry clothes to warm me. the doing of these things is in my mind, but not the time when they were done. can i even remember when the chilled, cramped feeling left me, and the throbbing heat came in its place? surely it was before the sun rose? yes, i heard the clock strike three. i remember the time by the sudden brightness and clearness, the feverish strain and excitement of all my faculties which came with it. i remember my resolution to control myself, to wait patiently hour after hour, till the chance offered of removing laura from this horrible place, without the danger of immediate discovery and pursuit. i remember the persuasion settling itself in my mind that the words those two men had said to each other would furnish us, not only with our justification for leaving the house, but with our weapons of defence against them as well. i recall the impulse that awakened in me to preserve those words in writing, exactly as they were spoken, while the time was my own, and while my memory vividly retained them. all this i remember plainly: there is no confusion in my head yet. the coming in here from the bedroom, with my pen and ink and paper, before sunrise--the sitting down at the widely-opened window to get all the air i could to cool me--the ceaseless writing, faster and faster, hotter and hotter, driving on more and more wakefully, all through the dreadful interval before the house was astir again--how clearly i recall it, from the beginning by candle-light, to the end on the page before this, in the sunshine of the new day! why do i sit here still? why do i weary my hot eyes and my burning head by writing more? why not lie down and rest myself, and try to quench the fever that consumes me, in sleep? i dare not attempt it. a fear beyond all other fears has got possession of me. i am afraid of this heat that parches my skin. i am afraid of the creeping and throbbing that i feel in my head. if i lie down now, how do i know that i may have the sense and the strength to rise again? oh, the rain, the rain--the cruel rain that chilled me last night! nine o'clock. was it nine struck, or eight? nine, surely? i am shivering again--shivering, from head to foot, in the summer air. have i been sitting here asleep? i don't know what i have been doing. oh, my god! am i going to be ill? ill, at such a time as this! my head--i am sadly afraid of my head. i can write, but the lines all run together. i see the words. laura--i can write laura, and see i write it. eight or nine--which was it? so cold, so cold--oh, that rain last night!--and the strokes of the clock, the strokes i can't count, keep striking in my head---- * * * * * * * * * * note [at this place the entry in the diary ceases to be legible. the two or three lines which follow contain fragments of words only, mingled with blots and scratches of the pen. the last marks on the paper bear some resemblance to the first two letters (l and a) of the name of lady glyde. on the next page of the diary, another entry appears. it is in a man's handwriting, large, bold, and firmly regular, and the date is "june the st." it contains these lines--] postscript by a sincere friend the illness of our excellent miss halcombe has afforded me the opportunity of enjoying an unexpected intellectual pleasure. i refer to the perusal (which i have just completed) of this interesting diary. there are many hundred pages here. i can lay my hand on my heart, and declare that every page has charmed, refreshed, delighted me. to a man of my sentiments it is unspeakably gratifying to be able to say this. admirable woman! i allude to miss halcombe. stupendous effort! i refer to the diary. yes! these pages are amazing. the tact which i find here, the discretion, the rare courage, the wonderful power of memory, the accurate observation of character, the easy grace of style, the charming outbursts of womanly feeling, have all inexpressibly increased my admiration of this sublime creature, of this magnificent marian. the presentation of my own character is masterly in the extreme. i certify, with my whole heart, to the fidelity of the portrait. i feel how vivid an impression i must have produced to have been painted in such strong, such rich, such massive colours as these. i lament afresh the cruel necessity which sets our interests at variance, and opposes us to each other. under happier circumstances how worthy i should have been of miss halcombe--how worthy miss halcombe would have been of me. the sentiments which animate my heart assure me that the lines i have just written express a profound truth. those sentiments exalt me above all merely personal considerations. i bear witness, in the most disinterested manner, to the excellence of the stratagem by which this unparalleled woman surprised the private interview between percival and myself--also to the marvellous accuracy of her report of the whole conversation from its beginning to its end. those sentiments have induced me to offer to the unimpressionable doctor who attends on her my vast knowledge of chemistry, and my luminous experience of the more subtle resources which medical and magnetic science have placed at the disposal of mankind. he has hitherto declined to avail himself of my assistance. miserable man! finally, those sentiments dictate the lines--grateful, sympathetic, paternal lines--which appear in this place. i close the book. my strict sense of propriety restores it (by the hands of my wife) to its place on the writer's table. events are hurrying me away. circumstances are guiding me to serious issues. vast perspectives of success unroll themselves before my eyes. i accomplish my destiny with a calmness which is terrible to myself. nothing but the homage of my admiration is my own. i deposit it with respectful tenderness at the feet of miss halcombe. i breathe my wishes for her recovery. i condole with her on the inevitable failure of every plan that she has formed for her sister's benefit. at the same time, i entreat her to believe that the information which i have derived from her diary will in no respect help me to contribute to that failure. it simply confirms the plan of conduct which i had previously arranged. i have to thank these pages for awakening the finest sensibilities in my nature--nothing more. to a person of similar sensibility this simple assertion will explain and excuse everything. miss halcombe is a person of similar sensibility. in that persuasion i sign myself, fosco. the story continued by frederick fairlie, esq., of limmeridge house[ ] [ ] the manner in which mr. fairlie's narrative and other narratives that are shortly to follow it, were originally obtained, forms the subject of an explanation which will appear at a later period. it is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone. why--i ask everybody--why worry me? nobody answers that question, and nobody lets me alone. relatives, friends, and strangers all combine to annoy me. what have i done? i ask myself, i ask my servant, louis, fifty times a day--what have i done? neither of us can tell. most extraordinary! the last annoyance that has assailed me is the annoyance of being called upon to write this narrative. is a man in my state of nervous wretchedness capable of writing narratives? when i put this extremely reasonable objection, i am told that certain very serious events relating to my niece have happened within my experience, and that i am the fit person to describe them on that account. i am threatened if i fail to exert myself in the manner required, with consequences which i cannot so much as think of without perfect prostration. there is really no need to threaten me. shattered by my miserable health and my family troubles, i am incapable of resistance. if you insist, you take your unjust advantage of me, and i give way immediately. i will endeavour to remember what i can (under protest), and to write what i can (also under protest), and what i can't remember and can't write, louis must remember and write for me. he is an ass, and i am an invalid, and we are likely to make all sorts of mistakes between us. how humiliating! i am told to remember dates. good heavens! i never did such a thing in my life--how am i to begin now? i have asked louis. he is not quite such an ass as i have hitherto supposed. he remembers the date of the event, within a week or two--and i remember the name of the person. the date was towards the end of june, or the beginning of july, and the name (in my opinion a remarkably vulgar one) was fanny. at the end of june, or the beginning of july, then, i was reclining in my customary state, surrounded by the various objects of art which i have collected about me to improve the taste of the barbarous people in my neighbourhood. that is to say, i had the photographs of my pictures, and prints, and coins, and so forth, all about me, which i intend, one of these days, to present (the photographs, i mean, if the clumsy english language will let me mean anything) to present to the institution at carlisle (horrid place!), with a view to improving the tastes of the members (goths and vandals to a man). it might be supposed that a gentleman who was in course of conferring a great national benefit on his countrymen was the last gentleman in the world to be unfeelingly worried about private difficulties and family affairs. quite a mistake, i assure you, in my case. however, there i was, reclining, with my art-treasures about me, and wanting a quiet morning. because i wanted a quiet morning, of course louis came in. it was perfectly natural that i should inquire what the deuce he meant by making his appearance when i had not rung my bell. i seldom swear--it is such an ungentlemanlike habit--but when louis answered by a grin, i think it was also perfectly natural that i should damn him for grinning. at any rate, i did. this rigorous mode of treatment, i have observed, invariably brings persons in the lower class of life to their senses. it brought louis to his senses. he was so obliging as to leave off grinning, and inform me that a young person was outside wanting to see me. he added (with the odious talkativeness of servants), that her name was fanny. "who is fanny?" "lady glyde's maid, sir." "what does lady glyde's maid want with me?" "a letter, sir----" "take it." "she refuses to give it to anybody but you, sir." "who sends the letter?" "miss halcombe, sir." the moment i heard miss halcombe's name i gave up. it is a habit of mine always to give up to miss halcombe. i find, by experience, that it saves noise. i gave up on this occasion. dear marian! "let lady glyde's maid come in, louis. stop! do her shoes creak?" i was obliged to ask the question. creaking shoes invariably upset me for the day. i was resigned to see the young person, but i was not resigned to let the young person's shoes upset me. there is a limit even to my endurance. louis affirmed distinctly that her shoes were to be depended upon. i waved my hand. he introduced her. is it necessary to say that she expressed her sense of embarrassment by shutting up her mouth and breathing through her nose? to the student of female human nature in the lower orders, surely not. let me do the girl justice. her shoes did not creak. but why do young persons in service all perspire at the hands? why have they all got fat noses and hard cheeks? and why are their faces so sadly unfinished, especially about the corners of the eyelids? i am not strong enough to think deeply myself on any subject, but i appeal to professional men, who are. why have we no variety in our breed of young persons? "you have a letter for me, from miss halcombe? put it down on the table, please, and don't upset anything. how is miss halcombe?" "very well, thank you, sir." "and lady glyde?" i received no answer. the young person's face became more unfinished than ever, and i think she began to cry. i certainly saw something moist about her eyes. tears or perspiration? louis (whom i have just consulted) is inclined to think, tears. he is in her class of life, and he ought to know best. let us say, tears. except when the refining process of art judiciously removes from them all resemblance to nature, i distinctly object to tears. tears are scientifically described as a secretion. i can understand that a secretion may be healthy or unhealthy, but i cannot see the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of view. perhaps my own secretions being all wrong together, i am a little prejudiced on the subject. no matter. i behaved, on this occasion, with all possible propriety and feeling. i closed my eyes and said to louis-- "endeavour to ascertain what she means." louis endeavoured, and the young person endeavoured. they succeeded in confusing each other to such an extent that i am bound in common gratitude to say, they really amused me. i think i shall send for them again when i am in low spirits. i have just mentioned this idea to louis. strange to say, it seems to make him uncomfortable. poor devil! surely i am not expected to repeat my niece's maid's explanation of her tears, interpreted in the english of my swiss valet? the thing is manifestly impossible. i can give my own impressions and feelings perhaps. will that do as well? please say, yes. my idea is that she began by telling me (through louis) that her master had dismissed her from her mistress's service. (observe, throughout, the strange irrelevancy of the young person. was it my fault that she had lost her place?) on her dismissal, she had gone to the inn to sleep. (i don't keep the inn--why mention it to me?) between six o'clock and seven miss halcombe had come to say good-bye, and had given her two letters, one for me, and one for a gentleman in london. (i am not a gentleman in london--hang the gentleman in london!) she had carefully put the two letters into her bosom (what have i to do with her bosom?); she had been very unhappy, when miss halcombe had gone away again; she had not had the heart to put bit or drop between her lips till it was near bedtime, and then, when it was close on nine o'clock, she had thought she should like a cup of tea. (am i responsible for any of these vulgar fluctuations, which begin with unhappiness and end with tea?) just as she was warming the pot (i give the words on the authority of louis, who says he knows what they mean, and wishes to explain, but i snub him on principle)--just as she was warming the pot the door opened, and she was struck of a heap (her own words again, and perfectly unintelligible this time to louis, as well as to myself) by the appearance in the inn parlour of her ladyship the countess. i give my niece's maid's description of my sister's title with a sense of the highest relish. my poor dear sister is a tiresome woman who married a foreigner. to resume: the door opened, her ladyship the countess appeared in the parlour, and the young person was struck of a heap. most remarkable! i must really rest a little before i can get on any farther. when i have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-de-cologne, i may be able to proceed. her ladyship the countess---- no. i am able to proceed, but not to sit up. i will recline and dictate. louis has a horrid accent, but he knows the language, and can write. how very convenient! her ladyship, the countess, explained her unexpected appearance at the inn by telling fanny that she had come to bring one or two little messages which miss halcombe in her hurry had forgotten. the young person thereupon waited anxiously to hear what the messages were, but the countess seemed disinclined to mention them (so like my sister's tiresome way!) until fanny had had her tea. her ladyship was surprisingly kind and thoughtful about it (extremely unlike my sister), and said, "i am sure, my poor girl, you must want your tea. we can let the messages wait till afterwards. come, come, if nothing else will put you at your ease, i'll make the tea and have a cup with you." i think those were the words, as reported excitably, in my presence, by the young person. at any rate, the countess insisted on making the tea, and carried her ridiculous ostentation of humility so far as to take one cup herself, and to insist on the girl's taking the other. the girl drank the tea, and according to her own account, solemnised the extraordinary occasion five minutes afterwards by fainting dead away for the first time in her life. here again i use her own words. louis thinks they were accompanied by an increased secretion of tears. i can't say myself. the effort of listening being quite as much as i could manage, my eyes were closed. where did i leave off? ah, yes--she fainted after drinking a cup of tea with the countess--a proceeding which might have interested me if i had been her medical man, but being nothing of the sort i felt bored by hearing of it, nothing more. when she came to herself in half an hour's time she was on the sofa, and nobody was with her but the landlady. the countess, finding it too late to remain any longer at the inn, had gone away as soon as the girl showed signs of recovering, and the landlady had been good enough to help her upstairs to bed. left by herself, she had felt in her bosom (i regret the necessity of referring to this part of the subject a second time), and had found the two letters there quite safe, but strangely crumpled. she had been giddy in the night, but had got up well enough to travel in the morning. she had put the letter addressed to that obtrusive stranger, the gentleman in london into the post, and had now delivered the other letter into my hands as she was told. this was the plain truth, and though she could not blame herself for any intentional neglect, she was sadly troubled in her mind, and sadly in want of a word of advice. at this point louis thinks the secretions appeared again. perhaps they did, but it is of infinitely greater importance to mention that at this point also i lost my patience, opened my eyes, and interfered. "what is the purport of all this?" i inquired. my niece's irrelevant maid stared, and stood speechless. "endeavour to explain," i said to my servant. "translate me, louis." louis endeavoured and translated. in other words, he descended immediately into a bottomless pit of confusion, and the young person followed him down. i really don't know when i have been so amused. i left them at the bottom of the pit as long as they diverted me. when they ceased to divert me, i exerted my intelligence, and pulled them up again. it is unnecessary to say that my interference enabled me, in due course of time, to ascertain the purport of the young person's remarks. i discovered that she was uneasy in her mind, because the train of events that she had just described to me had prevented her from receiving those supplementary messages which miss halcombe had intrusted to the countess to deliver. she was afraid the messages might have been of great importance to her mistress's interests. her dread of sir percival had deterred her from going to blackwater park late at night to inquire about them, and miss halcombe's own directions to her, on no account to miss the train in the morning, had prevented her from waiting at the inn the next day. she was most anxious that the misfortune of her fainting-fit should not lead to the second misfortune of making her mistress think her neglectful, and she would humbly beg to ask me whether i would advise her to write her explanations and excuses to miss halcombe, requesting to receive the messages by letter, if it was not too late. i make no apologies for this extremely prosy paragraph. i have been ordered to write it. there are people, unaccountable as it may appear, who actually take more interest in what my niece's maid said to me on this occasion than in what i said to my niece's maid. amusing perversity! "i should feel very much obliged to you, sir, if you would kindly tell me what i had better do," remarked the young person. "let things stop as they are," i said, adapting my language to my listener. "i invariably let things stop as they are. yes. is that all?" "if you think it would be a liberty in me, sir, to write, of course i wouldn't venture to do so. but i am so very anxious to do all i can to serve my mistress faithfully----" people in the lower class of life never know when or how to go out of a room. they invariably require to be helped out by their betters. i thought it high time to help the young person out. i did it with two judicious words-- "good-morning." something outside or inside this singular girl suddenly creaked. louis, who was looking at her (which i was not), says she creaked when she curtseyed. curious. was it her shoes, her stays, or her bones? louis thinks it was her stays. most extraordinary! as soon as i was left by myself i had a little nap--i really wanted it. when i awoke again i noticed dear marian's letter. if i had had the least idea of what it contained i should certainly not have attempted to open it. being, unfortunately for myself, quite innocent of all suspicion, i read the letter. it immediately upset me for the day. i am, by nature, one of the most easy-tempered creatures that ever lived--i make allowances for everybody, and i take offence at nothing. but as i have before remarked, there are limits to my endurance. i laid down marian's letter, and felt myself--justly felt myself--an injured man. i am about to make a remark. it is, of course, applicable to the very serious matter now under notice, or i should not allow it to appear in this place. nothing, in my opinion, sets the odious selfishness of mankind in such a repulsively vivid light as the treatment, in all classes of society, which the single people receive at the hands of the married people. when you have once shown yourself too considerate and self-denying to add a family of your own to an already overcrowded population, you are vindictively marked out by your married friends, who have no similar consideration and no similar self-denial, as the recipient of half their conjugal troubles, and the born friend of all their children. husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them. take my own case. i considerately remain single, and my poor dear brother philip inconsiderately marries. what does he do when he dies? he leaves his daughter to me. she is a sweet girl--she is also a dreadful responsibility. why lay her on my shoulders? because i am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to relieve my married connections of all their own troubles. i do my best with my brother's responsibility--i marry my niece, with infinite fuss and difficulty, to the man her father wanted her to marry. she and her husband disagree, and unpleasant consequences follow. what does she do with those consequences? she transfers them to me. why transfer them to me? because i am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to relieve my married connections of all their own troubles. poor single people! poor human nature! it is quite unnecessary to say that marian's letter threatened me. everybody threatens me. all sorts of horrors were to fall on my devoted head if i hesitated to turn limmeridge house into an asylum for my niece and her misfortunes. i did hesitate, nevertheless. i have mentioned that my usual course, hitherto, had been to submit to dear marian, and save noise. but on this occasion, the consequences involved in her extremely inconsiderate proposal were of a nature to make me pause. if i opened limmeridge house as an asylum to lady glyde, what security had i against sir percival glyde's following her here in a state of violent resentment against me for harbouring his wife? i saw such a perfect labyrinth of troubles involved in this proceeding that i determined to feel my ground, as it were. i wrote, therefore, to dear marian to beg (as she had no husband to lay claim to her) that she would come here by herself, first, and talk the matter over with me. if she could answer my objections to my own perfect satisfaction, then i assured her that i would receive our sweet laura with the greatest pleasure, but not otherwise. i felt, of course, at the time, that this temporising on my part would probably end in bringing marian here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors. but then, the other course of proceeding might end in bringing sir percival here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors also, and of the two indignations and bangings i preferred marian's, because i was used to her. accordingly i despatched the letter by return of post. it gained me time, at all events--and, oh dear me! what a point that was to begin with. when i am totally prostrated (did i mention that i was totally prostrated by marian's letter?) it always takes me three days to get up again. i was very unreasonable--i expected three days of quiet. of course i didn't get them. the third day's post brought me a most impertinent letter from a person with whom i was totally unacquainted. he described himself as the acting partner of our man of business--our dear, pig-headed old gilmore--and he informed me that he had lately received, by the post, a letter addressed to him in miss halcombe's handwriting. on opening the envelope, he had discovered, to his astonishment, that it contained nothing but a blank sheet of note-paper. this circumstance appeared to him so suspicious (as suggesting to his restless legal mind that the letter had been tampered with) that he had at once written to miss halcombe, and had received no answer by return of post. in this difficulty, instead of acting like a sensible man and letting things take their proper course, his next absurd proceeding, on his own showing, was to pester me by writing to inquire if i knew anything about it. what the deuce should i know about it? why alarm me as well as himself? i wrote back to that effect. it was one of my keenest letters. i have produced nothing with a sharper epistolary edge to it since i tendered his dismissal in writing to that extremely troublesome person, mr. walter hartright. my letter produced its effect. i heard nothing more from the lawyer. this perhaps was not altogether surprising. but it was certainly a remarkable circumstance that no second letter reached me from marian, and that no warning signs appeared of her arrival. her unexpected absence did me amazing good. it was so very soothing and pleasant to infer (as i did of course) that my married connections had made it up again. five days of undisturbed tranquillity, of delicious single blessedness, quite restored me. on the sixth day i felt strong enough to send for my photographer, and to set him at work again on the presentation copies of my art-treasures, with a view, as i have already mentioned, to the improvement of taste in this barbarous neighbourhood. i had just dismissed him to his workshop, and had just begun coquetting with my coins, when louis suddenly made his appearance with a card in his hand. "another young person?" i said. "i won't see her. in my state of health young persons disagree with me. not at home." "it is a gentleman this time, sir." a gentleman of course made a difference. i looked at the card. gracious heaven! my tiresome sister's foreign husband, count fosco. is it necessary to say what my first impression was when i looked at my visitor's card? surely not! my sister having married a foreigner, there was but one impression that any man in his senses could possibly feel. of course the count had come to borrow money of me. "louis," i said, "do you think he would go away if you gave him five shillings?" louis looked quite shocked. he surprised me inexpressibly by declaring that my sister's foreign husband was dressed superbly, and looked the picture of prosperity. under these circumstances my first impression altered to a certain extent. i now took it for granted that the count had matrimonial difficulties of his own to contend with, and that he had come, like the rest of the family, to cast them all on my shoulders. "did he mention his business?" i asked. "count fosco said he had come here, sir, because miss halcombe was unable to leave blackwater park." fresh troubles, apparently. not exactly his own, as i had supposed, but dear marian's. troubles, anyway. oh dear! "show him in," i said resignedly. the count's first appearance really startled me. he was such an alarmingly large person that i quite trembled. i felt certain that he would shake the floor and knock down my art-treasures. he did neither the one nor the other. he was refreshingly dressed in summer costume--his manner was delightfully self-possessed and quiet--he had a charming smile. my first impression of him was highly favourable. it is not creditable to my penetration--as the sequel will show--to acknowledge this, but i am a naturally candid man, and i do acknowledge it notwithstanding. "allow me to present myself, mr. fairlie," he said. "i come from blackwater park, and i have the honour and the happiness of being madame fosco's husband. let me take my first and last advantage of that circumstance by entreating you not to make a stranger of me. i beg you will not disturb yourself--i beg you will not move." "you are very good," i replied. "i wish i was strong enough to get up. charmed to see you at limmeridge. please take a chair." "i am afraid you are suffering to-day," said the count. "as usual," i said. "i am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to look like a man." "i have studied many subjects in my time," remarked this sympathetic person. "among others the inexhaustible subject of nerves. may i make a suggestion, at once the simplest and the most profound? will you let me alter the light in your room?" "certainly--if you will be so very kind as not to let any of it in on me." he walked to the window. such a contrast to dear marian! so extremely considerate in all his movements! "light," he said, in that delightfully confidential tone which is so soothing to an invalid, "is the first essential. light stimulates, nourishes, preserves. you can no more do without it, mr. fairlie, than if you were a flower. observe. here, where you sit, i close the shutters to compose you. there, where you do not sit, i draw up the blind and let in the invigorating sun. admit the light into your room if you cannot bear it on yourself. light, sir, is the grand decree of providence. you accept providence with your own restrictions. accept light on the same terms." i thought this very convincing and attentive. he had taken me in up to that point about the light, he had certainly taken me in. "you see me confused," he said, returning to his place--"on my word of honour, mr. fairlie, you see me confused in your presence." "shocked to hear it, i am sure. may i inquire why?" "sir, can i enter this room (where you sit a sufferer), and see you surrounded by these admirable objects of art, without discovering that you are a man whose feelings are acutely impressionable, whose sympathies are perpetually alive? tell me, can i do this?" if i had been strong enough to sit up in my chair i should, of course, have bowed. not being strong enough, i smiled my acknowledgments instead. it did just as well, we both understood one another. "pray follow my train of thought," continued the count. "i sit here, a man of refined sympathies myself, in the presence of another man of refined sympathies also. i am conscious of a terrible necessity for lacerating those sympathies by referring to domestic events of a very melancholy kind. what is the inevitable consequence? i have done myself the honour of pointing it out to you already. i sit confused." was it at this point that i began to suspect he was going to bore me? i rather think it was. "is it absolutely necessary to refer to these unpleasant matters?" i inquired. "in our homely english phrase, count fosco, won't they keep?" the count, with the most alarming solemnity, sighed and shook his head. "must i really hear them?" he shrugged his shoulders (it was the first foreign thing he had done since he had been in the room), and looked at me in an unpleasantly penetrating manner. my instincts told me that i had better close my eyes. i obeyed my instincts. "please break it gently," i pleaded. "anybody dead?" "dead!" cried the count, with unnecessary foreign fierceness. "mr. fairlie, your national composure terrifies me. in the name of heaven, what have i said or done to make you think me the messenger of death?" "pray accept my apologies," i answered. "you have said and done nothing. i make it a rule in these distressing cases always to anticipate the worst. it breaks the blow by meeting it half-way, and so on. inexpressibly relieved, i am sure, to hear that nobody is dead. anybody ill?" i opened my eyes and looked at him. was he very yellow when he came in, or had he turned very yellow in the last minute or two? i really can't say, and i can't ask louis, because he was not in the room at the time. "anybody ill?" i repeated, observing that my national composure still appeared to affect him. "that is part of my bad news, mr. fairlie. yes. somebody is ill." "grieved, i am sure. which of them is it?" "to my profound sorrow, miss halcombe. perhaps you were in some degree prepared to hear this? perhaps when you found that miss halcombe did not come here by herself, as you proposed, and did not write a second time, your affectionate anxiety may have made you fear that she was ill?" i have no doubt my affectionate anxiety had led to that melancholy apprehension at some time or other, but at the moment my wretched memory entirely failed to remind me of the circumstance. however, i said yes, in justice to myself. i was much shocked. it was so very uncharacteristic of such a robust person as dear marian to be ill, that i could only suppose she had met with an accident. a horse, or a false step on the stairs, or something of that sort. "is it serious?" i asked. "serious--beyond a doubt," he replied. "dangerous--i hope and trust not. miss halcombe unhappily exposed herself to be wetted through by a heavy rain. the cold that followed was of an aggravated kind, and it has now brought with it the worst consequence--fever." when i heard the word fever, and when i remembered at the same moment that the unscrupulous person who was now addressing me had just come from blackwater park, i thought i should have fainted on the spot. "good god!" i said. "is it infectious?" "not at present," he answered, with detestable composure. "it may turn to infection--but no such deplorable complication had taken place when i left blackwater park. i have felt the deepest interest in the case, mr. fairlie--i have endeavoured to assist the regular medical attendant in watching it--accept my personal assurances of the uninfectious nature of the fever when i last saw it." accept his assurances! i never was farther from accepting anything in my life. i would not have believed him on his oath. he was too yellow to be believed. he looked like a walking-west-indian-epidemic. he was big enough to carry typhus by the ton, and to dye the very carpet he walked on with scarlet fever. in certain emergencies my mind is remarkably soon made up. i instantly determined to get rid of him. "you will kindly excuse an invalid," i said--"but long conferences of any kind invariably upset me. may i beg to know exactly what the object is to which i am indebted for the honour of your visit?" i fervently hoped that this remarkably broad hint would throw him off his balance--confuse him--reduce him to polite apologies--in short, get him out of the room. on the contrary, it only settled him in his chair. he became additionally solemn, and dignified, and confidential. he held up two of his horrid fingers and gave me another of his unpleasantly penetrating looks. what was i to do? i was not strong enough to quarrel with him. conceive my situation, if you please. is language adequate to describe it? i think not. "the objects of my visit," he went on, quite irrepressibly, "are numbered on my fingers. they are two. first, i come to bear my testimony, with profound sorrow, to the lamentable disagreements between sir percival and lady glyde. i am sir percival's oldest friend--i am related to lady glyde by marriage--i am an eye-witness of all that has happened at blackwater park. in those three capacities i speak with authority, with confidence, with honourable regret. sir, i inform you, as the head of lady glyde's family, that miss halcombe has exaggerated nothing in the letter which she wrote to your address. i affirm that the remedy which that admirable lady has proposed is the only remedy that will spare you the horrors of public scandal. a temporary separation between husband and wife is the one peaceable solution of this difficulty. part them for the present, and when all causes of irritation are removed, i, who have now the honour of addressing you--i will undertake to bring sir percival to reason. lady glyde is innocent, lady glyde is injured, but--follow my thought here!--she is, on that very account (i say it with shame), the cause of irritation while she remains under her husband's roof. no other house can receive her with propriety but yours. i invite you to open it." cool. here was a matrimonial hailstorm pouring in the south of england, and i was invited, by a man with fever in every fold of his coat, to come out from the north of england and take my share of the pelting. i tried to put the point forcibly, just as i have put it here. the count deliberately lowered one of his horrid fingers, kept the other up, and went on--rode over me, as it were, without even the common coach-manlike attention of crying "hi!" before he knocked me down. "follow my thought once more, if you please," he resumed. "my first object you have heard. my second object in coming to this house is to do what miss halcombe's illness has prevented her from doing for herself. my large experience is consulted on all difficult matters at blackwater park, and my friendly advice was requested on the interesting subject of your letter to miss halcombe. i understood at once--for my sympathies are your sympathies--why you wished to see her here before you pledged yourself to inviting lady glyde. you are most right, sir, in hesitating to receive the wife until you are quite certain that the husband will not exert his authority to reclaim her. i agree to that. i also agree that such delicate explanations as this difficulty involves are not explanations which can be properly disposed of by writing only. my presence here (to my own great inconvenience) is the proof that i speak sincerely. as for the explanations themselves, i--fosco--i, who know sir percival much better than miss halcombe knows him, affirm to you, on my honour and my word, that he will not come near this house, or attempt to communicate with this house, while his wife is living in it. his affairs are embarrassed. offer him his freedom by means of the absence of lady glyde. i promise you he will take his freedom, and go back to the continent at the earliest moment when he can get away. is this clear to you as crystal? yes, it is. have you questions to address to me? be it so, i am here to answer. ask, mr. fairlie--oblige me by asking to your heart's content." he had said so much already in spite of me, and he looked so dreadfully capable of saying a great deal more also in spite of me, that i declined his amiable invitation in pure self-defence. "many thanks," i replied. "i am sinking fast. in my state of health i must take things for granted. allow me to do so on this occasion. we quite understand each other. yes. much obliged, i am sure, for your kind interference. if i ever get better, and ever have a second opportunity of improving our acquaintance--" he got up. i thought he was going. no. more talk, more time for the development of infectious influences--in my room, too--remember that, in my room! "one moment yet," he said, "one moment before i take my leave. i ask permission at parting to impress on you an urgent necessity. it is this, sir. you must not think of waiting till miss halcombe recovers before you receive lady glyde. miss halcombe has the attendance of the doctor, of the housekeeper at blackwater park, and of an experienced nurse as well--three persons for whose capacity and devotion i answer with my life. i tell you that. i tell you, also, that the anxiety and alarm of her sister's illness has already affected the health and spirits of lady glyde, and has made her totally unfit to be of use in the sick-room. her position with her husband grows more and more deplorable and dangerous every day. if you leave her any longer at blackwater park, you do nothing whatever to hasten her sister's recovery, and at the same time, you risk the public scandal, which you and i, and all of us, are bound in the sacred interests of the family to avoid. with all my soul, i advise you to remove the serious responsibility of delay from your own shoulders by writing to lady glyde to come here at once. do your affectionate, your honourable, your inevitable duty, and whatever happens in the future, no one can lay the blame on you. i speak from my large experience--i offer my friendly advice. is it accepted--yes, or no?" i looked at him--merely looked at him--with my sense of his amazing assurance, and my dawning resolution to ring for louis and have him shown out of the room expressed in every line of my face. it is perfectly incredible, but quite true, that my face did not appear to produce the slightest impression on him. born without nerves--evidently born without nerves. "you hesitate?" he said. "mr. fairlie! i understand that hesitation. you object--see, sir, how my sympathies look straight down into your thoughts!--you object that lady glyde is not in health and not in spirits to take the long journey, from hampshire to this place, by herself. her own maid is removed from her, as you know, and of other servants fit to travel with her, from one end of england to another, there are none at blackwater park. you object, again, that she cannot comfortably stop and rest in london, on her way here, because she cannot comfortably go alone to a public hotel where she is a total stranger. in one breath, i grant both objections--in another breath, i remove them. follow me, if you please, for the last time. it was my intention, when i returned to england with sir percival, to settle myself in the neighbourhood of london. that purpose has just been happily accomplished. i have taken, for six months, a little furnished house in the quarter called st. john's wood. be so obliging as to keep this fact in your mind, and observe the programme i now propose. lady glyde travels to london (a short journey)--i myself meet her at the station--i take her to rest and sleep at my house, which is also the house of her aunt--when she is restored i escort her to the station again--she travels to this place, and her own maid (who is now under your roof) receives her at the carriage-door. here is comfort consulted--here are the interests of propriety consulted--here is your own duty--duty of hospitality, sympathy, protection, to an unhappy lady in need of all three--smoothed and made easy, from the beginning to the end. i cordially invite you, sir, to second my efforts in the sacred interests of the family. i seriously advise you to write, by my hands, offering the hospitality of your house (and heart), and the hospitality of my house (and heart), to that injured and unfortunate lady whose cause i plead to-day." he waved his horrid hand at me--he struck his infectious breast--he addressed me oratorically, as if i was laid up in the house of commons. it was high time to take a desperate course of some sort. it was also high time to send for louis, and adopt the precaution of fumigating the room. in this trying emergency an idea occurred to me--an inestimable idea which, so to speak, killed two intrusive birds with one stone. i determined to get rid of the count's tiresome eloquence, and of lady glyde's tiresome troubles, by complying with this odious foreigner's request, and writing the letter at once. there was not the least danger of the invitation being accepted, for there was not the least chance that laura would consent to leave blackwater park while marian was lying there ill. how this charmingly convenient obstacle could have escaped the officious penetration of the count, it was impossible to conceive--but it had escaped him. my dread that he might yet discover it, if i allowed him any more time to think, stimulated me to such an amazing degree, that i struggled into a sitting position--seized, really seized, the writing materials by my side, and produced the letter as rapidly as if i had been a common clerk in an office. "dearest laura, please come, whenever you like. break the journey by sleeping in london at your aunt's house. grieved to hear of dear marian's illness. ever affectionately yours." i handed these lines, at arm's length, to the count--i sank back in my chair--i said, "excuse me--i am entirely prostrated--i can do no more. will you rest and lunch downstairs? love to all, and sympathy, and so on. good-morning." he made another speech--the man was absolutely inexhaustible. i closed my eyes--i endeavoured to hear as little as possible. in spite of my endeavours i was obliged to hear a great deal. my sister's endless husband congratulated himself, and congratulated me, on the result of our interview--he mentioned a great deal more about his sympathies and mine--he deplored my miserable health--he offered to write me a prescription--he impressed on me the necessity of not forgetting what he had said about the importance of light--he accepted my obliging invitation to rest and lunch--he recommended me to expect lady glyde in two or three days' time--he begged my permission to look forward to our next meeting, instead of paining himself and paining me, by saying farewell--he added a great deal more, which, i rejoice to think, i did not attend to at the time, and do not remember now. i heard his sympathetic voice travelling away from me by degrees--but, large as he was, i never heard him. he had the negative merit of being absolutely noiseless. i don't know when he opened the door, or when he shut it. i ventured to make use of my eyes again, after an interval of silence--and he was gone. i rang for louis, and retired to my bathroom. tepid water, strengthened with aromatic vinegar, for myself, and copious fumigation for my study, were the obvious precautions to take, and of course i adopted them. i rejoice to say they proved successful. i enjoyed my customary siesta. i awoke moist and cool. my first inquiries were for the count. had we really got rid of him? yes--he had gone away by the afternoon train. had he lunched, and if so, upon what? entirely upon fruit-tart and cream. what a man! what a digestion! am i expected to say anything more? i believe not. i believe i have reached the limits assigned to me. the shocking circumstances which happened at a later period did not, i am thankful to say, happen in my presence. i do beg and entreat that nobody will be so very unfeeling as to lay any part of the blame of those circumstances on me. i did everything for the best. i am not answerable for a deplorable calamity, which it was quite impossible to foresee. i am shattered by it--i have suffered under it, as nobody else has suffered. my servant, louis (who is really attached to me in his unintelligent way), thinks i shall never get over it. he sees me dictating at this moment, with my handkerchief to my eyes. i wish to mention, in justice to myself, that it was not my fault, and that i am quite exhausted and heartbroken. need i say more? the story continued by eliza michelson (housekeeper at blackwater park) i i am asked to state plainly what i know of the progress of miss halcombe's illness and of the circumstances under which lady glyde left blackwater park for london. the reason given for making this demand on me is, that my testimony is wanted in the interests of truth. as the widow of a clergyman of the church of england (reduced by misfortune to the necessity of accepting a situation), i have been taught to place the claims of truth above all other considerations. i therefore comply with a request which i might otherwise, through reluctance to connect myself with distressing family affairs, have hesitated to grant. i made no memorandum at the time, and i cannot therefore be sure to a day of the date, but i believe i am correct in stating that miss halcombe's serious illness began during the last fortnight or ten days in june. the breakfast hour was late at blackwater park--sometimes as late as ten, never earlier than half-past nine. on the morning to which i am now referring, miss halcombe (who was usually the first to come down) did not make her appearance at the table. after the family had waited a quarter of an hour, the upper housemaid was sent to see after her, and came running out of the room dreadfully frightened. i met the servant on the stairs, and went at once to miss halcombe to see what was the matter. the poor lady was incapable of telling me. she was walking about her room with a pen in her hand, quite light-headed, in a state of burning fever. lady glyde (being no longer in sir percival's service, i may, without impropriety, mention my former mistress by her name, instead of calling her my lady) was the first to come in from her own bedroom. she was so dreadfully alarmed and distressed that she was quite useless. the count fosco, and his lady, who came upstairs immediately afterwards, were both most serviceable and kind. her ladyship assisted me to get miss halcombe to her bed. his lordship the count remained in the sitting-room, and having sent for my medicine-chest, made a mixture for miss halcombe, and a cooling lotion to be applied to her head, so as to lose no time before the doctor came. we applied the lotion, but we could not get her to take the mixture. sir percival undertook to send for the doctor. he despatched a groom, on horseback, for the nearest medical man, mr. dawson, of oak lodge. mr. dawson arrived in less than an hour's time. he was a respectable elderly man, well known all round the country, and we were much alarmed when we found that he considered the case to be a very serious one. his lordship the count affably entered into conversation with mr. dawson, and gave his opinions with a judicious freedom. mr. dawson, not over-courteously, inquired if his lordship's advice was the advice of a doctor, and being informed that it was the advice of one who had studied medicine unprofessionally, replied that he was not accustomed to consult with amateur physicians. the count, with truly christian meekness of temper, smiled and left the room. before he went out he told me that he might be found, in case he was wanted in the course of the day, at the boat-house on the banks of the lake. why he should have gone there, i cannot say. but he did go, remaining away the whole day till seven o'clock, which was dinner-time. perhaps he wished to set the example of keeping the house as quiet as possible. it was entirely in his character to do so. he was a most considerate nobleman. miss halcombe passed a very bad night, the fever coming and going, and getting worse towards the morning instead of better. no nurse fit to wait on her being at hand in the neighbourhood, her ladyship the countess and myself undertook the duty, relieving each other. lady glyde, most unwisely, insisted on sitting up with us. she was much too nervous and too delicate in health to bear the anxiety of miss halcombe's illness calmly. she only did herself harm, without being of the least real assistance. a more gentle and affectionate lady never lived--but she cried, and she was frightened, two weaknesses which made her entirely unfit to be present in a sick-room. sir percival and the count came in the morning to make their inquiries. sir percival (from distress, i presume, at his lady's affliction and at miss halcombe's illness) appeared much confused and unsettled in his mind. his lordship testified, on the contrary, a becoming composure and interest. he had his straw hat in one hand, and his book in the other, and he mentioned to sir percival in my hearing that he would go out again and study at the lake. "let us keep the house quiet," he said. "let us not smoke indoors, my friend, now miss halcombe is ill. you go your way, and i will go mine. when i study i like to be alone. good-morning, mrs. michelson." sir percival was not civil enough--perhaps i ought in justice to say, not composed enough--to take leave of me with the same polite attention. the only person in the house, indeed, who treated me, at that time or at any other, on the footing of a lady in distressed circumstances, was the count. he had the manners of a true nobleman--he was considerate towards every one. even the young person (fanny by name) who attended on lady glyde was not beneath his notice. when she was sent away by sir percival, his lordship (showing me his sweet little birds at the time) was most kindly anxious to know what had become of her, where she was to go the day she left blackwater park, and so on. it is in such little delicate attentions that the advantages of aristocratic birth always show themselves. i make no apology for introducing these particulars--they are brought forward in justice to his lordship, whose character, i have reason to know, is viewed rather harshly in certain quarters. a nobleman who can respect a lady in distressed circumstances, and can take a fatherly interest in the fortunes of an humble servant girl, shows principles and feelings of too high an order to be lightly called in question. i advance no opinions--i offer facts only. my endeavour through life is to judge not that i be not judged. one of my beloved husband's finest sermons was on that text. i read it constantly--in my own copy of the edition printed by subscription, in the first days of my widowhood--and at every fresh perusal i derive an increase of spiritual benefit and edification. there was no improvement in miss halcombe, and the second night was even worse than the first. mr. dawson was constant in his attendance. the practical duties of nursing were still divided between the countess and myself, lady glyde persisting in sitting up with us, though we both entreated her to take some rest. "my place is by marian's bedside," was her only answer. "whether i am ill, or well, nothing will induce me to lose sight of her." towards midday i went downstairs to attend to some of my regular duties. an hour afterwards, on my way back to the sick-room, i saw the count (who had gone out again early, for the third time) entering the hall, to all appearance in the highest good spirits. sir percival, at the same moment, put his head out of the library door, and addressed his noble friend, with extreme eagerness, in these words-- "have you found her?" his lordship's large face became dimpled all over with placid smiles, but he made no reply in words. at the same time sir percival turned his head, observed that i was approaching the stairs, and looked at me in the most rudely angry manner possible. "come in here and tell me about it," he said to the count. "whenever there are women in a house they're always sure to be going up or down stairs." "my dear percival," observed his lordship kindly, "mrs. michelson has duties. pray recognise her admirable performance of them as sincerely as i do! how is the sufferer, mrs. michelson?" "no better, my lord, i regret to say." "sad--most sad!" remarked the count. "you look fatigued, mrs. michelson. it is certainly time you and my wife had some help in nursing. i think i may be the means of offering you that help. circumstances have happened which will oblige madame fosco to travel to london either to-morrow or the day after. she will go away in the morning and return at night, and she will bring back with her, to relieve you, a nurse of excellent conduct and capacity, who is now disengaged. the woman is known to my wife as a person to be trusted. before she comes here say nothing about her, if you please, to the doctor, because he will look with an evil eye on any nurse of my providing. when she appears in this house she will speak for herself, and mr. dawson will be obliged to acknowledge that there is no excuse for not employing her. lady glyde will say the same. pray present my best respects and sympathies to lady glyde." i expressed my grateful acknowledgments for his lordship's kind consideration. sir percival cut them short by calling to his noble friend (using, i regret to say, a profane expression) to come into the library, and not to keep him waiting there any longer. i proceeded upstairs. we are poor erring creatures, and however well established a woman's principles may be she cannot always keep on her guard against the temptation to exercise an idle curiosity. i am ashamed to say that an idle curiosity, on this occasion, got the better of my principles, and made me unduly inquisitive about the question which sir percival had addressed to his noble friend at the library door. who was the count expected to find in the course of his studious morning rambles at blackwater park? a woman, it was to be presumed, from the terms of sir percival's inquiry. i did not suspect the count of any impropriety--i knew his moral character too well. the only question i asked myself was--had he found her? to resume. the night passed as usual without producing any change for the better in miss halcombe. the next day she seemed to improve a little. the day after that her ladyship the countess, without mentioning the object of her journey to any one in my hearing, proceeded by the morning train to london--her noble husband, with his customary attention, accompanying her to the station. i was now left in sole charge of miss halcombe, with every apparent chance, in consequence of her sister's resolution not to leave the bedside, of having lady glyde herself to nurse next. the only circumstance of any importance that happened in the course of the day was the occurrence of another unpleasant meeting between the doctor and the count. his lordship, on returning from the station, stepped up into miss halcombe's sitting-room to make his inquiries. i went out from the bedroom to speak to him, mr. dawson and lady glyde being both with the patient at the time. the count asked me many questions about the treatment and the symptoms. i informed him that the treatment was of the kind described as "saline," and that the symptoms, between the attacks of fever, were certainly those of increasing weakness and exhaustion. just as i was mentioning these last particulars, mr. dawson came out from the bedroom. "good-morning, sir," said his lordship, stepping forward in the most urbane manner, and stopping the doctor, with a high-bred resolution impossible to resist, "i greatly fear you find no improvement in the symptoms to-day?" "i find decided improvement," answered mr. dawson. "you still persist in your lowering treatment of this case of fever?" continued his lordship. "i persist in the treatment which is justified by my own professional experience," said mr. dawson. "permit me to put one question to you on the vast subject of professional experience," observed the count. "i presume to offer no more advice--i only presume to make an inquiry. you live at some distance, sir, from the gigantic centres of scientific activity--london and paris. have you ever heard of the wasting effects of fever being reasonably and intelligibly repaired by fortifying the exhausted patient with brandy, wine, ammonia, and quinine? has that new heresy of the highest medical authorities ever reached your ears--yes or no?" "when a professional man puts that question to me i shall be glad to answer him," said the doctor, opening the door to go out. "you are not a professional man, and i beg to decline answering you." buffeted in this inexcusably uncivil way on one cheek, the count, like a practical christian, immediately turned the other, and said, in the sweetest manner, "good-morning, mr. dawson." if my late beloved husband had been so fortunate as to know his lordship, how highly he and the count would have esteemed each other! her ladyship the countess returned by the last train that night, and brought with her the nurse from london. i was instructed that this person's name was mrs. rubelle. her personal appearance, and her imperfect english when she spoke, informed me that she was a foreigner. i have always cultivated a feeling of humane indulgence for foreigners. they do not possess our blessings and advantages, and they are, for the most part, brought up in the blind errors of popery. it has also always been my precept and practice, as it was my dear husband's precept and practice before me (see sermon xxix. in the collection by the late rev. samuel michelson, m.a.), to do as i would be done by. on both these accounts i will not say that mrs. rubelle struck me as being a small, wiry, sly person, of fifty or thereabouts, with a dark brown or creole complexion and watchful light grey eyes. nor will i mention, for the reasons just alleged, that i thought her dress, though it was of the plainest black silk, inappropriately costly in texture and unnecessarily refined in trimming and finish, for a person in her position in life. i should not like these things to be said of me, and therefore it is my duty not to say them of mrs. rubelle. i will merely mention that her manners were, not perhaps unpleasantly reserved, but only remarkably quiet and retiring--that she looked about her a great deal, and said very little, which might have arisen quite as much from her own modesty as from distrust of her position at blackwater park; and that she declined to partake of supper (which was curious perhaps, but surely not suspicious?), although i myself politely invited her to that meal in my own room. at the count's particular suggestion (so like his lordship's forgiving kindness!), it was arranged that mrs. rubelle should not enter on her duties until she had been seen and approved by the doctor the next morning. i sat up that night. lady glyde appeared to be very unwilling that the new nurse should be employed to attend on miss halcombe. such want of liberality towards a foreigner on the part of a lady of her education and refinement surprised me. i ventured to say, "my lady, we must all remember not to be hasty in our judgments on our inferiors--especially when they come from foreign parts." lady glyde did not appear to attend to me. she only sighed, and kissed miss halcombe's hand as it lay on the counterpane. scarcely a judicious proceeding in a sick-room, with a patient whom it was highly desirable not to excite. but poor lady glyde knew nothing of nursing--nothing whatever, i am sorry to say. the next morning mrs. rubelle was sent to the sitting-room, to be approved by the doctor on his way through to the bedroom. i left lady glyde with miss halcombe, who was slumbering at the time, and joined mrs. rubelle, with the object of kindly preventing her from feeling strange and nervous in consequence of the uncertainty of her situation. she did not appear to see it in that light. she seemed to be quite satisfied, beforehand, that mr. dawson would approve of her, and she sat calmly looking out of window, with every appearance of enjoying the country air. some people might have thought such conduct suggestive of brazen assurance. i beg to say that i more liberally set it down to extraordinary strength of mind. instead of the doctor coming up to us, i was sent for to see the doctor. i thought this change of affairs rather odd, but mrs. rubelle did not appear to be affected by it in any way. i left her still calmly looking out of the window, and still silently enjoying the country air. mr. dawson was waiting for me by himself in the breakfast-room. "about this new nurse, mrs. michelson," said the doctor. "yes, sir?" "i find that she has been brought here from london by the wife of that fat old foreigner, who is always trying to interfere with me. mrs. michelson, the fat old foreigner is a quack." this was very rude. i was naturally shocked at it. "are you aware, sir," i said, "that you are talking of a nobleman?" "pooh! he isn't the first quack with a handle to his name. they're all counts--hang 'em!" "he would not be a friend of sir percival glyde's, sir, if he was not a member of the highest aristocracy--excepting the english aristocracy, of course." "very well, mrs. michelson, call him what you like, and let us get back to the nurse. i have been objecting to her already." "without having seen her, sir?" "yes, without having seen her. she may be the best nurse in existence, but she is not a nurse of my providing. i have put that objection to sir percival, as the master of the house. he doesn't support me. he says a nurse of my providing would have been a stranger from london also, and he thinks the woman ought to have a trial, after his wife's aunt has taken the trouble to fetch her from london. there is some justice in that, and i can't decently say no. but i have made it a condition that she is to go at once, if i find reason to complain of her. this proposal being one which i have some right to make, as medical attendant, sir percival has consented to it. now, mrs. michelson, i know i can depend on you, and i want you to keep a sharp eye on the nurse for the first day or two, and to see that she gives miss halcombe no medicines but mine. this foreign nobleman of yours is dying to try his quack remedies (mesmerism included) on my patient, and a nurse who is brought here by his wife may be a little too willing to help him. you understand? very well, then, we may go upstairs. is the nurse there? i'll say a word to her before she goes into the sick-room." we found mrs. rubelle still enjoying herself at the window. when i introduced her to mr. dawson, neither the doctor's doubtful looks nor the doctor's searching questions appeared to confuse her in the least. she answered him quietly in her broken english, and though he tried hard to puzzle her, she never betrayed the least ignorance, so far, about any part of her duties. this was doubtless the result of strength of mind, as i said before, and not of brazen assurance, by any means. we all went into the bedroom. mrs. rubelle looked very attentively at the patient, curtseyed to lady glyde, set one or two little things right in the room, and sat down quietly in a corner to wait until she was wanted. her ladyship seemed startled and annoyed by the appearance of the strange nurse. no one said anything, for fear of rousing miss halcombe, who was still slumbering, except the doctor, who whispered a question about the night. i softly answered, "much as usual," and then mr. dawson went out. lady glyde followed him, i suppose to speak about mrs. rubelle. for my own part, i had made up my mind already that this quiet foreign person would keep her situation. she had all her wits about her, and she certainly understood her business. so far, i could hardly have done much better by the bedside myself. remembering mr. dawson's caution to me, i subjected mrs. rubelle to a severe scrutiny at certain intervals for the next three or four days. i over and over again entered the room softly and suddenly, but i never found her out in any suspicious action. lady glyde, who watched her as attentively as i did, discovered nothing either. i never detected a sign of the medicine bottles being tampered with, i never saw mrs. rubelle say a word to the count, or the count to her. she managed miss halcombe with unquestionable care and discretion. the poor lady wavered backwards and forwards between a sort of sleepy exhaustion, which was half faintness and half slumbering, and attacks of fever which brought with them more or less of wandering in her mind. mrs. rubelle never disturbed her in the first case, and never startled her in the second, by appearing too suddenly at the bedside in the character of a stranger. honour to whom honour is due (whether foreign or english)--and i give her privilege impartially to mrs. rubelle. she was remarkably uncommunicative about herself, and she was too quietly independent of all advice from experienced persons who understood the duties of a sick-room--but with these drawbacks, she was a good nurse, and she never gave either lady glyde or mr. dawson the shadow of a reason for complaining of her. the next circumstance of importance that occurred in the house was the temporary absence of the count, occasioned by business which took him to london. he went away (i think) on the morning of the fourth day after the arrival of mrs. rubelle, and at parting he spoke to lady glyde very seriously, in my presence, on the subject of miss halcombe. "trust mr. dawson," he said, "for a few days more, if you please. but if there is not some change for the better in that time, send for advice from london, which this mule of a doctor must accept in spite of himself. offend mr. dawson, and save miss halcombe. i say this seriously, on my word of honour and from the bottom of my heart." his lordship spoke with extreme feeling and kindness. but poor lady glyde's nerves were so completely broken down that she seemed quite frightened at him. she trembled from head to foot, and allowed him to take his leave without uttering a word on her side. she turned to me when he had gone, and said, "oh, mrs. michelson, i am heartbroken about my sister, and i have no friend to advise me! do you think mr. dawson is wrong? he told me himself this morning that there was no fear, and no need to send for another doctor." "with all respect to mr. dawson," i answered, "in your ladyship's place i should remember the count's advice." lady glyde turned away from me suddenly, with an appearance of despair, for which i was quite unable to account. "his advice!" she said to herself. "god help us--his advice!" the count was away from blackwater park, as nearly as i remember, a week. sir percival seemed to feel the loss of his lordship in various ways, and appeared also, i thought, much depressed and altered by the sickness and sorrow in the house. occasionally he was so very restless that i could not help noticing it, coming and going, and wandering here and there and everywhere in the grounds. his inquiries about miss halcombe, and about his lady (whose failing health seemed to cause him sincere anxiety), were most attentive. i think his heart was much softened. if some kind clerical friend--some such friend as he might have found in my late excellent husband--had been near him at this time, cheering moral progress might have been made with sir percival. i seldom find myself mistaken on a point of this sort, having had experience to guide me in my happy married days. her ladyship the countess, who was now the only company for sir percival downstairs, rather neglected him, as i considered--or, perhaps, it might have been that he neglected her. a stranger might almost have supposed that they were bent, now they were left together alone, on actually avoiding one another. this, of course, could not be. but it did so happen, nevertheless, that the countess made her dinner at luncheon-time, and that she always came upstairs towards evening, although mrs. rubelle had taken the nursing duties entirely off her hands. sir percival dined by himself, and william (the man out of livery) made the remark, in my hearing, that his master had put himself on half rations of food and on a double allowance of drink. i attach no importance to such an insolent observation as this on the part of a servant. i reprobated it at the time, and i wish to be understood as reprobating it once more on this occasion. in the course of the next few days miss halcombe did certainly seem to all of us to be mending a little. our faith in mr. dawson revived. he appeared to be very confident about the case, and he assured lady glyde, when she spoke to him on the subject, that he would himself propose to send for a physician the moment he felt so much as the shadow of a doubt crossing his own mind. the only person among us who did not appear to be relieved by these words was the countess. she said to me privately, that she could not feel easy about miss halcombe on mr. dawson's authority, and that she should wait anxiously for her husband's opinion on his return. that return, his letters informed her, would take place in three days' time. the count and countess corresponded regularly every morning during his lordship's absence. they were in that respect, as in all others, a pattern to married people. on the evening of the third day i noticed a change in miss halcombe, which caused me serious apprehension. mrs. rubelle noticed it too. we said nothing on the subject to lady glyde, who was then lying asleep, completely overpowered by exhaustion, on the sofa in the sitting-room. mr. dawson did not pay his evening visit till later than usual. as soon as he set eyes on his patient i saw his face alter. he tried to hide it, but he looked both confused and alarmed. a messenger was sent to his residence for his medicine-chest, disinfecting preparations were used in the room, and a bed was made up for him in the house by his own directions. "has the fever turned to infection?" i whispered to him. "i am afraid it has," he answered; "we shall know better to-morrow morning." by mr. dawson's own directions lady glyde was kept in ignorance of this change for the worse. he himself absolutely forbade her, on account of her health, to join us in the bedroom that night. she tried to resist--there was a sad scene--but he had his medical authority to support him, and he carried his point. the next morning one of the men-servants was sent to london at eleven o'clock, with a letter to a physician in town, and with orders to bring the new doctor back with him by the earliest possible train. half an hour after the messenger had gone the count returned to blackwater park. the countess, on her own responsibility, immediately brought him in to see the patient. there was no impropriety that i could discover in her taking this course. his lordship was a married man, he was old enough to be miss halcombe's father, and he saw her in the presence of a female relative, lady glyde's aunt. mr. dawson nevertheless protested against his presence in the room, but i could plainly remark the doctor was too much alarmed to make any serious resistance on this occasion. the poor suffering lady was past knowing any one about her. she seemed to take her friends for enemies. when the count approached her bedside her eyes, which had been wandering incessantly round and round the room before, settled on his face with a dreadful stare of terror, which i shall remember to my dying day. the count sat down by her, felt her pulse and her temples, looked at her very attentively, and then turned round upon the doctor with such an expression of indignation and contempt in his face, that the words failed on mr. dawson's lips, and he stood for a moment, pale with anger and alarm--pale and perfectly speechless. his lordship looked next at me. "when did the change happen?" he asked. i told him the time. "has lady glyde been in the room since?" i replied that she had not. the doctor had absolutely forbidden her to come into the room on the evening before, and had repeated the order again in the morning. "have you and mrs. rubelle been made aware of the full extent of the mischief?" was his next question. we were aware, i answered, that the malady was considered infectious. he stopped me before i could add anything more. "it is typhus fever," he said. in the minute that passed, while these questions and answers were going on, mr. dawson recovered himself, and addressed the count with his customary firmness. "it is not typhus fever," he remarked sharply. "i protest against this intrusion, sir. no one has a right to put questions here but me. i have done my duty to the best of my ability--" the count interrupted him--not by words, but only by pointing to the bed. mr. dawson seemed to feel that silent contradiction to his assertion of his own ability, and to grow only the more angry under it. "i say i have done my duty," he reiterated. "a physician has been sent for from london. i will consult on the nature of the fever with him, and with no one else. i insist on your leaving the room." "i entered this room, sir, in the sacred interests of humanity," said the count. "and in the same interests, if the coming of the physician is delayed, i will enter it again. i warn you once more that the fever has turned to typhus, and that your treatment is responsible for this lamentable change. if that unhappy lady dies, i will give my testimony in a court of justice that your ignorance and obstinacy have been the cause of her death." before mr. dawson could answer, before the count could leave us, the door was opened from the sitting-room, and we saw lady glyde on the threshold. "i must and will come in," she said, with extraordinary firmness. instead of stopping her, the count moved into the sitting-room, and made way for her to go in. on all other occasions he was the last man in the world to forget anything, but in the surprise of the moment he apparently forgot the danger of infection from typhus, and the urgent necessity of forcing lady glyde to take proper care of herself. to my astonishment mr. dawson showed more presence of mind. he stopped her ladyship at the first step she took towards the bedside. "i am sincerely sorry, i am sincerely grieved," he said. "the fever may, i fear, be infectious. until i am certain that it is not, i entreat you to keep out of the room." she struggled for a moment, then suddenly dropped her arms and sank forward. she had fainted. the countess and i took her from the doctor and carried her into her own room. the count preceded us, and waited in the passage till i came out and told him that we had recovered her from the swoon. i went back to the doctor to tell him, by lady glyde's desire, that she insisted on speaking to him immediately. he withdrew at once to quiet her ladyship's agitation, and to assure her of the physician's arrival in the course of a few hours. those hours passed very slowly. sir percival and the count were together downstairs, and sent up from time to time to make their inquiries. at last, between five and six o'clock, to our great relief, the physician came. he was a younger man than mr. dawson, very serious and very decided. what he thought of the previous treatment i cannot say, but it struck me as curious that he put many more questions to myself and to mrs. rubelle than he put to the doctor, and that he did not appear to listen with much interest to what mr. dawson said, while he was examining mr. dawson's patient. i began to suspect, from what i observed in this way, that the count had been right about the illness all the way through, and i was naturally confirmed in that idea when mr. dawson, after some little delay, asked the one important question which the london doctor had been sent for to set at rest. "what is your opinion of the fever?" he inquired. "typhus," replied the physician "typhus fever beyond all doubt." that quiet foreign person, mrs. rubelle, crossed her thin brown hands in front of her, and looked at me with a very significant smile. the count himself could hardly have appeared more gratified if he had been present in the room and had heard the confirmation of his own opinion. after giving us some useful directions about the management of the patient, and mentioning that he would come again in five days' time, the physician withdrew to consult in private with mr. dawson. he would offer no opinion on miss halcombe's chances of recovery--he said it was impossible at that stage of the illness to pronounce one way or the other. the five days passed anxiously. countess fosco and myself took it by turns to relieve mrs. rubelle, miss halcombe's condition growing worse and worse, and requiring our utmost care and attention. it was a terribly trying time. lady glyde (supported, as mr. dawson said, by the constant strain of her suspense on her sister's account) rallied in the most extraordinary manner, and showed a firmness and determination for which i should myself never have given her credit. she insisted on coming into the sick-room two or three times every day, to look at miss halcombe with her own eyes, promising not to go too close to the bed, if the doctor would consent to her wishes so far. mr. dawson very unwillingly made the concession required of him--i think he saw that it was hopeless to dispute with her. she came in every day, and she self-denyingly kept her promise. i felt it personally so distressing (as reminding me of my own affliction during my husband's last illness) to see how she suffered under these circumstances, that i must beg not to dwell on this part of the subject any longer. it is more agreeable to me to mention that no fresh disputes took place between mr. dawson and the count. his lordship made all his inquiries by deputy, and remained continually in company with sir percival downstairs. on the fifth day the physician came again and gave us a little hope. he said the tenth day from the first appearance of the typhus would probably decide the result of the illness, and he arranged for his third visit to take place on that date. the interval passed as before--except that the count went to london again one morning and returned at night. on the tenth day it pleased a merciful providence to relieve our household from all further anxiety and alarm. the physician positively assured us that miss halcombe was out of danger. "she wants no doctor now--all she requires is careful watching and nursing for some time to come, and that i see she has." those were his own words. that evening i read my husband's touching sermon on recovery from sickness, with more happiness and advantage (in a spiritual point of view) than i ever remember to have derived from it before. the effect of the good news on poor lady glyde was, i grieve to say, quite overpowering. she was too weak to bear the violent reaction, and in another day or two she sank into a state of debility and depression which obliged her to keep her room. rest and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were the best remedies which mr. dawson could suggest for her benefit. it was fortunate that matters were no worse, for, on the very day after she took to her room, the count and the doctor had another disagreement--and this time the dispute between them was of so serious a nature that mr. dawson left the house. i was not present at the time, but i understood that the subject of dispute was the amount of nourishment which it was necessary to give to assist miss halcombe's convalescence after the exhaustion of the fever. mr. dawson, now that his patient was safe, was less inclined than ever to submit to unprofessional interference, and the count (i cannot imagine why) lost all the self-control which he had so judiciously preserved on former occasions, and taunted the doctor, over and over again, with his mistake about the fever when it changed to typhus. the unfortunate affair ended in mr. dawson's appealing to sir percival, and threatening (now that he could leave without absolute danger to miss halcombe) to withdraw from his attendance at blackwater park if the count's interference was not peremptorily suppressed from that moment. sir percival's reply (though not designedly uncivil) had only resulted in making matters worse, and mr. dawson had thereupon withdrawn from the house in a state of extreme indignation at count fosco's usage of him, and had sent in his bill the next morning. we were now, therefore, left without the attendance of a medical man. although there was no actual necessity for another doctor--nursing and watching being, as the physician had observed, all that miss halcombe required--i should still, if my authority had been consulted, have obtained professional assistance from some other quarter, for form's sake. the matter did not seem to strike sir percival in that light. he said it would be time enough to send for another doctor if miss halcombe showed any signs of a relapse. in the meanwhile we had the count to consult in any minor difficulty, and we need not unnecessarily disturb our patient in her present weak and nervous condition by the presence of a stranger at her bedside. there was much that was reasonable, no doubt, in these considerations, but they left me a little anxious nevertheless. nor was i quite satisfied in my own mind of the propriety of our concealing the doctor's absence as we did from lady glyde. it was a merciful deception, i admit--for she was in no state to bear any fresh anxieties. but still it was a deception, and, as such, to a person of my principles, at best a doubtful proceeding. a second perplexing circumstance which happened on the same day, and which took me completely by surprise, added greatly to the sense of uneasiness that was now weighing on my mind. i was sent for to see sir percival in the library. the count, who was with him when i went in, immediately rose and left us alone together. sir percival civilly asked me to take a seat, and then, to my great astonishment, addressed me in these terms-- "i want to speak to you, mrs. michelson, about a matter which i decided on some time ago, and which i should have mentioned before, but for the sickness and trouble in the house. in plain words, i have reasons for wishing to break up my establishment immediately at this place--leaving you in charge, of course, as usual. as soon as lady glyde and miss halcombe can travel they must both have change of air. my friends, count fosco and the countess, will leave us before that time to live in the neighbourhood of london, and i have reasons for not opening the house to any more company, with a view to economising as carefully as i can. i don't blame you, but my expenses here are a great deal too heavy. in short, i shall sell the horses, and get rid of all the servants at once. i never do things by halves, as you know, and i mean to have the house clear of a pack of useless people by this time to-morrow." i listened to him, perfectly aghast with astonishment. "do you mean, sir percival, that i am to dismiss the indoor servants under my charge without the usual month's warning?" i asked. "certainly i do. we may all be out of the house before another month, and i am not going to leave the servants here in idleness, with no master to wait on." "who is to do the cooking, sir percival, while you are still staying here?" "margaret porcher can roast and boil--keep her. what do i want with a cook if i don't mean to give any dinner-parties?" "the servant you have mentioned is the most unintelligent servant in the house, sir percival." "keep her, i tell you, and have a woman in from the village to do the cleaning and go away again. my weekly expenses must and shall be lowered immediately. i don't send for you to make objections, mrs. michelson--i send for you to carry out my plans of economy. dismiss the whole lazy pack of indoor servants to-morrow, except porcher. she is as strong as a horse--and we'll make her work like a horse." "you will excuse me for reminding you, sir percival, that if the servants go to-morrow they must have a month's wages in lieu of a month's warning." "let them! a month's wages saves a month's waste and gluttony in the servants' hall." this last remark conveyed an aspersion of the most offensive kind on my management. i had too much self-respect to defend myself under so gross an imputation. christian consideration for the helpless position of miss halcombe and lady glyde, and for the serious inconvenience which my sudden absence might inflict on them, alone prevented me from resigning my situation on the spot. i rose immediately. it would have lowered me in my own estimation to have permitted the interview to continue a moment longer. "after that last remark, sir percival, i have nothing more to say. your directions shall be attended to." pronouncing those words, i bowed my head with the most distant respect, and went out of the room. the next day the servants left in a body. sir percival himself dismissed the grooms and stablemen, sending them, with all the horses but one, to london. of the whole domestic establishment, indoors and out, there now remained only myself, margaret porcher, and the gardener--this last living in his own cottage, and being wanted to take care of the one horse that remained in the stables. with the house left in this strange and lonely condition--with the mistress of it ill in her room--with miss halcombe still as helpless as a child--and with the doctor's attendance withdrawn from us in enmity--it was surely not unnatural that my spirits should sink, and my customary composure be very hard to maintain. my mind was ill at ease. i wished the poor ladies both well again, and i wished myself away from blackwater park. ii the next event that occurred was of so singular a nature that it might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of that sort. the uneasy sense of something wrong in the family which had made me wish myself away from blackwater park, was actually followed, strange to say, by my departure from the house. it is true that my absence was for a temporary period only, but the coincidence was, in my opinion, not the less remarkable on that account. my departure took place under the following circumstances-- a day or two after the servants all left i was again sent for to see sir percival. the undeserved slur which he had cast on my management of the household did not, i am happy to say, prevent me from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever. it cost me a struggle with that fallen nature, which we all share in common, before i could suppress my feelings. being accustomed to self-discipline, i accomplished the sacrifice. i found sir percival and count fosco sitting together again. on this occasion his lordship remained present at the interview, and assisted in the development of sir percival's views. the subject to which they now requested my attention related to the healthy change of air by which we all hoped that miss halcombe and lady glyde might soon be enabled to profit. sir percival mentioned that both the ladies would probably pass the autumn (by invitation of frederick fairlie, esquire) at limmeridge house, cumberland. but before they went there, it was his opinion, confirmed by count fosco (who here took up the conversation and continued it to the end), that they would benefit by a short residence first in the genial climate of torquay. the great object, therefore, was to engage lodgings at that place, affording all the comforts and advantages of which they stood in need, and the great difficulty was to find an experienced person capable of choosing the sort of residence which they wanted. in this emergency the count begged to inquire, on sir percival's behalf, whether i would object to give the ladies the benefit of my assistance, by proceeding myself to torquay in their interests. it was impossible for a person in my situation to meet any proposal, made in these terms, with a positive objection. i could only venture to represent the serious inconvenience of my leaving blackwater park in the extraordinary absence of all the indoor servants, with the one exception of margaret porcher. but sir percival and his lordship declared that they were both willing to put up with inconvenience for the sake of the invalids. i next respectfully suggested writing to an agent at torquay, but i was met here by being reminded of the imprudence of taking lodgings without first seeing them. i was also informed that the countess (who would otherwise have gone to devonshire herself) could not, in lady glyde's present condition, leave her niece, and that sir percival and the count had business to transact together which would oblige them to remain at blackwater park. in short, it was clearly shown me that if i did not undertake the errand, no one else could be trusted with it. under these circumstances, i could only inform sir percival that my services were at the disposal of miss halcombe and lady glyde. it was thereupon arranged that i should leave the next morning, that i should occupy one or two days in examining all the most convenient houses in torquay, and that i should return with my report as soon as i conveniently could. a memorandum was written for me by his lordship, stating the requisites which the place i was sent to take must be found to possess, and a note of the pecuniary limit assigned to me was added by sir percival. my own idea on reading over these instructions was, that no such residence as i saw described could be found at any watering-place in england, and that, even if it could by chance be discovered, it would certainly not be parted with for any period on such terms as i was permitted to offer. i hinted at these difficulties to both the gentlemen, but sir percival (who undertook to answer me) did not appear to feel them. it was not for me to dispute the question. i said no more, but i felt a very strong conviction that the business on which i was sent away was so beset by difficulties that my errand was almost hopeless at starting. before i left i took care to satisfy myself that miss halcombe was going on favourably. there was a painful expression of anxiety in her face which made me fear that her mind, on first recovering itself, was not at ease. but she was certainly strengthening more rapidly than i could have ventured to anticipate, and she was able to send kind messages to lady glyde, saying that she was fast getting well, and entreating her ladyship not to exert herself again too soon. i left her in charge of mrs. rubelle, who was still as quietly independent of every one else in the house as ever. when i knocked at lady glyde's door before going away, i was told that she was still sadly weak and depressed, my informant being the countess, who was then keeping her company in her room. sir percival and the count were walking on the road to the lodge as i was driven by in the chaise. i bowed to them and quitted the house, with not a living soul left in the servants' offices but margaret porcher. every one must feel what i have felt myself since that time, that these circumstances were more than unusual--they were! almost suspicious. let me, however, say again that it was impossible for me, in my dependent position, to act otherwise than i did. the result of my errand at torquay was exactly what i had foreseen. no such lodgings as i was instructed to take could be found in the whole place, and the terms i was permitted to give were much too low for the purpose, even if i had been able to discover what i wanted. i accordingly returned to blackwater park, and informed sir percival, who met me at the door, that my journey had been taken in vain. he seemed too much occupied with some other subject to care about the failure of my errand, and his first words informed me that even in the short time of my absence another remarkable change had taken place in the house. the count and countess fosco had left blackwater park for their new residence in st. john's wood. i was not made aware of the motive for this sudden departure--i was only told that the count had been very particular in leaving his kind compliments to me. when i ventured on asking sir percival whether lady glyde had any one to attend to her comforts in the absence of the countess, he replied that she had margaret porcher to wait on her, and he added that a woman from the village had been sent for to do the work downstairs. the answer really shocked me--there was such a glaring impropriety in permitting an under-housemaid to fill the place of confidential attendant on lady glyde. i went upstairs at once, and met margaret on the bedroom landing. her services had not been required (naturally enough), her mistress having sufficiently recovered that morning to be able to leave her bed. i asked next after miss halcombe, but i was answered in a slouching, sulky way, which left me no wiser than i was before. i did not choose to repeat the question, and perhaps provoke an impertinent reply. it was in every respect more becoming to a person in my position to present myself immediately in lady glyde's room. i found that her ladyship had certainly gained in health during the last few days. although still sadly weak and nervous, she was able to get up without assistance, and to walk slowly about her room, feeling no worse effect from the exertion than a slight sensation of fatigue. she had been made a little anxious that morning about miss halcombe, through having received no news of her from any one. i thought this seemed to imply a blamable want of attention on the part of mrs. rubelle, but i said nothing, and remained with lady glyde to assist her to dress. when she was ready we both left the room together to go to miss halcombe. we were stopped in the passage by the appearance of sir percival. he looked as if he had been purposely waiting there to see us. "where are you going?" he said to lady glyde. "to marian's room," she answered. "it may spare you a disappointment," remarked sir percival, "if i tell you at once that you will not find her there." "not find her there!" "no. she left the house yesterday morning with fosco and his wife." lady glyde was not strong enough to bear the surprise of this extraordinary statement. she turned fearfully pale, and leaned back against the wall, looking at her husband in dead silence. i was so astonished myself that i hardly knew what to say. i asked sir percival if he really meant that miss halcombe had left blackwater park. "i certainly mean it," he answered. "in her state, sir percival! without mentioning her intentions to lady glyde!" before he could reply her ladyship recovered herself a little and spoke. "impossible!" she cried out in a loud, frightened manner, taking a step or two forward from the wall. "where was the doctor? where was mr. dawson when marian went away?" "mr. dawson wasn't wanted, and wasn't here," said sir percival. "he left of his own accord, which is enough of itself to show that she was strong enough to travel. how you stare! if you don't believe she has gone, look for yourself. open her room door, and all the other room doors if you like." she took him at his word, and i followed her. there was no one in miss halcombe's room but margaret porcher, who was busy setting it to rights. there was no one in the spare rooms or the dressing-rooms when we looked into them afterwards. sir percival still waited for us in the passage. as we were leaving the last room that we had examined lady glyde whispered, "don't go, mrs. michelson! don't leave me, for god's sake!" before i could say anything in return she was out again in the passage, speaking to her husband. "what does it mean, sir percival? i insist--i beg and pray you will tell me what it means." "it means," he answered, "that miss halcombe was strong enough yesterday morning to sit up and be dressed, and that she insisted on taking advantage of fosco's going to london to go there too." "to london!" "yes--on her way to limmeridge." lady glyde turned and appealed to me. "you saw miss halcombe last," she said. "tell me plainly, mrs. michelson, did you think she looked fit to travel?" "not in my opinion, your ladyship." sir percival, on his side, instantly turned and appealed to me also. "before you went away," he said, "did you, or did you not, tell the nurse that miss halcombe looked much stronger and better?" "i certainly made the remark, sir percival." he addressed her ladyship again the moment i offered that reply. "set one of mrs. michelson's opinions fairly against the other," he said, "and try to be reasonable about a perfectly plain matter. if she had not been well enough to be moved do you think we should any of us have risked letting her go? she has got three competent people to look after her--fosco and your aunt, and mrs. rubelle, who went away with them expressly for that purpose. they took a whole carriage yesterday, and made a bed for her on the seat in case she felt tired. to-day, fosco and mrs. rubelle go on with her themselves to cumberland." "why does marian go to limmeridge and leave me here by myself?" said her ladyship, interrupting sir percival. "because your uncle won't receive you till he has seen your sister first," he replied. "have you forgotten the letter he wrote to her at the beginning of her illness? it was shown to you, you read it yourself, and you ought to remember it." "i do remember it." "if you do, why should you be surprised at her leaving you? you want to be back at limmeridge, and she has gone there to get your uncle's leave for you on his own terms." poor lady glyde's eyes filled with tears. "marian never left me before," she said, "without bidding me good-bye." "she would have bid you good-bye this time," returned sir percival, "if she had not been afraid of herself and of you. she knew you would try to stop her, she knew you would distress her by crying. do you want to make any more objections? if you do, you must come downstairs and ask questions in the dining-room. these worries upset me. i want a glass of wine." he left us suddenly. his manner all through this strange conversation had been very unlike what it usually was. he seemed to be almost as nervous and fluttered, every now and then, as his lady herself. i should never have supposed that his health had been so delicate, or his composure so easy to upset. i tried to prevail on lady glyde to go back to her room, but it was useless. she stopped in the passage, with the look of a woman whose mind was panic-stricken. "something has happened to my sister!" she said. "remember, my lady, what surprising energy there is in miss halcombe," i suggested. "she might well make an effort which other ladies in her situation would be unfit for. i hope and believe there is nothing wrong--i do indeed." "i must follow marian," said her ladyship, with the same panic-stricken look. "i must go where she has gone, i must see that she is alive and well with my own eyes. come! come down with me to sir percival." i hesitated, fearing that my presence might be considered an intrusion. i attempted to represent this to her ladyship, but she was deaf to me. she held my arm fast enough to force me to go downstairs with her, and she still clung to me with all the little strength she had at the moment when i opened the dining-room door. sir percival was sitting at the table with a decanter of wine before him. he raised the glass to his lips as we went in and drained it at a draught. seeing that he looked at me angrily when he put it down again, i attempted to make some apology for my accidental presence in the room. "do you suppose there are any secrets going on here?" he broke out suddenly; "there are none--there is nothing underhand, nothing kept from you or from any one." after speaking those strange words loudly and sternly, he filled himself another glass of wine and asked lady glyde what she wanted of him. "if my sister is fit to travel i am fit to travel" said her ladyship, with more firmness than she had yet shown. "i come to beg you will make allowances for my anxiety about marian, and let me follow her at once by the afternoon train." "you must wait till to-morrow," replied sir percival, "and then if you don't hear to the contrary you can go. i don't suppose you are at all likely to hear to the contrary, so i shall write to fosco by to-night's post." he said those last words holding his glass up to the light, and looking at the wine in it instead of at lady glyde. indeed he never once looked at her throughout the conversation. such a singular want of good breeding in a gentleman of his rank impressed me, i own, very painfully. "why should you write to count fosco?" she asked, in extreme surprise. "to tell him to expect you by the midday train," said sir percival. "he will meet you at the station when you get to london, and take you on to sleep at your aunt's in st. john's wood." lady glyde's hand began to tremble violently round my arm--why i could not imagine. "there is no necessity for count fosco to meet me," she said. "i would rather not stay in london to sleep." "you must. you can't take the whole journey to cumberland in one day. you must rest a night in london--and i don't choose you to go by yourself to an hotel. fosco made the offer to your uncle to give you house-room on the way down, and your uncle has accepted it. here! here is a letter from him addressed to yourself. i ought to have sent it up this morning, but i forgot. read it and see what mr. fairlie himself says to you." lady glyde looked at the letter for a moment and then placed it in my hands. "read it," she said faintly. "i don't know what is the matter with me. i can't read it myself." it was a note of only four lines--so short and so careless that it quite struck me. if i remember correctly it contained no more than these words-- "dearest laura, please come whenever you like. break the journey by sleeping at your aunt's house. grieved to hear of dear marian's illness. affectionately yours, frederick fairlie." "i would rather not go there--i would rather not stay a night in london," said her ladyship, breaking out eagerly with those words before i had quite done reading the note, short as it was. "don't write to count fosco! pray, pray don't write to him!" sir percival filled another glass from the decanter so awkwardly that he upset it and spilt all the wine over the table. "my sight seems to be failing me," he muttered to himself, in an odd, muffled voice. he slowly set the glass up again, refilled it, and drained it once more at a draught. i began to fear, from his look and manner, that the wine was getting into his head. "pray don't write to count fosco," persisted lady glyde, more earnestly than ever. "why not, i should like to know?" cried sir percival, with a sudden burst of anger that startled us both. "where can you stay more properly in london than at the place your uncle himself chooses for you--at your aunt's house? ask mrs. michelson." the arrangement proposed was so unquestionably the right and the proper one, that i could make no possible objection to it. much as i sympathised with lady glyde in other respects, i could not sympathise with her in her unjust prejudices against count fosco. i never before met with any lady of her rank and station who was so lamentably narrow-minded on the subject of foreigners. neither her uncle's note nor sir percival's increasing impatience seemed to have the least effect on her. she still objected to staying a night in london, she still implored her husband not to write to the count. "drop it!" said sir percival, rudely turning his back on us. "if you haven't sense enough to know what is best for yourself other people must know it for you. the arrangement is made and there is an end of it. you are only wanted to do what miss halcombe has done for you---" "marian?" repeated her ladyship, in a bewildered manner; "marian sleeping in count fosco's house!" "yes, in count fosco's house. she slept there last night to break the journey, and you are to follow her example, and do what your uncle tells you. you are to sleep at fosco's to-morrow night, as your sister did, to break the journey. don't throw too many obstacles in my way! don't make me repent of letting you go at all!" he started to his feet, and suddenly walked out into the verandah through the open glass doors. "will your ladyship excuse me," i whispered, "if i suggest that we had better not wait here till sir percival comes back? i am very much afraid he is over-excited with wine." she consented to leave the room in a weary, absent manner. as soon as we were safe upstairs again, i did all i could to compose her ladyship's spirits. i reminded her that mr. fairlie's letters to miss halcombe and to herself did certainly sanction, and even render necessary, sooner or later, the course that had been taken. she agreed to this, and even admitted, of her own accord, that both letters were strictly in character with her uncle's peculiar disposition--but her fears about miss halcombe, and her unaccountable dread of sleeping at the count's house in london, still remained unshaken in spite of every consideration that i could urge. i thought it my duty to protest against lady glyde's unfavourable opinion of his lordship, and i did so, with becoming forbearance and respect. "your ladyship will pardon my freedom," i remarked, in conclusion, "but it is said, 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' i am sure the count's constant kindness and constant attention, from the very beginning of miss halcombe's illness, merit our best confidence and esteem. even his lordship's serious misunderstanding with mr. dawson was entirely attributable to his anxiety on miss halcombe's account." "what misunderstanding?" inquired her ladyship, with a look of sudden interest. i related the unhappy circumstances under which mr. dawson had withdrawn his attendance--mentioning them all the more readily because i disapproved of sir percival's continuing to conceal what had happened (as he had done in my presence) from the knowledge of lady glyde. her ladyship started up, with every appearance of being additionally agitated and alarmed by what i had told her. "worse! worse than i thought!" she said, walking about the room, in a bewildered manner. "the count knew mr. dawson would never consent to marian's taking a journey--he purposely insulted the doctor to get him out of the house." "oh, my lady! my lady!" i remonstrated. "mrs. michelson!" she went on vehemently, "no words that ever were spoken will persuade me that my sister is in that man's power and in that man's house with her own consent. my horror of him is such, that nothing sir percival could say and no letters my uncle could write, would induce me, if i had only my own feelings to consult, to eat, drink, or sleep under his roof. but my misery of suspense about marian gives me the courage to follow her anywhere, to follow her even into count fosco's house." i thought it right, at this point, to mention that miss halcombe had already gone on to cumberland, according to sir percival's account of the matter. "i am afraid to believe it!" answered her ladyship. "i am afraid she is still in that man's house. if i am wrong, if she has really gone on to limmeridge, i am resolved i will not sleep to-morrow night under count fosco's roof. my dearest friend in the world, next to my sister, lives near london. you have heard me, you have heard miss halcombe, speak of mrs. vesey? i mean to write, and propose to sleep at her house. i don't know how i shall get there--i don't know how i shall avoid the count--but to that refuge i will escape in some way, if my sister has gone to cumberland. all i ask of you to do, is to see yourself that my letter to mrs. vesey goes to london to-night, as certainly as sir percival's letter goes to count fosco. i have reasons for not trusting the post-bag downstairs. will you keep my secret, and help me in this? it is the last favour, perhaps, that i shall ever ask of you." i hesitated, i thought it all very strange, i almost feared that her ladyship's mind had been a little affected by recent anxiety and suffering. at my own risk, however, i ended by giving my consent. if the letter had been addressed to a stranger, or to any one but a lady so well known to me by report as mrs. vesey, i might have refused. i thank god--looking to what happened afterwards--i thank god i never thwarted that wish, or any other, which lady glyde expressed to me, on the last day of her residence at blackwater park. the letter was written and given into my hands. i myself put it into the post-box in the village that evening. we saw nothing more of sir percival for the rest of the day. i slept, by lady glyde's own desire, in the next room to hers, with the door open between us. there was something so strange and dreadful in the loneliness and emptiness of the house, that i was glad, on my side, to have a companion near me. her ladyship sat up late, reading letters and burning them, and emptying her drawers and cabinets of little things she prized, as if she never expected to return to blackwater park. her sleep was sadly disturbed when she at last went to bed--she cried out in it several times, once so loud that she woke herself. whatever her dreams were, she did not think fit to communicate them to me. perhaps, in my situation, i had no right to expect that she should do so. it matters little now. i was sorry for her, i was indeed heartily sorry for her all the same. the next day was fine and sunny. sir percival came up, after breakfast, to tell us that the chaise would be at the door at a quarter to twelve--the train to london stopping at our station at twenty minutes after. he informed lady glyde that he was obliged to go out, but added that he hoped to be back before she left. if any unforeseen accident delayed him, i was to accompany her to the station, and to take special care that she was in time for the train. sir percival communicated these directions very hastily--walking here and there about the room all the time. her ladyship looked attentively after him wherever he went. he never once looked at her in return. she only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he approached the door, by holding out her hand. "i shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner. "this is our parting--our parting, it may be for ever. will you try to forgive me, percival, as heartily as i forgive you?" his face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of perspiration broke out on his bald forehead. "i shall come back," he said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife's farewell words had frightened him out of the room. i had never liked sir percival, but the manner in which he left lady glyde made me feel ashamed of having eaten his bread and lived in his service. i thought of saying a few comforting and christian words to the poor lady, but there was something in her face, as she looked after her husband when the door closed on him, that made me alter my mind and keep silence. at the time named the chaise drew up at the gates. her ladyship was right--sir percival never came back. i waited for him till the last moment, and waited in vain. no positive responsibility lay on my shoulders, and yet i did not feel easy in my mind. "it is of your own free will," i said, as the chaise drove through the lodge-gates, "that your ladyship goes to london?" "i will go anywhere," she answered, "to end the dreadful suspense that i am suffering at this moment." she had made me feel almost as anxious and as uncertain about miss halcombe as she felt herself. i presumed to ask her to write me a line, if all went well in london. she answered, "most willingly, mrs. michelson." "we all have our crosses to bear, my lady," i said, seeing her silent and thoughtful, after she had promised to write. she made no reply--she seemed to be too much wrapped up in her own thoughts to attend to me. "i fear your ladyship rested badly last night," i remarked, after waiting a little. "yes," she said, "i was terribly disturbed by dreams." "indeed, my lady?" i thought she was going to tell me her dreams, but no, when she spoke next it was only to ask a question. "you posted the letter to mrs. vesey with your own hands?" "yes, my lady." "did sir percival say, yesterday, that count fosco was to meet me at the terminus in london?" "he did, my lady." she sighed heavily when i answered that last question, and said no more. we arrived at the station, with hardly two minutes to spare. the gardener (who had driven us) managed about the luggage, while i took the ticket. the whistle of the train was sounding when i joined her ladyship on the platform. she looked very strangely, and pressed her hand over her heart, as if some sudden pain or fright had overcome her at that moment. "i wish you were going with me!" she said, catching eagerly at my arm when i gave her the ticket. if there had been time, if i had felt the day before as i felt then, i would have made my arrangements to accompany her, even though the doing so had obliged me to give sir percival warning on the spot. as it was, her wishes, expressed at the last moment only, were expressed too late for me to comply with them. she seemed to understand this herself before i could explain it, and did not repeat her desire to have me for a travelling companion. the train drew up at the platform. she gave the gardener a present for his children, and took my hand, in her simple hearty manner, before she got into the carriage. "you have been very kind to me and to my sister," she said--"kind when we were both friendless. i shall remember you gratefully, as long as i live to remember any one. good-bye--and god bless you!" she spoke those words with a tone and a look which brought the tears into my eyes--she spoke them as if she was bidding me farewell for ever. "good-bye, my lady," i said, putting her into the carriage, and trying to cheer her; "good-bye, for the present only; good-bye, with my best and kindest wishes for happier times." she shook her head, and shuddered as she settled herself in the carriage. the guard closed the door. "do you believe in dreams?" she whispered to me at the window. "my dreams, last night, were dreams i have never had before. the terror of them is hanging over me still." the whistle sounded before i could answer, and the train moved. her pale quiet face looked at me for the last time--looked sorrowfully and solemnly from the window. she waved her hand, and i saw her no more. towards five o'clock on the afternoon of that same day, having a little time to myself in the midst of the household duties which now pressed upon me, i sat down alone in my own room, to try and compose my mind with the volume of my husband's sermons. for the first time in my life i found my attention wandering over those pious and cheering words. concluding that lady glyde's departure must have disturbed me far more seriously than i had myself supposed, i put the book aside, and went out to take a turn in the garden. sir percival had not yet returned, to my knowledge, so i could feel no hesitation about showing myself in the grounds. on turning the corner of the house, and gaining a view of the garden, i was startled by seeing a stranger walking in it. the stranger was a woman--she was lounging along the path with her back to me, and was gathering the flowers. as i approached she heard me, and turned round. my blood curdled in my veins. the strange woman in the garden was mrs. rubelle! i could neither move nor speak. she came up to me, as composedly as ever, with her flowers in her hand. "what is the matter, ma'am?" she said quietly. "you here!" i gasped out. "not gone to london! not gone to cumberland!" mrs. rubelle smelt at her flowers with a smile of malicious pity. "certainly not," she said. "i have never left blackwater park." i summoned breath enough and courage enough for another question. "where is miss halcombe?" mrs. rubelle fairly laughed at me this time, and replied in these words-- "miss halcombe, ma'am, has not left blackwater park either." when i heard that astounding answer, all my thoughts were startled back on the instant to my parting with lady glyde. i can hardly say i reproached myself, but at that moment i think i would have given many a year's hard savings to have known four hours earlier what i knew now. mrs. rubelle waited, quietly arranging her nosegay, as if she expected me to say something. i could say nothing. i thought of lady glyde's worn-out energies and weakly health, and i trembled for the time when the shock of the discovery that i had made would fall on her. for a minute or more my fears for the poor ladies silenced me. at the end of that time mrs. rubelle looked up sideways from her flowers, and said, "here is sir percival, ma'am, returned from his ride." i saw him as soon as she did. he came towards us, slashing viciously at the flowers with his riding-whip. when he was near enough to see my face he stopped, struck at his boot with the whip, and burst out laughing, so harshly and so violently that the birds flew away, startled, from the tree by which he stood. "well, mrs. michelson," he said, "you have found it out at last, have you?" i made no reply. he turned to mrs. rubelle. "when did you show yourself in the garden?" "i showed myself about half an hour ago, sir. you said i might take my liberty again as soon as lady glyde had gone away to london." "quite right. i don't blame you--i only asked the question." he waited a moment, and then addressed himself once more to me. "you can't believe it, can you?" he said mockingly. "here! come along and see for yourself." he led the way round to the front of the house. i followed him, and mrs. rubelle followed me. after passing through the iron gates he stopped, and pointed with his whip to the disused middle wing of the building. "there!" he said. "look up at the first floor. you know the old elizabethan bedrooms? miss halcombe is snug and safe in one of the best of them at this moment. take her in, mrs. rubelle (you have got your key?); take mrs. michelson in, and let her own eyes satisfy her that there is no deception this time." the tone in which he spoke to me, and the minute or two that had passed since we left the garden, helped me to recover my spirits a little. what i might have done at this critical moment, if all my life had been passed in service, i cannot say. as it was, possessing the feelings, the principles, and the bringing up of a lady, i could not hesitate about the right course to pursue. my duty to myself, and my duty to lady glyde, alike forbade me to remain in the employment of a man who had shamefully deceived us both by a series of atrocious falsehoods. "i must beg permission, sir percival, to speak a few words to you in private," i said. "having done so, i shall be ready to proceed with this person to miss halcombe's room." mrs. rubelle, whom i had indicated by a slight turn of my head, insolently sniffed at her nosegay and walked away, with great deliberation, towards the house door. "well," said sir percival sharply, "what is it now?" "i wish to mention, sir, that i am desirous of resigning the situation i now hold at blackwater park." that was literally how i put it. i was resolved that the first words spoken in his presence should be words which expressed my intention to leave his service. he eyed me with one of his blackest looks, and thrust his hands savagely into the pockets of his riding-coat. "why?" he said, "why, i should like to know?" "it is not for me, sir percival, to express an opinion on what has taken place in this house. i desire to give no offence. i merely wish to say that i do not feel it consistent with my duty to lady glyde and to myself to remain any longer in your service." "is it consistent with your duty to me to stand there, casting suspicion on me to my face?" he broke out in his most violent manner. "i see what you're driving at. you have taken your own mean, underhand view of an innocent deception practised on lady glyde for her own good. it was essential to her health that she should have a change of air immediately, and you know as well as i do she would never have gone away if she had been told miss halcombe was still left here. she has been deceived in her own interests--and i don't care who knows it. go, if you like--there are plenty of housekeepers as good as you to be had for the asking. go when you please--but take care how you spread scandals about me and my affairs when you're out of my service. tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, or it will be the worse for you! see miss halcombe for yourself--see if she hasn't been as well taken care of in one part of the house as in the other. remember the doctor's own orders that lady glyde was to have a change of air at the earliest possible opportunity. bear all that well in mind, and then say anything against me and my proceedings if you dare!" he poured out these words fiercely, all in a breath, walking backwards and forwards, and striking about him in the air with his whip. nothing that he said or did shook my opinion of the disgraceful series of falsehoods that he had told in my presence the day before, or of the cruel deception by which he had separated lady glyde from her sister, and had sent her uselessly to london, when she was half distracted with anxiety on miss halcombe's account. i naturally kept these thoughts to myself, and said nothing more to irritate him; but i was not the less resolved to persist in my purpose. a soft answer turneth away wrath, and i suppressed my own feelings accordingly when it was my turn to reply. "while i am in your service, sir percival," i said, "i hope i know my duty well enough not to inquire into your motives. when i am out of your service, i hope i know my own place well enough not to speak of matters which don't concern me--" "when do you want to go?" he asked, interrupting me without ceremony. "don't suppose i am anxious to keep you--don't suppose i care about your leaving the house. i am perfectly fair and open in this matter, from first to last. when do you want to go?" "i should wish to leave at your earliest convenience, sir percival." "my convenience has nothing to do with it. i shall be out of the house for good and all to-morrow morning, and i can settle your accounts to-night. if you want to study anybody's convenience, it had better be miss halcombe's. mrs. rubelle's time is up to-day, and she has reasons for wishing to be in london to-night. if you go at once, miss halcombe won't have a soul left here to look after her." i hope it is unnecessary for me to say that i was quite incapable of deserting miss halcombe in such an emergency as had now befallen lady glyde and herself. after first distinctly ascertaining from sir percival that mrs. rubelle was certain to leave at once if i took her place, and after also obtaining permission to arrange for mr. dawson's resuming his attendance on his patient, i willingly consented to remain at blackwater park until miss halcombe no longer required my services. it was settled that i should give sir percival's solicitor a week's notice before i left, and that he was to undertake the necessary arrangements for appointing my successor. the matter was discussed in very few words. at its conclusion sir percival abruptly turned on his heel, and left me free to join mrs. rubelle. that singular foreign person had been sitting composedly on the door-step all this time, waiting till i could follow her to miss halcombe's room. i had hardly walked half-way towards the house when sir percival, who had withdrawn in the opposite direction, suddenly stopped and called me back. "why are you leaving my service?" he asked. the question was so extraordinary, after what had just passed between us, that i hardly knew what to say in answer to it. "mind! i don't know why you are going," he went on. "you must give a reason for leaving me, i suppose, when you get another situation. what reason? the breaking up of the family? is that it?" "there can be no positive objection, sir percival, to that reason----" "very well! that's all i want to know. if people apply for your character, that's your reason, stated by yourself. you go in consequence of the breaking up of the family." he turned away again before i could say another word, and walked out rapidly into the grounds. his manner was as strange as his language. i acknowledge he alarmed me. even the patience of mrs. rubelle was getting exhausted, when i joined her at the house door. "at last!" she said, with a shrug of her lean foreign shoulders. she led the way into the inhabited side of the house, ascended the stairs, and opened with her key the door at the end of the passage, which communicated with the old elizabethan rooms--a door never previously used, in my time, at blackwater park. the rooms themselves i knew well, having entered them myself on various occasions from the other side of the house. mrs. rubelle stopped at the third door along the old gallery, handed me the key of it, with the key of the door of communication, and told me i should find miss halcombe in that room. before i went in i thought it desirable to make her understand that her attendance had ceased. accordingly, i told her in plain words that the charge of the sick lady henceforth devolved entirely on myself. "i am glad to hear it, ma'am," said mrs. rubelle. "i want to go very much." "do you leave to-day?" i asked, to make sure of her. "now that you have taken charge, ma'am, i leave in half an hour's time. sir percival has kindly placed at my disposition the gardener, and the chaise, whenever i want them. i shall want them in half an hour's time to go to the station. i am packed up in anticipation already. i wish you good-day, ma'am." she dropped a brisk curtsey, and walked back along the gallery, humming a little tune, and keeping time to it cheerfully with the nosegay in her hand. i am sincerely thankful to say that was the last i saw of mrs. rubelle. when i went into the room miss halcombe was asleep. i looked at her anxiously, as she lay in the dismal, high, old-fashioned bed. she was certainly not in any respect altered for the worse since i had seen her last. she had not been neglected, i am bound to admit, in any way that i could perceive. the room was dreary, and dusty, and dark, but the window (looking on a solitary court-yard at the back of the house) was opened to let in the fresh air, and all that could be done to make the place comfortable had been done. the whole cruelty of sir percival's deception had fallen on poor lady glyde. the only ill-usage which either he or mrs. rubelle had inflicted on miss halcombe consisted, so far as i could see, in the first offence of hiding her away. i stole back, leaving the sick lady still peacefully asleep, to give the gardener instructions about bringing the doctor. i begged the man, after he had taken mrs. rubelle to the station, to drive round by mr. dawson's, and leave a message in my name, asking him to call and see me. i knew he would come on my account, and i knew he would remain when he found count fosco had left the house. in due course of time the gardener returned, and said that he had driven round by mr. dawson's residence, after leaving mrs. rubelle at the station. the doctor sent me word that he was poorly in health himself, but that he would call, if possible, the next morning. having delivered his message the gardener was about to withdraw, but i stopped him to request that he would come back before dark, and sit up that night, in one of the empty bedrooms, so as to be within call in case i wanted him. he understood readily enough my unwillingness to be left alone all night in the most desolate part of that desolate house, and we arranged that he should come in between eight and nine. he came punctually, and i found cause to be thankful that i had adopted the precaution of calling him in. before midnight sir percival's strange temper broke out in the most violent and most alarming manner, and if the gardener had not been on the spot to pacify him on the instant, i am afraid to think what might have happened. almost all the afternoon and evening he had been walking about the house and grounds in an unsettled, excitable manner, having, in all probability, as i thought, taken an excessive quantity of wine at his solitary dinner. however that may be, i heard his voice calling loudly and angrily in the new wing of the house, as i was taking a turn backwards and forwards along the gallery the last thing at night. the gardener immediately ran down to him, and i closed the door of communication, to keep the alarm, if possible, from reaching miss halcombe's ears. it was full half an hour before the gardener came back. he declared that his master was quite out of his senses--not through the excitement of drink, as i had supposed, but through a kind of panic or frenzy of mind, for which it was impossible to account. he had found sir percival walking backwards and forwards by himself in the hall, swearing, with every appearance of the most violent passion, that he would not stop another minute alone in such a dungeon as his own house, and that he would take the first stage of his journey immediately in the middle of the night. the gardener, on approaching him, had been hunted out, with oaths and threats, to get the horse and chaise ready instantly. in a quarter of an hour sir percival had joined him in the yard, had jumped into the chaise, and, lashing the horse into a gallop, had driven himself away, with his face as pale as ashes in the moonlight. the gardener had heard him shouting and cursing at the lodge-keeper to get up and open the gate--had heard the wheels roll furiously on again in the still night, when the gate was unlocked--and knew no more. the next day, or a day or two after, i forget which, the chaise was brought back from knowlesbury, our nearest town, by the ostler at the old inn. sir percival had stopped there, and had afterwards left by the train--for what destination the man could not tell. i never received any further information, either from himself or from any one else, of sir percival's proceedings, and i am not even aware, at this moment, whether he is in england or out of it. he and i have not met since he drove away like an escaped criminal from his own house, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that we may never meet again. my own part of this sad family story is now drawing to an end. i have been informed that the particulars of miss halcombe's waking, and of what passed between us when she found me sitting by her bedside, are not material to the purpose which is to be answered by the present narrative. it will be sufficient for me to say in this place, that she was not herself conscious of the means adopted to remove her from the inhabited to the uninhabited part of the house. she was in a deep sleep at the time, whether naturally or artificially produced she could not say. in my absence at torquay, and in the absence of all the resident servants except margaret porcher (who was perpetually eating, drinking, or sleeping, when she was not at work), the secret transfer of miss halcombe from one part of the house to the other was no doubt easily performed. mrs. rubelle (as i discovered for myself, in looking about the room) had provisions, and all other necessaries, together with the means of heating water, broth, and so on, without kindling a fire, placed at her disposal during the few days of her imprisonment with the sick lady. she had declined to answer the questions which miss halcombe naturally put, but had not, in other respects, treated her with unkindness or neglect. the disgrace of lending herself to a vile deception is the only disgrace with which i can conscientiously charge mrs. rubelle. i need write no particulars (and i am relieved to know it) of the effect produced on miss halcombe by the news of lady glyde's departure, or by the far more melancholy tidings which reached us only too soon afterwards at blackwater park. in both cases i prepared her mind beforehand as gently and as carefully as possible, having the doctor's advice to guide me, in the last case only, through mr. dawson's being too unwell to come to the house for some days after i had sent for him. it was a sad time, a time which it afflicts me to think of or to write of now. the precious blessings of religious consolation which i endeavoured to convey were long in reaching miss halcombe's heart, but i hope and believe they came home to her at last. i never left her till her strength was restored. the train which took me away from that miserable house was the train which took her away also. we parted very mournfully in london. i remained with a relative at islington, and she went on to mr. fairlie's house in cumberland. i have only a few lines more to write before i close this painful statement. they are dictated by a sense of duty. in the first place, i wish to record my own personal conviction that no blame whatever, in connection with the events which i have now related, attaches to count fosco. i am informed that a dreadful suspicion has been raised, and that some very serious constructions are placed upon his lordship's conduct. my persuasion of the count's innocence remains, however, quite unshaken. if he assisted sir percival in sending me to torquay, he assisted under a delusion, for which, as a foreigner and a stranger, he was not to blame. if he was concerned in bringing mrs. rubelle to blackwater park, it was his misfortune and not his fault, when that foreign person was base enough to assist a deception planned and carried out by the master of the house. i protest, in the interests of morality, against blame being gratuitously and wantonly attached to the proceedings of the count. in the second place, i desire to express my regret at my own inability to remember the precise day on which lady glyde left blackwater park for london. i am told that it is of the last importance to ascertain the exact date of that lamentable journey, and i have anxiously taxed my memory to recall it. the effort has been in vain. i can only remember now that it was towards the latter part of july. we all know the difficulty, after a lapse of time, of fixing precisely on a past date unless it has been previously written down. that difficulty is greatly increased in my case by the alarming and confusing events which took place about the period of lady glyde's departure. i heartily wish i had made a memorandum at the time. i heartily wish my memory of the date was as vivid as my memory of that poor lady's face, when it looked at me sorrowfully for the last time from the carriage window. the story continued in several narratives . the narrative of hester pinhorn, cook in the service of count fosco [taken down from her own statement] i am sorry to say that i have never learnt to read or write. i have been a hard-working woman all my life, and have kept a good character. i know that it is a sin and wickedness to say the thing which is not, and i will truly beware of doing so on this occasion. all that i know i will tell, and i humbly beg the gentleman who takes this down to put my language right as he goes on, and to make allowances for my being no scholar. in this last summer i happened to be out of place (through no fault of my own), and i heard of a situation as plain cook, at number five, forest road, st. john's wood. i took the place on trial. my master's name was fosco. my mistress was an english lady. he was count and she was countess. there was a girl to do housemaid's work when i got there. she was not over-clean or tidy, but there was no harm in her. i and she were the only servants in the house. our master and mistress came after we got in; and as soon as they did come we were told, downstairs, that company was expected from the country. the company was my mistress's niece, and the back bedroom on the first floor was got ready for her. my mistress mentioned to me that lady glyde (that was her name) was in poor health, and that i must be particular in my cooking accordingly. she was to come that day, as well as i can remember--but whatever you do, don't trust my memory in the matter. i am sorry to say it's no use asking me about days of the month, and such-like. except sundays, half my time i take no heed of them, being a hard-working woman and no scholar. all i know is lady glyde came, and when she did come, a fine fright she gave us all surely. i don't know how master brought her to the house, being hard at work at the time. but he did bring her in the afternoon, i think, and the housemaid opened the door to them, and showed them into the parlour. before she had been long down in the kitchen again with me, we heard a hurry-skurry upstairs, and the parlour bell ringing like mad, and my mistress's voice calling out for help. we both ran up, and there we saw the lady laid on the sofa, with her face ghastly white, and her hands fast clenched, and her head drawn down to one side. she had been taken with a sudden fright, my mistress said, and master he told us she was in a fit of convulsions. i ran out, knowing the neighbourhood a little better than the rest of them, to fetch the nearest doctor's help. the nearest help was at goodricke's and garth's, who worked together as partners, and had a good name and connection, as i have heard, all round st. john's wood. mr. goodricke was in, and he came back with me directly. it was some time before he could make himself of much use. the poor unfortunate lady fell out of one fit into another, and went on so till she was quite wearied out, and as helpless as a new-born babe. we then got her to bed. mr. goodricke went away to his house for medicine, and came back again in a quarter of an hour or less. besides the medicine he brought a bit of hollow mahogany wood with him, shaped like a kind of trumpet, and after waiting a little while, he put one end over the lady's heart and the other to his ear, and listened carefully. when he had done he says to my mistress, who was in the room, "this is a very serious case," he says, "i recommend you to write to lady glyde's friends directly." my mistress says to him, "is it heart-disease?" and he says, "yes, heart-disease of a most dangerous kind." he told her exactly what he thought was the matter, which i was not clever enough to understand. but i know this, he ended by saying that he was afraid neither his help nor any other doctor's help was likely to be of much service. my mistress took this ill news more quietly than my master. he was a big, fat, odd sort of elderly man, who kept birds and white mice, and spoke to them as if they were so many christian children. he seemed terribly cut up by what had happened. "ah! poor lady glyde! poor dear lady glyde!" he says, and went stalking about, wringing his fat hands more like a play-actor than a gentleman. for one question my mistress asked the doctor about the lady's chances of getting round, he asked a good fifty at least. i declare he quite tormented us all, and when he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make the sick-room look pretty with them. as if that did any good. i think he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head. but he was not a bad master--he had a monstrous civil tongue of his own, and a jolly, easy, coaxing way with him. i liked him a deal better than my mistress. she was a hard one, if ever there was a hard one yet. towards night-time the lady roused up a little. she had been so wearied out, before that, by the convulsions, that she never stirred hand or foot, or spoke a word to anybody. she moved in the bed now, and stared about her at the room and us in it. she must have been a nice-looking lady when well, with light hair, and blue eyes and all that. her rest was troubled at night--at least so i heard from my mistress, who sat up alone with her. i only went in once before going to bed to see if i could be of any use, and then she was talking to herself in a confused, rambling manner. she seemed to want sadly to speak to somebody who was absent from her somewhere. i couldn't catch the name the first time, and the second time master knocked at the door, with his regular mouthful of questions, and another of his trumpery nosegays. when i went in early the next morning, the lady was clean worn out again, and lay in a kind of faint sleep. mr. goodricke brought his partner, mr. garth, with him to advise. they said she must not be disturbed out of her rest on any account. they asked my mistress many questions, at the other end of the room, about what the lady's health had been in past times, and who had attended her, and whether she had ever suffered much and long together under distress of mind. i remember my mistress said "yes" to that last question. and mr. goodricke looked at mr. garth, and shook his head; and mr. garth looked at mr. goodricke, and shook his head. they seemed to think that the distress might have something to do with the mischief at the lady's heart. she was but a frail thing to look at, poor creature! very little strength at any time, i should say--very little strength. later on the same morning, when she woke, the lady took a sudden turn, and got seemingly a great deal better. i was not let in again to see her, no more was the housemaid, for the reason that she was not to be disturbed by strangers. what i heard of her being better was through my master. he was in wonderful good spirits about the change, and looked in at the kitchen window from the garden, with his great big curly-brimmed white hat on, to go out. "good mrs. cook," says he, "lady glyde is better. my mind is more easy than it was, and i am going out to stretch my big legs with a sunny little summer walk. shall i order for you, shall i market for you, mrs. cook? what are you making there? a nice tart for dinner? much crust, if you please--much crisp crust, my dear, that melts and crumbles delicious in the mouth." that was his way. he was past sixty, and fond of pastry. just think of that! the doctor came again in the forenoon, and saw for himself that lady glyde had woke up better. he forbid us to talk to her, or to let her talk to us, in case she was that way disposed, saying she must be kept quiet before all things, and encouraged to sleep as much as possible. she did not seem to want to talk whenever i saw her, except overnight, when i couldn't make out what she was saying--she seemed too much worn down. mr. goodricke was not nearly in such good spirits about her as master. he said nothing when he came downstairs, except that he would call again at five o'clock. about that time (which was before master came home again) the bell rang hard from the bedroom, and my mistress ran out into the landing, and called to me to go for mr. goodricke, and tell him the lady had fainted. i got on my bonnet and shawl, when, as good luck would have it, the doctor himself came to the house for his promised visit. i let him in, and went upstairs along with him. "lady glyde was just as usual," says my mistress to him at the door; "she was awake, and looking about her in a strange, forlorn manner, when i heard her give a sort of half cry, and she fainted in a moment." the doctor went up to the bed, and stooped down over the sick lady. he looked very serious, all on a sudden, at the sight of her, and put his hand on her heart. my mistress stared hard in mr. goodricke's face. "not dead!" says she, whispering, and turning all of a tremble from head to foot. "yes," says the doctor, very quiet and grave. "dead. i was afraid it would happen suddenly when i examined her heart yesterday." my mistress stepped back from the bedside while he was speaking, and trembled and trembled again. "dead!" she whispers to herself; "dead so suddenly! dead so soon! what will the count say?" mr. goodricke advised her to go downstairs, and quiet herself a little. "you have been sitting up all night," says he, "and your nerves are shaken. this person," says he, meaning me, "this person will stay in the room till i can send for the necessary assistance." my mistress did as he told her. "i must prepare the count," she says. "i must carefully prepare the count." and so she left us, shaking from head to foot, and went out. "your master is a foreigner," says mr. goodricke, when my mistress had left us. "does he understand about registering the death?" "i can't rightly tell, sir," says i, "but i should think not." the doctor considered a minute, and then says he, "i don't usually do such things," says he, "but it may save the family trouble in this case if i register the death myself. i shall pass the district office in half an hour's time, and i can easily look in. mention, if you please, that i will do so." "yes, sir," says i, "with thanks, i'm sure, for your kindness in thinking of it." "you don't mind staying here till i can send you the proper person?" says he. "no, sir," says i; "i'll stay with the poor lady till then. i suppose nothing more could be done, sir, than was done?" says i. "no," says he, "nothing; she must have suffered sadly before ever i saw her--the case was hopeless when i was called in." "ah, dear me! we all come to it, sooner or later, don't we, sir?" says i. he gave no answer to that--he didn't seem to care about talking. he said, "good-day," and went out. i stopped by the bedside from that time till the time when mr. goodricke sent the person in, as he had promised. she was, by name, jane gould. i considered her to be a respectable-looking woman. she made no remark, except to say that she understood what was wanted of her, and that she had winded a many of them in her time. how master bore the news, when he first heard it, is more than i can tell, not having been present. when i did see him he looked awfully overcome by it, to be sure. he sat quiet in a corner, with his fat hands hanging over his thick knees, and his head down, and his eyes looking at nothing. he seemed not so much sorry, as scared and dazed like, by what had happened. my mistress managed all that was to be done about the funeral. it must have cost a sight of money--the coffin, in particular, being most beautiful. the dead lady's husband was away, as we heard, in foreign parts. but my mistress (being her aunt) settled it with her friends in the country (cumberland, i think) that she should be buried there, in the same grave along with her mother. everything was done handsomely, in respect of the funeral, i say again, and master went down to attend the burying in the country himself. he looked grand in his deep mourning, with his big solemn face, and his slow walk, and his broad hatband--that he did! in conclusion. i have to say, in answer to questions put to me-- ( ) that neither i nor my fellow-servant ever saw my master give lady glyde any medicine himself. ( ) that he was never, to my knowledge and belief, left alone in the room with lady glyde. ( ) that i am not able to say what caused the sudden fright, which my mistress informed me had seized the lady on her first coming into the house. the cause was never explained, either to me or to my fellow-servant. the above statement has been read over in my presence. i have nothing to add to it, or to take away from it. i say, on my oath as a christian woman, this is the truth. (signed) hester pinhorn, her + mark. . the narrative of the doctor to the registrar of the sub-district in which the undermentioned death took place.--i hereby certify that i attended lady glyde, aged twenty-one last birthday; that i last saw her on thursday the th july ; that she died on the same day at no. forest road, st. john's wood, and that the cause of her death was aneurism. duration of disease not known. (signed) alfred goodricke. prof. title. m.r.c.s. eng., l.s.a. address, croydon gardens st. john's wood. . the narrative of jane gould i was the person sent in by mr. goodricke to do what was right and needful by the remains of a lady who had died at the house named in the certificate which precedes this. i found the body in charge of the servant, hester pinhorn. i remained with it, and prepared it at the proper time for the grave. it was laid in the coffin in my presence, and i afterwards saw the coffin screwed down previous to its removal. when that had been done, and not before, i received what was due to me and left the house. i refer persons who may wish to investigate my character to mr. goodricke. he will bear witness that i can be trusted to tell the truth. (signed) jane gould . the narrative of the tombstone sacred to the memory of laura, lady glyde, wife of sir percival glyde, bart., of blackwater park, hampshire, and daughter of the late philip fairlie, esq., of limmeridge house, in this parish. born march th, ; married december nd, ; died july th, . . the narrative of walter hartright early in the summer of i and my surviving companions left the wilds and forests of central america for home. arrived at the coast, we took ship there for england. the vessel was wrecked in the gulf of mexico--i was among the few saved from the sea. it was my third escape from peril of death. death by disease, death by the indians, death by drowning--all three had approached me; all three had passed me by. the survivors of the wreck were rescued by an american vessel bound for liverpool. the ship reached her port on the thirteenth day of october . we landed late in the afternoon, and i arrived in london the same night. these pages are not the record of my wanderings and my dangers away from home. the motives which led me from my country and my friends to a new world of adventure and peril are known. from that self-imposed exile i came back, as i had hoped, prayed, believed i should come back--a changed man. in the waters of a new life i had tempered my nature afresh. in the stern school of extremity and danger my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to be resolute, my mind to rely on itself. i had gone out to fly from my own future. i came back to face it, as a man should. to face it with that inevitable suppression of myself which i knew it would demand from me. i had parted with the worst bitterness of the past, but not with my heart's remembrance of the sorrow and the tenderness of that memorable time. i had not ceased to feel the one irreparable disappointment of my life--i had only learnt to bear it. laura fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship bore me away, and i looked my last at england. laura fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship brought me back, and the morning light showed the friendly shore in view. my pen traces the old letters as my heart goes back to the old love. i write of her as laura fairlie still. it is hard to think of her, it is hard to speak of her, by her husband's name. there are no more words of explanation to add on my appearance for the second time in these pages. this narrative, if i have the strength and the courage to write it, may now go on. my first anxieties and first hopes when the morning came centred in my mother and my sister. i felt the necessity of preparing them for the joy and surprise of my return, after an absence during which it had been impossible for them to receive any tidings of me for months past. early in the morning i sent a letter to the hampstead cottage, and followed it myself in an hour's time. when the first meeting was over, when our quiet and composure of other days began gradually to return to us, i saw something in my mother's face which told me that a secret oppression lay heavy on her heart. there was more than love--there was sorrow in the anxious eyes that looked on me so tenderly--there was pity in the kind hand that slowly and fondly strengthened its hold on mine. we had no concealments from each other. she knew how the hope of my life had been wrecked--she knew why i had left her. it was on my lips to ask as composedly as i could if any letter had come for me from miss halcombe, if there was any news of her sister that i might hear. but when i looked in my mother's face i lost courage to put the question even in that guarded form. i could only say, doubtingly and restrainedly-- "you have something to tell me." my sister, who had been sitting opposite to us, rose suddenly without a word of explanation--rose and left the room. my mother moved closer to me on the sofa and put her arms round my neck. those fond arms trembled--the tears flowed fast over the faithful loving face. "walter!" she whispered, "my own darling! my heart is heavy for you. oh, my son! my son! try to remember that i am still left!" my head sank on her bosom. she had said all in saying those words. * * * * * * * * * * it was the morning of the third day since my return--the morning of the sixteenth of october. i had remained with them at the cottage--i had tried hard not to embitter the happiness of my return to them as it was embittered to me. i had done all man could to rise after the shock, and accept my life resignedly--to let my great sorrow come in tenderness to my heart, and not in despair. it was useless and hopeless. no tears soothed my aching eyes, no relief came to me from my sister's sympathy or my mother's love. on that third morning i opened my heart to them. at last the words passed my lips which i had longed to speak on the day when my mother told me of her death. "let me go away alone for a little while," i said. "i shall bear it better when i have looked once more at the place where i first saw her--when i have knelt and prayed by the grave where they have laid her to rest." i departed on my journey--my journey to the grave of laura fairlie. it was a quiet autumn afternoon when i stopped at the solitary station, and set forth alone on foot by the well-remembered road. the waning sun was shining faintly through thin white clouds--the air was warm and still--the peacefulness of the lonely country was overshadowed and saddened by the influence of the falling year. i reached the moor--i stood again on the brow of the hill--i looked on along the path--and there were the familiar garden trees in the distance, the clear sweeping semicircle of the drive, the high white walls of limmeridge house. the chances and changes, the wanderings and dangers of months and months past, all shrank and shrivelled to nothing in my mind. it was like yesterday since my feet had last trodden the fragrant heathy ground. i thought i should see her coming to meet me, with her little straw hat shading her face, her simple dress fluttering in the air, and her well-filled sketch-book ready in her hand. oh death, thou hast thy sting! oh, grave, thou hast thy victory! i turned aside, and there below me in the glen was the lonesome grey church, the porch where i had waited for the coming of the woman in white, the hills encircling the quiet burial-ground, the brook bubbling cold over its stony bed. there was the marble cross, fair and white, at the head of the tomb--the tomb that now rose over mother and daughter alike. i approached the grave. i crossed once more the low stone stile, and bared my head as i touched the sacred ground. sacred to gentleness and goodness, sacred to reverence and grief. i stopped before the pedestal from which the cross rose. on one side of it, on the side nearest to me, the newly-cut inscription met my eyes--the hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the story of her life and death. i tried to read them. i did read as far as the name. "sacred to the memory of laura----" the kind blue eyes dim with tears--the fair head drooping wearily--the innocent parting words which implored me to leave her--oh, for a happier last memory of her than this; the memory i took away with me, the memory i bring back with me to her grave! a second time i tried to read the inscription. i saw at the end the date of her death, and above it---- above it there were lines on the marble--there was a name among them which disturbed my thoughts of her. i went round to the other side of the grave, where there was nothing to read, nothing of earthly vileness to force its way between her spirit and mine. i knelt down by the tomb. i laid my hands, i laid my head on the broad white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around, on the light above. i let her come back to me. oh, my love! my love! my heart may speak to you now! it is yesterday again since we parted--yesterday, since your dear hand lay in mine--yesterday, since my eyes looked their last on you. my love! my love! * * * * * * * * * * time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night over its course. the first sound that came after the heavenly peace rustled faintly like a passing breath of air over the grass of the burial-ground. i heard it nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my ear--came like footsteps moving onward--then stopped. i looked up. the sunset was near at hand. the clouds had parted--the slanting light fell mellow over the hills. the last of the day was cold and clear and still in the quiet valley of the dead. beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing together in the cold clearness of the lower light, i saw two women. they were looking towards the tomb, looking towards me. two. they came a little on, and stopped again. their veils were down, and hid their faces from me. when they stopped, one of them raised her veil. in the still evening light i saw the face of marian halcombe. changed, changed as if years had passed over it! the eyes large and wild, and looking at me with a strange terror in them. the face worn and wasted piteously. pain and fear and grief written on her as with a brand. i took one step towards her from the grave. she never moved--she never spoke. the veiled woman with her cried out faintly. i stopped. the springs of my life fell low, and the shuddering of an unutterable dread crept over me from head to foot. the woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and came towards me slowly. left by herself, standing by herself, marian halcombe spoke. it was the voice that i remembered--the voice not changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted face. "my dream! my dream!" i heard her say those words softly in the awful silence. she sank on her knees, and raised her clasped hands to heaven. "father! strengthen him. father! help him in his hour of need." the woman came on, slowly and silently came on. i looked at her--at her, and at none other, from that moment. the voice that was praying for me faltered and sank low--then rose on a sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me to come away. but the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. she stopped on one side of the grave. we stood face to face with the tombstone between us. she was close to the inscription on the side of the pedestal. her gown touched the black letters. the voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still. "hide your face! don't look at her! oh, for god's sake, spare him----" the woman lifted her veil. "sacred to the memory of laura, lady glyde----" laura, lady glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at me over the grave. [the second epoch of the story closes here.] the third epoch the story continued by walter hartright. i i open a new page. i advance my narrative by one week. the history of the interval which i thus pass over must remain unrecorded. my heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when i think of it. this must not be, if i who write am to guide, as i ought, you who read. this must not be, if the clue that leads through the windings of the story is to remain from end to end untangled in my hands. a life suddenly changed--its whole purpose created afresh, its hopes and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices all turned at once and for ever into a new direction--this is the prospect which now opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain's top. i left my narrative in the quiet shadow of limmeridge church--i resume it, one week later, in the stir and turmoil of a london street. the street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood. the ground floor of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small newsvendor's shop, and the first floor and the second are let as furnished lodgings of the humblest kind. i have taken those two floors in an assumed name. on the upper floor i live, with a room to work in, a room to sleep in. on the lower floor, under the same assumed name, two women live, who are described as my sisters. i get my bread by drawing and engraving on wood for the cheap periodicals. my sisters are supposed to help me by taking in a little needle-work. our poor place of abode, our humble calling, our assumed relationship, and our assumed name, are all used alike as a means of hiding us in the house-forest of london. we are numbered no longer with the people whose lives are open and known. i am an obscure, unnoticed man, without patron or friend to help me. marian halcombe is nothing now but my eldest sister, who provides for our household wants by the toil of her own hands. we two, in the estimation of others, are at once the dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. we are supposed to be the accomplices of mad anne catherick, who claims the name, the place, and the living personality of dead lady glyde. that is our situation. that is the changed aspect in which we three must appear, henceforth, in this narrative, for many and many a page to come. in the eye of reason and of law, in the estimation of relatives and friends, according to every received formality of civilised society, "laura, lady glyde," lay buried with her mother in limmeridge churchyard. torn in her own lifetime from the list of the living, the daughter of philip fairlie and the wife of percival glyde might still exist for her sister, might still exist for me, but to all the world besides she was dead. dead to her uncle, who had renounced her; dead to the servants of the house, who had failed to recognise her; dead to the persons in authority, who had transmitted her fortune to her husband and her aunt; dead to my mother and my sister, who believed me to be the dupe of an adventuress and the victim of a fraud; socially, morally, legally--dead. and yet alive! alive in poverty and in hiding. alive, with the poor drawing-master to fight her battle, and to win the way back for her to her place in the world of living beings. did no suspicion, excited by my own knowledge of anne catherick's resemblance to her, cross my mind, when her face was first revealed to me? not the shadow of a suspicion, from the moment when she lifted her veil by the side of the inscription which recorded her death. before the sun of that day had set, before the last glimpse of the home which was closed against her had passed from our view, the farewell words i spoke, when we parted at limmeridge house, had been recalled by both of us--repeated by me, recognised by her. "if ever the time comes, when the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment's happiness, or spare you a moment's sorrow, will you try to remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you?" she, who now remembered so little of the trouble and terror of a later time, remembered those words, and laid her poor head innocently and trustingly on the bosom of the man who had spoken them. in that moment, when she called me by my name, when she said, "they have tried to make me forget everything, walter; but i remember marian, and i remember you"--in that moment, i, who had long since given her my love, gave her my life, and thanked god that it was mine to bestow on her. yes! the time had come. from thousands on thousands of miles away--through forest and wilderness, where companions stronger than i had fallen by my side, through peril of death thrice renewed, and thrice escaped, the hand that leads men on the dark road to the future had led me to meet that time. forlorn and disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed--her beauty faded, her mind clouded--robbed of her station in the world, of her place among living creatures--the devotion i had promised, the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength, might be laid blamelessly now at those dear feet. in the right of her calamity, in the right of her friendlessness, she was mine at last! mine to support, to protect, to cherish, to restore. mine to love and honour as father and brother both. mine to vindicate through all risks and all sacrifices--through the hopeless struggle against rank and power, through the long fight with armed deceit and fortified success, through the waste of my reputation, through the loss of my friends, through the hazard of my life. ii my position is defined--my motives are acknowledged. the story of marian and the story of laura must come next. i shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often interrupted, often inevitably confused) of the speakers themselves, but in the words of the brief, plain, studiously simple abstract which i committed to writing for my own guidance, and for the guidance of my legal adviser. so the tangled web will be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled. the story of marian begins where the narrative of the housekeeper at blackwater park left off. on lady glyde's departure from her husband's house, the fact of that departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances under which it had taken place, were communicated to miss halcombe by the housekeeper. it was not till some days afterwards (how many days exactly, mrs. michelson, in the absence of any written memorandum on the subject, could not undertake to say) that a letter arrived from madame fosco announcing lady glyde's sudden death in count fosco's house. the letter avoided mentioning dates, and left it to mrs. michelson's discretion to break the news at once to miss halcombe, or to defer doing so until that lady's health should be more firmly established. having consulted mr. dawson (who had been himself delayed, by ill health, in resuming his attendance at blackwater park), mrs. michelson, by the doctor's advice, and in the doctor's presence, communicated the news, either on the day when the letter was received, or on the day after. it is not necessary to dwell here upon the effect which the intelligence of lady glyde's sudden death produced on her sister. it is only useful to the present purpose to say that she was not able to travel for more than three weeks afterwards. at the end of that time she proceeded to london accompanied by the housekeeper. they parted there--mrs. michelson previously informing miss halcombe of her address, in case they might wish to communicate at a future period. on parting with the housekeeper miss halcombe went at once to the office of messrs. gilmore & kyrle to consult with the latter gentleman in mr. gilmore's absence. she mentioned to mr. kyrle what she had thought it desirable to conceal from every one else (mrs. michelson included)--her suspicion of the circumstances under which lady glyde was said to have met her death. mr. kyrle, who had previously given friendly proof of his anxiety to serve miss halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries as the delicate and dangerous nature of the investigation proposed to him would permit. to exhaust this part of the subject before going farther, it may be mentioned that count fosco offered every facility to mr. kyrle, on that gentleman's stating that he was sent by miss halcombe to collect such particulars as had not yet reached her of lady glyde's decease. mr. kyrle was placed in communication with the medical man, mr. goodricke, and with the two servants. in the absence of any means of ascertaining the exact date of lady glyde's departure from blackwater park, the result of the doctor's and the servants' evidence, and of the volunteered statements of count fosco and his wife, was conclusive to the mind of mr. kyrle. he could only assume that the intensity of miss halcombe's suffering, under the loss of her sister, had misled her judgment in a most deplorable manner, and he wrote her word that the shocking suspicion to which she had alluded in his presence was, in his opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of foundation in truth. thus the investigation by mr. gilmore's partner began and ended. meanwhile, miss halcombe had returned to limmeridge house, and had there collected all the additional information which she was able to obtain. mr. fairlie had received his first intimation of his niece's death from his sister, madame fosco, this letter also not containing any exact reference to dates. he had sanctioned his sister's proposal that the deceased lady should be laid in her mother's grave in limmeridge churchyard. count fosco had accompanied the remains to cumberland, and had attended the funeral at limmeridge, which took place on the th of july. it was followed, as a mark of respect, by all the inhabitants of the village and the neighbourhood. on the next day the inscription (originally drawn out, it was said, by the aunt of the deceased lady, and submitted for approval to her brother, mr. fairlie) was engraved on one side of the monument over the tomb. on the day of the funeral, and for one day after it, count fosco had been received as a guest at limmeridge house, but no interview had taken place between mr. fairlie and himself, by the former gentleman's desire. they had communicated by writing, and through this medium count fosco had made mr. fairlie acquainted with the details of his niece's last illness and death. the letter presenting this information added no new facts to the facts already known, but one very remarkable paragraph was contained in the postscript. it referred to anne catherick. the substance of the paragraph in question was as follows-- it first informed mr. fairlie that anne catherick (of whom he might hear full particulars from miss halcombe when she reached limmeridge) had been traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of blackwater park, and had been for the second time placed under the charge of the medical man from whose custody she had once escaped. this was the first part of the postscript. the second part warned mr. fairlie that anne catherick's mental malady had been aggravated by her long freedom from control, and that the insane hatred and distrust of sir percival glyde, which had been one of her most marked delusions in former times, still existed under a newly-acquired form. the unfortunate woman's last idea in connection with sir percival was the idea of annoying and distressing him, and of elevating herself, as she supposed, in the estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming the character of his deceased wife, the scheme of this personation having evidently occurred to her after a stolen interview which she had succeeded in obtaining with lady glyde, and at which she had observed the extraordinary accidental likeness between the deceased lady and herself. it was to the last degree improbable that she would succeed a second time in escaping from the asylum, but it was just possible she might find some means of annoying the late lady glyde's relatives with letters, and in that case mr. fairlie was warned beforehand how to receive them. the postscript, expressed in these terms, was shown to miss halcombe when she arrived at limmeridge. there were also placed in her possession the clothes lady glyde had worn, and the other effects she had brought with her to her aunt's house. they had been carefully collected and sent to cumberland by madame fosco. such was the posture of affairs when miss halcombe reached limmeridge in the early part of september. shortly afterwards she was confined to her room by a relapse, her weakened physical energies giving way under the severe mental affliction from which she was now suffering. on getting stronger again, in a month's time, her suspicion of the circumstances described as attending her sister's death still remained unshaken. she had heard nothing in the interim of sir percival glyde, but letters had reached her from madame fosco, making the most affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband and herself. instead of answering these letters, miss halcombe caused the house in st. john's wood, and the proceedings of its inmates, to be privately watched. nothing doubtful was discovered. the same result attended the next investigations, which were secretly instituted on the subject of mrs. rubelle. she had arrived in london about six months before with her husband. they had come from lyons, and they had taken a house in the neighbourhood of leicester square, to be fitted up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were expected to visit england in large numbers to see the exhibition of . nothing was known against husband or wife in the neighbourhood. they were quiet people, and they had paid their way honestly up to the present time. the final inquiries related to sir percival glyde. he was settled in paris, and living there quietly in a small circle of english and french friends. foiled at all points, but still not able to rest, miss halcombe next determined to visit the asylum in which she then supposed anne catherick to be for the second time confined. she had felt a strong curiosity about the woman in former days, and she was now doubly interested--first, in ascertaining whether the report of anne catherick's attempted personation of lady glyde was true, and secondly (if it proved to be true), in discovering for herself what the poor creature's real motives were for attempting the deceit. although count fosco's letter to mr. fairlie did not mention the address of the asylum, that important omission cast no difficulties in miss halcombe's way. when mr. hartright had met anne catherick at limmeridge, she had informed him of the locality in which the house was situated, and miss halcombe had noted down the direction in her diary, with all the other particulars of the interview exactly as she heard them from mr. hartright's own lips. accordingly she looked back at the entry and extracted the address--furnished herself with the count's letter to mr. fairlie as a species of credential which might be useful to her, and started by herself for the asylum on the eleventh of october. she passed the night of the eleventh in london. it had been her intention to sleep at the house inhabited by lady glyde's old governess, but mrs. vesey's agitation at the sight of her lost pupil's nearest and dearest friend was so distressing that miss halcombe considerately refrained from remaining in her presence, and removed to a respectable boarding-house in the neighbourhood, recommended by mrs. vesey's married sister. the next day she proceeded to the asylum, which was situated not far from london on the northern side of the metropolis. she was immediately admitted to see the proprietor. at first he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to let her communicate with his patient. but on her showing him the postscript to count fosco's letter--on her reminding him that she was the "miss halcombe" there referred to--that she was a near relative of the deceased lady glyde--and that she was therefore naturally interested, for family reasons, in observing for herself the extent of anne catherick's delusion in relation to her late sister--the tone and manner of the owner of the asylum altered, and he withdrew his objections. he probably felt that a continued refusal, under these circumstances, would not only be an act of discourtesy in itself, but would also imply that the proceedings in his establishment were not of a nature to bear investigation by respectable strangers. miss halcombe's own impression was that the owner of the asylum had not been received into the confidence of sir percival and the count. his consenting at all to let her visit his patient seemed to afford one proof of this, and his readiness in making admissions which could scarcely have escaped the lips of an accomplice, certainly appeared to furnish another. for example, in the course of the introductory conversation which took place, he informed miss halcombe that anne catherick had been brought back to him with the necessary order and certificates by count fosco on the twenty-seventh of july--the count also producing a letter of explanations and instructions signed by sir percival glyde. on receiving his inmate again, the proprietor of the asylum acknowledged that he had observed some curious personal changes in her. such changes no doubt were not without precedent in his experience of persons mentally afflicted. insane people were often at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly, unlike what they were at another--the change from better to worse, or from worse to better, in the madness having a necessary tendency to produce alterations of appearance externally. he allowed for these, and he allowed also for the modification in the form of anne catherick's delusion, which was reflected no doubt in her manner and expression. but he was still perplexed at times by certain differences between his patient before she had escaped and his patient since she had been brought back. those differences were too minute to be described. he could not say of course that she was absolutely altered in height or shape or complexion, or in the colour of her hair and eyes, or in the general form of her face--the change was something that he felt more than something that he saw. in short, the case had been a puzzle from the first, and one more perplexity was added to it now. it cannot be said that this conversation led to the result of even partially preparing miss halcombe's mind for what was to come. but it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her. she was so completely unnerved by it, that some little time elapsed before she could summon composure enough to follow the proprietor of the asylum to that part of the house in which the inmates were confined. on inquiry, it turned out that the supposed anne catherick was then taking exercise in the grounds attached to the establishment. one of the nurses volunteered to conduct miss halcombe to the place, the proprietor of the asylum remaining in the house for a few minutes to attend to a case which required his services, and then engaging to join his visitor in the grounds. the nurse led miss halcombe to a distant part of the property, which was prettily laid out, and after looking about her a little, turned into a turf walk, shaded by a shrubbery on either side. about half-way down this walk two women were slowly approaching. the nurse pointed to them and said, "there is anne catherick, ma'am, with the attendant who waits on her. the attendant will answer any questions you wish to put." with those words the nurse left her to return to the duties of the house. miss halcombe advanced on her side, and the women advanced on theirs. when they were within a dozen paces of each other, one of the women stopped for an instant, looked eagerly at the strange lady, shook off the nurse's grasp on her, and the next moment rushed into miss halcombe's arms. in that moment miss halcombe recognised her sister--recognised the dead-alive. fortunately for the success of the measures taken subsequently, no one was present at that moment but the nurse. she was a young woman, and she was so startled that she was at first quite incapable of interfering. when she was able to do so her whole services were required by miss halcombe, who had for the moment sunk altogether in the effort to keep her own senses under the shock of the discovery. after waiting a few minutes in the fresh air and the cool shade, her natural energy and courage helped her a little, and she became sufficiently mistress of herself to feel the necessity of recalling her presence of mind for her unfortunate sister's sake. she obtained permission to speak alone with the patient, on condition that they both remained well within the nurse's view. there was no time for questions--there was only time for miss halcombe to impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of controlling herself, and to assure her of immediate help and rescue if she did so. the prospect of escaping from the asylum by obedience to her sister's directions was sufficient to quiet lady glyde, and to make her understand what was required of her. miss halcombe next returned to the nurse, placed all the gold she then had in her pocket (three sovereigns) in the nurse's hands, and asked when and where she could speak to her alone. the woman was at first surprised and distrustful. but on miss halcombe's declaring that she only wanted to put some questions which she was too much agitated to ask at that moment, and that she had no intention of misleading the nurse into any dereliction of duty, the woman took the money, and proposed three o'clock on the next day as the time for the interview. she might then slip out for half an hour, after the patients had dined, and she would meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high north wall which screened the grounds of the house. miss halcombe had only time to assent, and to whisper to her sister that she should hear from her on the next day, when the proprietor of the asylum joined them. he noticed his visitor's agitation, which miss halcombe accounted for by saying that her interview with anne catherick had a little startled her at first. she took her leave as soon after as possible--that is to say, as soon as she could summon courage to force herself from the presence of her unfortunate sister. a very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect returned, convinced her that any attempt to identify lady glyde and to rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a delay that might be fatal to her sister's intellects, which were shaken already by the horror of the situation to which she had been consigned. by the time miss halcombe had got back to london, she had determined to effect lady glyde's escape privately, by means of the nurse. she went at once to her stockbroker, and sold out of the funds all the little property she possessed, amounting to rather less than seven hundred pounds. determined, if necessary, to pay the price of her sister's liberty with every farthing she had in the world, she repaired the next day, having the whole sum about her in bank-notes, to her appointment outside the asylum wall. the nurse was there. miss halcombe approached the subject cautiously by many preliminary questions. she discovered, among other particulars, that the nurse who had in former times attended on the true anne catherick had been held responsible (although she was not to blame for it) for the patient's escape, and had lost her place in consequence. the same penalty, it was added, would attach to the person then speaking to her, if the supposed anne catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover, the nurse in this case had an especial interest in keeping her place. she was engaged to be married, and she and her future husband were waiting till they could save, together, between two and three hundred pounds to start in business. the nurse's wages were good, and she might succeed, by strict economy, in contributing her small share towards the sum required in two years' time. on this hint miss halcombe spoke. she declared that the supposed anne catherick was nearly related to her, that she had been placed in the asylum under a fatal mistake, and that the nurse would be doing a good and a christian action in being the means of restoring them to one another. before there was time to start a single objection, miss halcombe took four bank-notes of a hundred pounds each from her pocket-book, and offered them to the woman, as a compensation for the risk she was to run, and for the loss of her place. the nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity and surprise. miss halcombe pressed the point on her firmly. "you will be doing a good action," she repeated; "you will be helping the most injured and unhappy woman alive. there is your marriage portion for a reward. bring her safely to me here, and i will put these four bank-notes into your hand before i claim her." "will you give me a letter saying those words, which i can show to my sweetheart when he asks how i got the money?" inquired the woman. "i will bring the letter with me, ready written and signed," answered miss halcombe. "then i'll risk it," said the nurse. "when?" "to-morrow." it was hastily agreed between them that miss halcombe should return early the next morning and wait out of sight among the trees--always, however, keeping near the quiet spot of ground under the north wall. the nurse could fix no time for her appearance, caution requiring that she should wait and be guided by circumstances. on that understanding they separated. miss halcombe was at her place, with the promised letter and the promised bank-notes, before ten the next morning. she waited more than an hour and a half. at the end of that time the nurse came quickly round the corner of the wall holding lady glyde by the arm. the moment they met miss halcombe put the bank-notes and the letter into her hand, and the sisters were united again. the nurse had dressed lady glyde, with excellent forethought, in a bonnet, veil, and shawl of her own. miss halcombe only detained her to suggest a means of turning the pursuit in a false direction, when the escape was discovered at the asylum. she was to go back to the house, to mention in the hearing of the other nurses that anne catherick had been inquiring latterly about the distance from london to hampshire, to wait till the last moment, before discovery was inevitable, and then to give the alarm that anne was missing. the supposed inquiries about hampshire, when communicated to the owner of the asylum, would lead him to imagine that his patient had returned to blackwater park, under the influence of the delusion which made her persist in asserting herself to be lady glyde, and the first pursuit would, in all probability, be turned in that direction. the nurse consented to follow these suggestions, the more readily as they offered her the means of securing herself against any worse consequences than the loss of her place, by remaining in the asylum, and so maintaining the appearance of innocence, at least. she at once returned to the house, and miss halcombe lost no time in taking her sister back with her to london. they caught the afternoon train to carlisle the same afternoon, and arrived at limmeridge, without accident or difficulty of any kind, that night. during the latter part of their journey they were alone in the carriage, and miss halcombe was able to collect such remembrances of the past as her sister's confused and weakened memory was able to recall. the terrible story of the conspiracy so obtained was presented in fragments, sadly incoherent in themselves, and widely detached from each other. imperfect as the revelation was, it must nevertheless be recorded here before this explanatory narrative closes with the events of the next day at limmeridge house. lady glyde's recollection of the events which followed her departure from blackwater park began with her arrival at the london terminus of the south western railway. she had omitted to make a memorandum beforehand of the day on which she took the journey. all hope of fixing that important date by any evidence of hers, or of mrs. michelson's, must be given up for lost. on the arrival of the train at the platform lady glyde found count fosco waiting for her. he was at the carriage door as soon as the porter could open it. the train was unusually crowded, and there was great confusion in getting the luggage. some person whom count fosco brought with him procured the luggage which belonged to lady glyde. it was marked with her name. she drove away alone with the count in a vehicle which she did not particularly notice at the time. her first question, on leaving the terminus, referred to miss halcombe. the count informed her that miss halcombe had not yet gone to cumberland, after-consideration having caused him to doubt the prudence of her taking so long a journey without some days' previous rest. lady glyde next inquired whether her sister was then staying in the count's house. her recollection of the answer was confused, her only distinct impression in relation to it being that the count declared he was then taking her to see miss halcombe. lady glyde's experience of london was so limited that she could not tell, at the time, through what streets they were driving. but they never left the streets, and they never passed any gardens or trees. when the carriage stopped, it stopped in a small street behind a square--a square in which there were shops, and public buildings, and many people. from these recollections (of which lady glyde was certain) it seems quite clear that count fosco did not take her to his own residence in the suburb of st. john's wood. they entered the house, and went upstairs to a back room, either on the first or second floor. the luggage was carefully brought in. a female servant opened the door, and a man with a dark beard, apparently a foreigner, met them in the hall, and with great politeness showed them the way upstairs. in answer to lady glyde's inquiries, the count assured her that miss halcombe was in the house, and that she should be immediately informed of her sister's arrival. he and the foreigner then went away and left her by herself in the room. it was poorly furnished as a sitting-room, and it looked out on the backs of houses. the place was remarkably quiet--no footsteps went up or down the stairs--she only heard in the room beneath her a dull, rumbling sound of men's voices talking. before she had been long left alone the count returned, to explain that miss halcombe was then taking rest, and could not be disturbed for a little while. he was accompanied into the room by a gentleman (an englishman), whom he begged to present as a friend of his. after this singular introduction--in the course of which no names, to the best of lady glyde's recollection, had been mentioned--she was left alone with the stranger. he was perfectly civil, but he startled and confused her by some odd questions about herself, and by looking at her, while he asked them, in a strange manner. after remaining a short time he went out, and a minute or two afterwards a second stranger--also an englishman--came in. this person introduced himself as another friend of count fosco's, and he, in his turn, looked at her very oddly, and asked some curious questions--never, as well as she could remember, addressing her by name, and going out again, after a little while, like the first man. by this time she was so frightened about herself, and so uneasy about her sister, that she had thoughts of venturing downstairs again, and claiming the protection and assistance of the only woman she had seen in the house--the servant who answered the door. just as she had risen from her chair, the count came back into the room. the moment he appeared she asked anxiously how long the meeting between her sister and herself was to be still delayed. at first he returned an evasive answer, but on being pressed, he acknowledged, with great apparent reluctance, that miss halcombe was by no means so well as he had hitherto represented her to be. his tone and manner, in making this reply, so alarmed lady glyde, or rather so painfully increased the uneasiness which she had felt in the company of the two strangers, that a sudden faintness overcame her, and she was obliged to ask for a glass of water. the count called from the door for water, and for a bottle of smelling-salts. both were brought in by the foreign-looking man with the beard. the water, when lady glyde attempted to drink it, had so strange a taste that it increased her faintness, and she hastily took the bottle of salts from count fosco, and smelt at it. her head became giddy on the instant. the count caught the bottle as it dropped out of her hand, and the last impression of which she was conscious was that he held it to her nostrils again. from this point her recollections were found to be confused, fragmentary, and difficult to reconcile with any reasonable probability. her own impression was that she recovered her senses later in the evening, that she then left the house, that she went (as she had previously arranged to go, at blackwater park) to mrs. vesey's--that she drank tea there, and that she passed the night under mrs. vesey's roof. she was totally unable to say how, or when, or in what company she left the house to which count fosco had brought her. but she persisted in asserting that she had been to mrs. vesey's, and still more extraordinary, that she had been helped to undress and get to bed by mrs. rubelle! she could not remember what the conversation was at mrs. vesey's or whom she saw there besides that lady, or why mrs. rubelle should have been present in the house to help her. her recollection of what happened to her the next morning was still more vague and unreliable. she had some dim idea of driving out (at what hour she could not say) with count fosco, and with mrs. rubelle again for a female attendant. but when, and why, she left mrs. vesey she could not tell; neither did she know what direction the carriage drove in, or where it set her down, or whether the count and mrs. rubelle did or did not remain with her all the time she was out. at this point in her sad story there was a total blank. she had no impressions of the faintest kind to communicate--no idea whether one day, or more than one day, had passed--until she came to herself suddenly in a strange place, surrounded by women who were all unknown to her. this was the asylum. here she first heard herself called by anne catherick's name, and here, as a last remarkable circumstance in the story of the conspiracy, her own eyes informed her that she had anne catherick's clothes on. the nurse, on the first night in the asylum, had shown her the marks on each article of her underclothing as it was taken off, and had said, not at all irritably or unkindly, "look at your own name on your own clothes, and don't worry us all any more about being lady glyde. she's dead and buried, and you're alive and hearty. do look at your clothes now! there it is, in good marking ink, and there you will find it on all your old things, which we have kept in the house--anne catherick, as plain as print!" and there it was, when miss halcombe examined the linen her sister wore, on the night of their arrival at limmeridge house. these were the only recollections--all of them uncertain, and some of them contradictory--which could be extracted from lady glyde by careful questioning on the journey to cumberland. miss halcombe abstained from pressing her with any inquiries relating to events in the asylum--her mind being but too evidently unfit to bear the trial of reverting to them. it was known, by the voluntary admission of the owner of the mad-house, that she was received there on the twenty-seventh of july. from that date until the fifteenth of october (the day of her rescue) she had been under restraint, her identity with anne catherick systematically asserted, and her sanity, from first to last, practically denied. faculties less delicately balanced, constitutions less tenderly organised, must have suffered under such an ordeal as this. no man could have gone through it and come out of it unchanged. arriving at limmeridge late on the evening of the fifteenth, miss halcombe wisely resolved not to attempt the assertion of lady glyde's identity until the next day. the first thing in the morning she went to mr. fairlie's room, and using all possible cautions and preparations beforehand, at last told him in so many words what had happened. as soon as his first astonishment and alarm had subsided, he angrily declared that miss halcombe had allowed herself to be duped by anne catherick. he referred her to count fosco's letter, and to what she had herself told him of the personal resemblance between anne and his deceased niece, and he positively declined to admit to his presence, even for one minute only, a madwoman, whom it was an insult and an outrage to have brought into his house at all. miss halcombe left the room--waited till the first heat of her indignation had passed away--decided on reflection that mr. fairlie should see his niece in the interests of common humanity before he closed his doors on her as a stranger--and thereupon, without a word of previous warning, took lady glyde with her to his room. the servant was posted at the door to prevent their entrance, but miss halcombe insisted on passing him, and made her way into mr. fairlie's presence, leading her sister by the hand. the scene that followed, though it only lasted for a few minutes, was too painful to be described--miss halcombe herself shrank from referring to it. let it be enough to say that mr. fairlie declared, in the most positive terms, that he did not recognise the woman who had been brought into his room--that he saw nothing in her face and manner to make him doubt for a moment that his niece lay buried in limmeridge churchyard, and that he would call on the law to protect him if before the day was over she was not removed from the house. taking the very worst view of mr. fairlie's selfishness, indolence, and habitual want of feeling, it was manifestly impossible to suppose that he was capable of such infamy as secretly recognising and openly disowning his brother's child. miss halcombe humanely and sensibly allowed all due force to the influence of prejudice and alarm in preventing him from fairly exercising his perceptions, and accounted for what had happened in that way. but when she next put the servants to the test, and found that they too were, in every case, uncertain, to say the least of it, whether the lady presented to them was their young mistress or anne catherick, of whose resemblance to her they had all heard, the sad conclusion was inevitable that the change produced in lady glyde's face and manner by her imprisonment in the asylum was far more serious than miss halcombe had at first supposed. the vile deception which had asserted her death defied exposure even in the house where she was born, and among the people with whom she had lived. in a less critical situation the effort need not have been given up as hopeless even yet. for example, the maid, fanny, who happened to be then absent from limmeridge, was expected back in two days, and there would be a chance of gaining her recognition to start with, seeing that she had been in much more constant communication with her mistress, and had been much more heartily attached to her than the other servants. again, lady glyde might have been privately kept in the house or in the village to wait until her health was a little recovered and her mind was a little steadied again. when her memory could be once more trusted to serve her, she would naturally refer to persons and events in the past with a certainty and a familiarity which no impostor could simulate, and so the fact of her identity, which her own appearance had failed to establish, might subsequently be proved, with time to help her, by the surer test of her own words. but the circumstances under which she had regained her freedom rendered all recourse to such means as these simply impracticable. the pursuit from the asylum, diverted to hampshire for the time only, would infallibly next take the direction of cumberland. the persons appointed to seek the fugitive might arrive at limmeridge house at a few hours' notice, and in mr. fairlie's present temper of mind they might count on the immediate exertion of his local influence and authority to assist them. the commonest consideration for lady glyde's safety forced on miss halcombe the necessity of resigning the struggle to do her justice, and of removing her at once from the place of all others that was now most dangerous to her--the neighbourhood of her own home. an immediate return to london was the first and wisest measure of security which suggested itself. in the great city all traces of them might be most speedily and most surely effaced. there were no preparations to make--no farewell words of kindness to exchange with any one. on the afternoon of that memorable day of the sixteenth miss halcombe roused her sister to a last exertion of courage, and without a living soul to wish them well at parting, the two took their way into the world alone, and turned their backs for ever on limmeridge house. they had passed the hill above the churchyard, when lady glyde insisted on turning back to look her last at her mother's grave. miss halcombe tried to shake her resolution, but, in this one instance, tried in vain. she was immovable. her dim eyes lit with a sudden fire, and flashed through the veil that hung over them--her wasted fingers strengthened moment by moment round the friendly arm by which they had held so listlessly till this time. i believe in my soul that the hand of god was pointing their way back to them, and that the most innocent and the most afflicted of his creatures was chosen in that dread moment to see it. they retraced their steps to the burial-ground, and by that act sealed the future of our three lives. iii this was the story of the past--the story so far as we knew it then. two obvious conclusions presented themselves to my mind after hearing it. in the first place, i saw darkly what the nature of the conspiracy had been, how chances had been watched, and how circumstances had been handled to ensure impunity to a daring and an intricate crime. while all details were still a mystery to me, the vile manner in which the personal resemblance between the woman in white and lady glyde had been turned to account was clear beyond a doubt. it was plain that anne catherick had been introduced into count fosco's house as lady glyde--it was plain that lady glyde had taken the dead woman's place in the asylum--the substitution having been so managed as to make innocent people (the doctor and the two servants certainly, and the owner of the mad-house in all probability) accomplices in the crime. the second conclusion came as the necessary consequence of the first. we three had no mercy to expect from count fosco and sir percival glyde. the success of the conspiracy had brought with it a clear gain to those two men of thirty thousand pounds--twenty thousand to one, ten thousand to the other through his wife. they had that interest, as well as other interests, in ensuring their impunity from exposure, and they would leave no stone unturned, no sacrifice unattempted, no treachery untried, to discover the place in which their victim was concealed, and to part her from the only friends she had in the world--marian halcombe and myself. the sense of this serious peril--a peril which every day and every hour might bring nearer and nearer to us--was the one influence that guided me in fixing the place of our retreat. i chose it in the far east of london, where there were fewest idle people to lounge and look about them in the streets. i chose it in a poor and a populous neighbourhood--because the harder the struggle for existence among the men and women about us, the less the risk of their having the time or taking the pains to notice chance strangers who came among them. these were the great advantages i looked to, but our locality was a gain to us also in another and a hardly less important respect. we could live cheaply by the daily work of my hands, and could save every farthing we possessed to forward the purpose, the righteous purpose, of redressing an infamous wrong--which, from first to last, i now kept steadily in view. in a week's time marian halcombe and i had settled how the course of our new lives should be directed. there were no other lodgers in the house, and we had the means of going in and out without passing through the shop. i arranged, for the present at least, that neither marian nor laura should stir outside the door without my being with them, and that in my absence from home they should let no one into their rooms on any pretence whatever. this rule established, i went to a friend whom i had known in former days--a wood engraver in large practice--to seek for employment, telling him, at the same time, that i had reasons for wishing to remain unknown. he at once concluded that i was in debt, expressed his regret in the usual forms, and then promised to do what he could to assist me. i left his false impression undisturbed, and accepted the work he had to give. he knew that he could trust my experience and my industry. i had what he wanted, steadiness and facility, and though my earnings were but small, they sufficed for our necessities. as soon as we could feel certain of this, marian halcombe and i put together what we possessed. she had between two and three hundred pounds left of her own property, and i had nearly as much remaining from the purchase-money obtained by the sale of my drawing-master's practice before i left england. together we made up between us more than four hundred pounds. i deposited this little fortune in a bank, to be kept for the expense of those secret inquiries and investigations which i was determined to set on foot, and to carry on by myself if i could find no one to help me. we calculated our weekly expenditure to the last farthing, and we never touched our little fund except in laura's interests and for laura's sake. the house-work, which, if we had dared trust a stranger near us, would have been done by a servant, was taken on the first day, taken as her own right, by marian halcombe. "what a woman's hands are fit for," she said, "early and late, these hands of mine shall do." they trembled as she held them out. the wasted arms told their sad story of the past, as she turned up the sleeves of the poor plain dress that she wore for safety's sake; but the unquenchable spirit of the woman burnt bright in her even yet. i saw the big tears rise thick in her eyes, and fall slowly over her cheeks as she looked at me. she dashed them away with a touch of her old energy, and smiled with a faint reflection of her old good spirits. "don't doubt my courage, walter," she pleaded, "it's my weakness that cries, not me. the house-work shall conquer it if i can't." and she kept her word--the victory was won when we met in the evening, and she sat down to rest. her large steady black eyes looked at me with a flash of their bright firmness of bygone days. "i am not quite broken down yet," she said. "i am worth trusting with my share of the work." before i could answer, she added in a whisper, "and worth trusting with my share in the risk and the danger too. remember that, if the time comes!" i did remember it when the time came. as early as the end of october the daily course of our lives had assumed its settled direction, and we three were as completely isolated in our place of concealment as if the house we lived in had been a desert island, and the great network of streets and the thousands of our fellow-creatures all round us the waters of an illimitable sea. i could now reckon on some leisure time for considering what my future plan of action should be, and how i might arm myself most securely at the outset for the coming struggle with sir percival and the count. i gave up all hope of appealing to my recognition of laura, or to marian's recognition of her, in proof of her identity. if we had loved her less dearly, if the instinct implanted in us by that love had not been far more certain than any exercise of reasoning, far keener than any process of observation, even we might have hesitated on first seeing her. the outward changes wrought by the suffering and the terror of the past had fearfully, almost hopelessly, strengthened the fatal resemblance between anne catherick and herself. in my narrative of events at the time of my residence in limmeridge house, i have recorded, from my own observation of the two, how the likeness, striking as it was when viewed generally, failed in many important points of similarity when tested in detail. in those former days, if they had both been seen together side by side, no person could for a moment have mistaken them one for the other--as has happened often in the instances of twins. i could not say this now. the sorrow and suffering which i had once blamed myself for associating even by a passing thought with the future of laura fairlie, had set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of her face; and the fatal resemblance which i had once seen and shuddered at seeing, in idea only, was now a real and living resemblance which asserted itself before my own eyes. strangers, acquaintances, friends even who could not look at her as we looked, if she had been shown to them in the first days of her rescue from the asylum, might have doubted if she were the laura fairlie they had once seen, and doubted without blame. the one remaining chance, which i had at first thought might be trusted to serve us--the chance of appealing to her recollection of persons and events with which no impostor could be familiar, was proved, by the sad test of our later experience, to be hopeless. every little caution that marian and i practised towards her--every little remedy we tried, to strengthen and steady slowly the weakened, shaken faculties, was a fresh protest in itself against the risk of turning her mind back on the troubled and the terrible past. the only events of former days which we ventured on encouraging her to recall were the little trivial domestic events of that happy time at limmeridge, when i first went there and taught her to draw. the day when i roused those remembrances by showing her the sketch of the summer-house which she had given me on the morning of our farewell, and which had never been separated from me since, was the birthday of our first hope. tenderly and gradually, the memory of the old walks and drives dawned upon her, and the poor weary pining eyes looked at marian and at me with a new interest, with a faltering thoughtfulness in them, which from that moment we cherished and kept alive. i bought her a little box of colours, and a sketch-book like the old sketch-book which i had seen in her hands on the morning that we first met. once again--oh me, once again!--at spare hours saved from my work, in the dull london light, in the poor london room, i sat by her side to guide the faltering touch, to help the feeble hand. day by day i raised and raised the new interest till its place in the blank of her existence was at last assured--till she could think of her drawing and talk of it, and patiently practise it by herself, with some faint reflection of the innocent pleasure in my encouragement, the growing enjoyment in her own progress, which belonged to the lost life and the lost happiness of past days. we helped her mind slowly by this simple means, we took her out between us to walk on fine days, in a quiet old city square near at hand, where there was nothing to confuse or alarm her--we spared a few pounds from the fund at the banker's to get her wine, and the delicate strengthening food that she required--we amused her in the evenings with children's games at cards, with scrap-books full of prints which i borrowed from the engraver who employed me--by these, and other trifling attentions like them, we composed her and steadied her, and hoped all things, as cheerfully as we could from time and care, and love that never neglected and never despaired of her. but to take her mercilessly from seclusion and repose--to confront her with strangers, or with acquaintances who were little better than strangers--to rouse the painful impressions of her past life which we had so carefully hushed to rest--this, even in her own interests, we dared not do. whatever sacrifices it cost, whatever long, weary, heartbreaking delays it involved, the wrong that had been inflicted on her, if mortal means could grapple it, must be redressed without her knowledge and without her help. this resolution settled, it was next necessary to decide how the first risk should be ventured, and what the first proceedings should be. after consulting with marian, i resolved to begin by gathering together as many facts as could be collected--then to ask the advice of mr. kyrle (whom we knew we could trust), and to ascertain from him, in the first instance, if the legal remedy lay fairly within our reach. i owed it to laura's interests not to stake her whole future on my own unaided exertions, so long as there was the faintest prospect of strengthening our position by obtaining reliable assistance of any kind. the first source of information to which i applied was the journal kept at blackwater park by marian halcombe. there were passages in this diary relating to myself which she thought it best that i should not see. accordingly, she read to me from the manuscript, and i took the notes i wanted as she went on. we could only find time to pursue this occupation by sitting up late at night. three nights were devoted to the purpose, and were enough to put me in possession of all that marian could tell. my next proceeding was to gain as much additional evidence as i could procure from other people without exciting suspicion. i went myself to mrs. vesey to ascertain if laura's impression of having slept there was correct or not. in this case, from consideration for mrs. vesey's age and infirmity, and in all subsequent cases of the same kind from considerations of caution, i kept our real position a secret, and was always careful to speak of laura as "the late lady glyde." mrs. vesey's answer to my inquiries only confirmed the apprehensions which i had previously felt. laura had certainly written to say she would pass the night under the roof of her old friend--but she had never been near the house. her mind in this instance, and, as i feared, in other instances besides, confusedly presented to her something which she had only intended to do in the false light of something which she had really done. the unconscious contradiction of herself was easy to account for in this way--but it was likely to lead to serious results. it was a stumble on the threshold at starting--it was a flaw in the evidence which told fatally against us. when i next asked for the letter which laura had written to mrs. vesey from blackwater park, it was given to me without the envelope, which had been thrown into the wastepaper basket, and long since destroyed. in the letter itself no date was mentioned--not even the day of the week. it only contained these lines:--"dearest mrs. vesey, i am in sad distress and anxiety, and i may come to your house to-morrow night, and ask for a bed. i can't tell you what is the matter in this letter--i write it in such fear of being found out that i can fix my mind on nothing. pray be at home to see me. i will give you a thousand kisses, and tell you everything. your affectionate laura." what help was there in those lines? none. on returning from mrs. vesey's, i instructed marian to write (observing the same caution which i practised myself) to mrs. michelson. she was to express, if she pleased, some general suspicion of count fosco's conduct, and she was to ask the housekeeper to supply us with a plain statement of events, in the interests of truth. while we were waiting for the answer, which reached us in a week's time, i went to the doctor in st. john's wood, introducing myself as sent by miss halcombe to collect, if possible, more particulars of her sister's last illness than mr. kyrle had found the time to procure. by mr. goodricke's assistance, i obtained a copy of the certificate of death, and an interview with the woman (jane gould) who had been employed to prepare the body for the grave. through this person i also discovered a means of communicating with the servant, hester pinhorn. she had recently left her place in consequence of a disagreement with her mistress, and she was lodging with some people in the neighbourhood whom mrs. gould knew. in the manner here indicated i obtained the narratives of the housekeeper, of the doctor, of jane gould, and of hester pinhorn, exactly as they are presented in these pages. furnished with such additional evidence as these documents afforded, i considered myself to be sufficiently prepared for a consultation with mr. kyrle, and marian wrote accordingly to mention my name to him, and to specify the day and hour at which i requested to see him on private business. there was time enough in the morning for me to take laura out for her walk as usual, and to see her quietly settled at her drawing afterwards. she looked up at me with a new anxiety in her face as i rose to leave the room, and her fingers began to toy doubtfully, in the old way, with the brushes and pencils on the table. "you are not tired of me yet?" she said. "you are not going away because you are tired of me? i will try to do better--i will try to get well. are you as fond of me, walter as you used to be, now i am so pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?" she spoke as a child might have spoken, she showed me her thoughts as a child might have shown them. i waited a few minutes longer--waited to tell her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever been in the past times. "try to get well again," i said, encouraging the new hope in the future which i saw dawning in her mind, "try to get well again, for marian's sake and for mine." "yes," she said to herself, returning to her drawing. "i must try, because they are both so fond of me." she suddenly looked up again. "don't be gone long! i can't get on with my drawing, walter, when you are not here to help me." "i shall soon be back, my darling--soon be back to see how you are getting on." my voice faltered a little in spite of me. i forced myself from the room. it was no time, then, for parting with the self-control which might yet serve me in my need before the day was out. as i opened the door, i beckoned to marian to follow me to the stairs. it was necessary to prepare her for a result which i felt might sooner or later follow my showing myself openly in the streets. "i shall, in all probability, be back in a few hours," i said, "and you will take care, as usual, to let no one inside the doors in my absence. but if anything happens----" "what can happen?" she interposed quickly. "tell me plainly, walter, if there is any danger, and i shall know how to meet it." "the only danger," i replied, "is that sir percival glyde may have been recalled to london by the news of laura's escape. you are aware that he had me watched before i left england, and that he probably knows me by sight, although i don't know him?" she laid her hand on my shoulder and looked at me in anxious silence. i saw she understood the serious risk that threatened us. "it is not likely," i said, "that i shall be seen in london again so soon, either by sir percival himself or by the persons in his employ. but it is barely possible that an accident may happen. in that case, you will not be alarmed if i fail to return to-night, and you will satisfy any inquiry of laura's with the best excuse that you can make for me? if i find the least reason to suspect that i am watched, i will take good care that no spy follows me back to this house. don't doubt my return, marian, however it may be delayed--and fear nothing." "nothing!" she answered firmly. "you shall not regret, walter, that you have only a woman to help you." she paused, and detained me for a moment longer. "take care!" she said, pressing my hand anxiously--"take care!" i left her, and set forth to pave the way for discovery--the dark and doubtful way, which began at the lawyer's door. iv no circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the offices of messrs. gilmore & kyrle, in chancery lane. while my card was being taken in to mr. kyrle, a consideration occurred to me which i deeply regretted not having thought of before. the information derived from marian's diary made it a matter of certainty that count fosco had opened her first letter from blackwater park to mr. kyrle, and had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second. he was therefore well aware of the address of the office, and he would naturally infer that if marian wanted advice and assistance, after laura's escape from the asylum, she would apply once more to the experience of mr. kyrle. in this case the office in chancery lane was the very first place which he and sir percival would cause to be watched, and if the same persons were chosen for the purpose who had been employed to follow me, before my departure from england, the fact of my return would in all probability be ascertained on that very day. i had thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in the streets, but the special risk connected with the office had never occurred to me until the present moment. it was too late now to repair this unfortunate error in judgment--too late to wish that i had made arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed beforehand. i could only resolve to be cautious on leaving chancery lane, and not to go straight home again under any circumstances whatever. after waiting a few minutes i was shown into mr. kyrle's private room. he was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner--not (as i judged) ready with his sympathy where strangers were concerned, and not at all easy to disturb in his professional composure. a better man for my purpose could hardly have been found. if he committed himself to a decision at all, and if the decision was favourable, the strength of our case was as good as proved from that moment. "before i enter on the business which brings me here," i said, "i ought to warn you, mr. kyrle, that the shortest statement i can make of it may occupy some little time." "my time is at miss halcombe's disposal," he replied. "where any interests of hers are concerned, i represent my partner personally, as well as professionally. it was his request that i should do so, when he ceased to take an active part in business." "may i inquire whether mr. gilmore is in england?" "he is not, he is living with his relatives in germany. his health has improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain." while we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a sealed letter. i thought he was about to hand the letter to me, but, apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself on the table, settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to hear what i had to say. without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, i entered on my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have already been related in these pages. lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, i startled him out of his professional composure. expressions of incredulity and surprise, which he could not repress, interrupted me several times before i had done. i persevered, however, to the end, and as soon as i reached it, boldly asked the one important question-- "what is your opinion, mr. kyrle?" he was too cautious to commit himself to an answer without taking time to recover his self-possession first. "before i give my opinion," he said, "i must beg permission to clear the ground by a few questions." he put the questions--sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought i was the victim of a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but for my introduction to him by miss halcombe, whether i was not attempting the perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud. "do you believe that i have spoken the truth, mr. kyrle?" i asked, when he had done examining me. "so far as your own convictions are concerned, i am certain you have spoken the truth," he replied. "i have the highest esteem for miss halcombe, and i have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. i will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy's sake and for argument's sake, that the identity of lady glyde as a living person is a proved fact to miss halcombe and yourself. but you come to me for a legal opinion. as a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, mr. hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case." "you put it strongly, mr. kyrle." "i will try to put it plainly as well. the evidence of lady glyde's death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. there is her aunt's testimony to prove that she came to count fosco's house, that she fell ill, and that she died. there is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under natural circumstances. there is the fact of the funeral at limmeridge, and there is the assertion of the inscription on the tomb. that is the case you want to overthrow. what evidence have you to support the declaration on your side that the person who died and was buried was not lady glyde? let us run through the main points of your statement and see what they are worth. miss halcombe goes to a certain private asylum, and there sees a certain female patient. it is known that a woman named anne catherick, and bearing an extraordinary personal resemblance to lady glyde, escaped from the asylum; it is known that the person received there last july was received as anne catherick brought back; it is known that the gentleman who brought her back warned mr. fairlie that it was part of her insanity to be bent on personating his dead niece; and it is known that she did repeatedly declare herself in the asylum (where no one believed her) to be lady glyde. these are all facts. what have you to set against them? miss halcombe's recognition of the woman, which recognition after-events invalidate or contradict. does miss halcombe assert her supposed sister's identity to the owner of the asylum, and take legal means for rescuing her? no, she secretly bribes a nurse to let her escape. when the patient has been released in this doubtful manner, and is taken to mr. fairlie, does he recognise her? is he staggered for one instant in his belief of his niece's death? no. do the servants recognise her? no. is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her own identity, and to stand the test of further proceedings? no, she is privately taken to london. in the meantime you have recognised her also, but you are not a relative--you are not even an old friend of the family. the servants contradict you, and mr. fairlie contradicts miss halcombe, and the supposed lady glyde contradicts herself. she declares she passed the night in london at a certain house. your own evidence shows that she has never been near that house, and your own admission is that her condition of mind prevents you from producing her anywhere to submit to investigation, and to speak for herself. i pass over minor points of evidence on both sides to save time, and i ask you, if this case were to go now into a court of law--to go before a jury, bound to take facts as they reasonably appear--where are your proofs?" i was obliged to wait and collect myself before i could answer him. it was the first time the story of laura and the story of marian had been presented to me from a stranger's point of view--the first time the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had been made to show themselves in their true character. "there can be no doubt," i said, "that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us, but----" "but you think those facts can be explained away," interposed mr. kyrle. "let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. when an english jury has to choose between a plain fact on the surface and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact in preference to the explanation. for example, lady glyde (i call the lady you represent by that name for argument's sake) declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not slept at that house. you explain this circumstance by entering into the state of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. i don't say the conclusion is wrong--i only say that the jury will take the fact of her contradicting herself in preference to any reason for the contradiction that you can offer." "but is it not possible," i urged, "by dint of patience and exertion, to discover additional evidence? miss halcombe and i have a few hundred pounds----" he looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head. "consider the subject, mr. hartright, from your own point of view," he said. "if you are right about sir percival glyde and count fosco (which i don't admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence. every obstacle of litigation would be raised--every point in the case would be systematically contested--and by the time we had spent our thousands instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be against us. questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle--the hardest, even when they are free from the complications which beset the case we are now discussing. i really see no prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. even if the person buried in limmeridge churchyard be not lady glyde, she was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. in short, there is no case, mr. hartright--there is really no case." i was determined to believe that there was a case, and in that determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more. "are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the proof of identity?" i asked. "not as you are situated," he replied. "the simplest and surest of all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as i understand, altogether out of your reach. if you could show a discrepancy between the date of the doctor's certificate and the date of lady glyde's journey to london, the matter would wear a totally different aspect, and i should be the first to say, let us go on." "that date may yet be recovered, mr. kyrle." "on the day when it is recovered, mr. hartright, you will have a case. if you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it--tell me, and we shall see if i can advise you." i considered. the housekeeper could not help us--laura could not help us--marian could not help us. in all probability, the only persons in existence who knew the date were sir percival and the count. "i can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present," i said, "because i can think of no persons who are sure to know it, but count fosco and sir percival glyde." mr. kyrle's calmly attentive face relaxed, for the first time, into a smile. "with your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen," he said, "you don't expect help in that quarter, i presume? if they have combined to gain large sums of money by a conspiracy, they are not likely to confess it, at any rate." "they may be forced to confess it, mr. kyrle." "by whom?" "by me." we both rose. he looked me attentively in the face with more appearance of interest than he had shown yet. i could see that i had perplexed him a little. "you are very determined," he said. "you have, no doubt, a personal motive for proceeding, into which it is not my business to inquire. if a case can be produced in the future, i can only say, my best assistance is at your service. at the same time i must warn you, as the money question always enters into the law question, that i see little hope, even if you ultimately established the fact of lady glyde's being alive, of recovering her fortune. the foreigner would probably leave the country before proceedings were commenced, and sir percival's embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing enough to transfer almost any sum of money he may possess from himself to his creditors. you are of course aware----" i stopped him at that point. "let me beg that we may not discuss lady glyde's affairs," i said. "i have never known anything about them in former times, and i know nothing of them now--except that her fortune is lost. you are right in assuming that i have personal motives for stirring in this matter. i wish those motives to be always as disinterested as they are at the present moment----" he tried to interpose and explain. i was a little heated, i suppose, by feeling that he had doubted me, and i went on bluntly, without waiting to hear him. "there shall be no money motive," i said, "no idea of personal advantage in the service i mean to render to lady glyde. she has been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born--a lie which records her death has been written on her mother's tomb--and there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are responsible for it. that house shall open again to receive her in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave--that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and those two men shall answer for their crime to me, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. i have given my life to that purpose, and, alone as i stand, if god spares me, i will accomplish it." he drew back towards his table, and said nothing. his face showed plainly that he thought my delusion had got the better of my reason, and that he considered it totally useless to give me any more advice. "we each keep our opinion, mr. kyrle," i said, "and we must wait till the events of the future decide between us. in the meantime, i am much obliged to you for the attention you have given to my statement. you have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our means. we cannot produce the law proof, and we are not rich enough to pay the law expenses. it is something gained to know that." i bowed and walked to the door. he called me back and gave me the letter which i had seen him place on the table by itself at the beginning of our interview. "this came by post a few days ago," he said. "perhaps you will not mind delivering it? pray tell miss halcombe, at the same time, that i sincerely regret being, thus far, unable to help her, except by advice, which will not be more welcome, i am afraid, to her than to you." i looked at the letter while he was speaking. it was addressed to "miss halcombe. care of messrs. gilmore & kyrle, chancery lane." the handwriting was quite unknown to me. on leaving the room i asked one last question. "do you happen to know," i said, "if sir percival glyde is still in paris?" "he has returned to london," replied mr. kyrle. "at least i heard so from his solicitor, whom i met yesterday." after that answer i went out. on leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. i walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the north of holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a place where a long stretch of pavement was left behind me. there were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped also, and who were standing talking together. after a moment's reflection i turned back so as to pass them. one moved as i came near, and turned the corner leading from the square into the street. the other remained stationary. i looked at him as i passed and instantly recognised one of the men who had watched me before i left england. if i had been free to follow my own instincts, i should probably have begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him down. but i was bound to consider consequences. if i once placed myself publicly in the wrong, i put the weapons at once into sir percival's hands. there was no choice but to oppose cunning by cunning. i turned into the street down which the second man had disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway. he was a stranger to me, and i was glad to make sure of his personal appearance in case of future annoyance. having done this, i again walked northward till i reached the new road. there i turned aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time), and waited at a point where i knew myself to be at some distance from a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to pass me. one passed in a few minutes. i jumped in and told the man to drive rapidly towards hyde park. there was no second fast cab for the spies behind me. i saw them dart across to the other side of the road, to follow me by running, until a cab or a cab-stand came in their way. but i had the start of them, and when i stopped the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight. i crossed hyde park and made sure, on the open ground, that i was free. when i at last turned my steps homewards, it was not till many hours later--not till after dark. i found marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room. she had persuaded laura to go to rest, after first promising to show me her drawing the moment i came in. the poor little dim faint sketch--so trifling in itself, so touching in its associations--was propped up carefully on the table with two books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle we allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage. i sat down to look at the drawing, and to tell marian, in whispers, what had happened. the partition which divided us from the next room was so thin that we could almost hear laura's breathing, and we might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud. marian preserved her composure while i described my interview with mr. kyrle. but her face became troubled when i spoke next of the men who had followed me from the lawyer's office, and when i told her of the discovery of sir percival's return. "bad news, walter," she said, "the worst news you could bring. have you nothing more to tell me?" "i have something to give you," i replied, handing her the note which mr. kyrle had confided to my care. she looked at the address and recognised the handwriting instantly. "you know your correspondent?" i said. "too well," she answered. "my correspondent is count fosco." with that reply she opened the note. her face flushed deeply while she read it--her eyes brightened with anger as she handed it to me to read in my turn. the note contained these lines-- "impelled by honourable admiration--honourable to myself, honourable to you--i write, magnificent marian, in the interests of your tranquillity, to say two consoling words-- "fear nothing! "exercise your fine natural sense and remain in retirement. dear and admirable woman, invite no dangerous publicity. resignation is sublime--adopt it. the modest repose of home is eternally fresh--enjoy it. the storms of life pass harmless over the valley of seclusion--dwell, dear lady, in the valley. "do this and i authorise you to fear nothing. no new calamity shall lacerate your sensibilities--sensibilities precious to me as my own. you shall not be molested, the fair companion of your retreat shall not be pursued. she has found a new asylum in your heart. priceless asylum!--i envy her and leave her there. "one last word of affectionate warning, of paternal caution, and i tear myself from the charm of addressing you--i close these fervent lines. "advance no farther than you have gone already, compromise no serious interests, threaten nobody. do not, i implore you, force me into action--me, the man of action--when it is the cherished object of my ambition to be passive, to restrict the vast reach of my energies and my combinations for your sake. if you have rash friends, moderate their deplorable ardour. if mr. hartright returns to england, hold no communication with him. i walk on a path of my own, and percival follows at my heels. on the day when mr. hartright crosses that path, he is a lost man." the only signature to these lines was the initial letter f, surrounded by a circle of intricate flourishes. i threw the letter on the table with all the contempt that i felt for it. "he is trying to frighten you--a sure sign that he is frightened himself," i said. she was too genuine a woman to treat the letter as i treated it. the insolent familiarity of the language was too much for her self-control. as she looked at me across the table, her hands clenched themselves in her lap, and the old quick fiery temper flamed out again brightly in her cheeks and her eyes. "walter!" she said, "if ever those two men are at your mercy, and if you are obliged to spare one of them, don't let it be the count." "i will keep this letter, marian, to help my memory when the time comes." she looked at me attentively as i put the letter away in my pocket-book. "when the time comes?" she repeated. "can you speak of the future as if you were certain of it?--certain after what you have heard in mr. kyrle's office, after what has happened to you to-day?" "i don't count the time from to-day, marian. all i have done to-day is to ask another man to act for me. i count from to-morrow----" "why from to-morrow?" "because to-morrow i mean to act for myself." "how?" "i shall go to blackwater by the first train, and return, i hope, at night." "to blackwater!" "yes. i have had time to think since i left mr. kyrle. his opinion on one point confirms my own. we must persist to the last in hunting down the date of laura's journey. the one weak point in the conspiracy, and probably the one chance of proving that she is a living woman, centre in the discovery of that date." "you mean," said marian, "the discovery that laura did not leave blackwater park till after the date of her death on the doctor's certificate?" "certainly." "what makes you think it might have been after? laura can tell us nothing of the time she was in london." "but the owner of the asylum told you that she was received there on the twenty-seventh of july. i doubt count fosco's ability to keep her in london, and to keep her insensible to all that was passing around her, more than one night. in that case, she must have started on the twenty-sixth, and must have come to london one day after the date of her own death on the doctor's certificate. if we can prove that date, we prove our case against sir percival and the count." "yes, yes--i see! but how is the proof to be obtained?" "mrs. michelson's narrative has suggested to me two ways of trying to obtain it. one of them is to question the doctor, mr. dawson, who must know when he resumed his attendance at blackwater park after laura left the house. the other is to make inquiries at the inn to which sir percival drove away by himself at night. we know that his departure followed laura's after the lapse of a few hours, and we may get at the date in that way. the attempt is at least worth making, and to-morrow i am determined it shall be made." "and suppose it fails--i look at the worst now, walter; but i will look at the best if disappointments come to try us--suppose no one can help you at blackwater?" "there are two men who can help me, and shall help me in london--sir percival and the count. innocent people may well forget the date--but they are guilty, and they know it. if i fail everywhere else, i mean to force a confession out of one or both of them on my own terms." all the woman flushed up in marian's face as i spoke. "begin with the count," she whispered eagerly. "for my sake, begin with the count." "we must begin, for laura's sake, where there is the best chance of success," i replied. the colour faded from her face again, and she shook her head sadly. "yes," she said, "you are right--it was mean and miserable of me to say that. i try to be patient, walter, and succeed better now than i did in happier times. but i have a little of my old temper still left, and it will get the better of me when i think of the count!" "his turn will come," i said. "but, remember, there is no weak place in his life that we know of yet." i waited a little to let her recover her self-possession, and then spoke the decisive words-- "marian! there is a weak place we both know of in sir percival's life----" "you mean the secret!" "yes: the secret. it is our only sure hold on him. i can force him from his position of security, i can drag him and his villainy into the face of day, by no other means. whatever the count may have done, sir percival has consented to the conspiracy against laura from another motive besides the motive of gain. you heard him tell the count that he believed his wife knew enough to ruin him? you heard him say that he was a lost man if the secret of anne catherick was known?" "yes! yes! i did." "well, marian, when our other resources have failed us, i mean to know the secret. my old superstition clings to me, even yet. i say again the woman in white is a living influence in our three lives. the end is appointed--the end is drawing us on--and anne catherick, dead in her grave, points the way to it still!" v the story of my first inquiries in hampshire is soon told. my early departure from london enabled me to reach mr. dawson's house in the forenoon. our interview, so far as the object of my visit was concerned, led to no satisfactory result. mr. dawson's books certainly showed when he had resumed his attendance on miss halcombe at blackwater park, but it was not possible to calculate back from this date with any exactness, without such help from mrs. michelson as i knew she was unable to afford. she could not say from memory (who, in similar cases, ever can?) how many days had elapsed between the renewal of the doctor's attendance on his patient and the previous departure of lady glyde. she was almost certain of having mentioned the circumstance of the departure to miss halcombe, on the day after it happened--but then she was no more able to fix the date of the day on which this disclosure took place, than to fix the date of the day before, when lady glyde had left for london. neither could she calculate, with any nearer approach to exactness, the time that had passed from the departure of her mistress, to the period when the undated letter from madame fosco arrived. lastly, as if to complete the series of difficulties, the doctor himself, having been ill at the time, had omitted to make his usual entry of the day of the week and month when the gardener from blackwater park had called on him to deliver mrs. michelson's message. hopeless of obtaining assistance from mr. dawson, i resolved to try next if i could establish the date of sir percival's arrival at knowlesbury. it seemed like a fatality! when i reached knowlesbury the inn was shut up, and bills were posted on the walls. the speculation had been a bad one, as i was informed, ever since the time of the railway. the new hotel at the station had gradually absorbed the business, and the old inn (which we knew to be the inn at which sir percival had put up), had been closed about two months since. the proprietor had left the town with all his goods and chattels, and where he had gone i could not positively ascertain from any one. the four people of whom i inquired gave me four different accounts of his plans and projects when he left knowlesbury. there were still some hours to spare before the last train left for london, and i drove back again in a fly from the knowlesbury station to blackwater park, with the purpose of questioning the gardener and the person who kept the lodge. if they, too, proved unable to assist me, my resources for the present were at an end, and i might return to town. i dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park, and getting my directions from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house. as i turned into the lane from the high-road, i saw a man, with a carpet-bag, walking before me rapidly on the way to the lodge. he was a little man, dressed in shabby black, and wearing a remarkably large hat. i set him down (as well as it was possible to judge) for a lawyer's clerk, and stopped at once to widen the distance between us. he had not heard me, and he walked on out of sight, without looking back. when i passed through the gates myself, a little while afterwards, he was not visible--he had evidently gone on to the house. there were two women in the lodge. one of them was old, the other i knew at once, by marian's description of her, to be margaret porcher. i asked first if sir percival was at the park, and receiving a reply in the negative, inquired next when he had left it. neither of the women could tell me more than that he had gone away in the summer. i could extract nothing from margaret porcher but vacant smiles and shakings of the head. the old woman was a little more intelligent, and i managed to lead her into speaking of the manner of sir percival's departure, and of the alarm that it caused her. she remembered her master calling her out of bed, and remembered his frightening her by swearing--but the date at which the occurrence happened was, as she honestly acknowledged, "quite beyond her." on leaving the lodge i saw the gardener at work not far off. when i first addressed him, he looked at me rather distrustfully, but on my using mrs. michelson's name, with a civil reference to himself, he entered into conversation readily enough. there is no need to describe what passed between us--it ended, as all my other attempts to discover the date had ended. the gardener knew that his master had driven away, at night, "some time in july, the last fortnight or the last ten days in the month"--and knew no more. while we were speaking together i saw the man in black, with the large hat, come out from the house, and stand at some little distance observing us. certain suspicions of his errand at blackwater park had already crossed my mind. they were now increased by the gardener's inability (or unwillingness) to tell me who the man was, and i determined to clear the way before me, if possible, by speaking to him. the plainest question i could put as a stranger would be to inquire if the house was allowed to be shown to visitors. i walked up to the man at once, and accosted him in those words. his look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he knew who i was, and that he wanted to irritate me into quarrelling with him. his reply was insolent enough to have answered the purpose, if i had been less determined to control myself. as it was, i met him with the most resolute politeness, apologised for my involuntary intrusion (which he called a "trespass,") and left the grounds. it was exactly as i suspected. the recognition of me when i left mr. kyrle's office had been evidently communicated to sir percival glyde, and the man in black had been sent to the park in anticipation of my making inquiries at the house or in the neighbourhood. if i had given him the least chance of lodging any sort of legal complaint against me, the interference of the local magistrate would no doubt have been turned to account as a clog on my proceedings, and a means of separating me from marian and laura for some days at least. i was prepared to be watched on the way from blackwater park to the station, exactly as i had been watched in london the day before. but i could not discover at the time, whether i was really followed on this occasion or not. the man in black might have had means of tracking me at his disposal of which i was not aware, but i certainly saw nothing of him, in his own person, either on the way to the station, or afterwards on my arrival at the london terminus in the evening. i reached home on foot, taking the precaution, before i approached our own door, of walking round by the loneliest street in the neighbourhood, and there stopping and looking back more than once over the open space behind me. i had first learnt to use this stratagem against suspected treachery in the wilds of central america--and now i was practising it again, with the same purpose and with even greater caution, in the heart of civilised london! nothing had happened to alarm marian during my absence. she asked eagerly what success i had met with. when i told her she could not conceal her surprise at the indifference with which i spoke of the failure of my investigations thus far. the truth was, that the ill-success of my inquiries had in no sense daunted me. i had pursued them as a matter of duty, and i had expected nothing from them. in the state of my mind at that time, it was almost a relief to me to know that the struggle was now narrowed to a trial of strength between myself and sir percival glyde. the vindictive motive had mingled itself all along with my other and better motives, and i confess it was a satisfaction to me to feel that the surest way, the only way left, of serving laura's cause, was to fasten my hold firmly on the villain who had married her. while i acknowledge that i was not strong enough to keep my motives above the reach of this instinct of revenge, i can honestly say something in my own favour on the other side. no base speculation on the future relations of laura and myself, and on the private and personal concessions which i might force from sir percival if i once had him at my mercy, ever entered my mind. i never said to myself, "if i do succeed, it shall be one result of my success that i put it out of her husband's power to take her from me again." i could not look at her and think of the future with such thoughts as those. the sad sight of the change in her from her former self, made the one interest of my love an interest of tenderness and compassion which her father or her brother might have felt, and which i felt, god knows, in my inmost heart. all my hopes looked no farther on now than to the day of her recovery. there, till she was strong again and happy again--there, till she could look at me as she had once looked, and speak to me as she had once spoken--the future of my happiest thoughts and my dearest wishes ended. these words are written under no prompting of idle self-contemplation. passages in this narrative are soon to come which will set the minds of others in judgment on my conduct. it is right that the best and the worst of me should be fairly balanced before that time. on the morning after my return from hampshire i took marian upstairs into my working-room, and there laid before her the plan that i had matured thus far, for mastering the one assailable point in the life of sir percival glyde. the way to the secret lay through the mystery, hitherto impenetrable to all of us, of the woman in white. the approach to that in its turn might be gained by obtaining the assistance of anne catherick's mother, and the only ascertainable means of prevailing on mrs. catherick to act or to speak in the matter depended on the chance of my discovering local particulars and family particulars first of all from mrs. clements. after thinking the subject over carefully, i felt certain that i could only begin the new inquiries by placing myself in communication with the faithful friend and protectress of anne catherick. the first difficulty then was to find mrs. clements. i was indebted to marian's quick perception for meeting this necessity at once by the best and simplest means. she proposed to write to the farm near limmeridge (todd's corner), to inquire whether mrs. clements had communicated with mrs. todd during the past few months. how mrs. clements had been separated from anne it was impossible for us to say, but that separation once effected, it would certainly occur to mrs. clements to inquire after the missing woman in the neighbourhood of all others to which she was known to be most attached--the neighbourhood of limmeridge. i saw directly that marian's proposal offered us a prospect of success, and she wrote to mrs. todd accordingly by that day's post. while we were waiting for the reply, i made myself master of all the information marian could afford on the subject of sir percival's family, and of his early life. she could only speak on these topics from hearsay, but she was reasonably certain of the truth of what little she had to tell. sir percival was an only child. his father, sir felix glyde, had suffered from his birth under a painful and incurable deformity, and had shunned all society from his earliest years. his sole happiness was in the enjoyment of music, and he had married a lady with tastes similar to his own, who was said to be a most accomplished musician. he inherited the blackwater property while still a young man. neither he nor his wife after taking possession, made advances of any sort towards the society of the neighbourhood, and no one endeavoured to tempt them into abandoning their reserve, with the one disastrous exception of the rector of the parish. the rector was the worst of all innocent mischief-makers--an over-zealous man. he had heard that sir felix had left college with the character of being little better than a revolutionist in politics and an infidel in religion, and he arrived conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his bounden duty to summon the lord of the manor to hear sound views enunciated in the parish church. sir felix fiercely resented the clergyman's well-meant but ill-directed interference, insulting him so grossly and so publicly, that the families in the neighbourhood sent letters of indignant remonstrance to the park, and even the tenants of the blackwater property expressed their opinion as strongly as they dared. the baronet, who had no country tastes of any kind, and no attachment to the estate or to any one living on it, declared that society at blackwater should never have a second chance of annoying him, and left the place from that moment. after a short residence in london he and his wife departed for the continent, and never returned to england again. they lived part of the time in france and part in germany--always keeping themselves in the strict retirement which the morbid sense of his own personal deformity had made a necessity to sir felix. their son, percival, had been born abroad, and had been educated there by private tutors. his mother was the first of his parents whom he lost. his father had died a few years after her, either in or . sir percival had been in england, as a young man, once or twice before that period, but his acquaintance with the late mr. fairlie did not begin till after the time of his father's death. they soon became very intimate, although sir percival was seldom, or never, at limmeridge house in those days. mr. frederick fairlie might have met him once or twice in mr. philip fairlie's company, but he could have known little of him at that or at any other time. sir percival's only intimate friend in the fairlie family had been laura's father. these were all the particulars that i could gain from marian. they suggested nothing which was useful to my present purpose, but i noted them down carefully, in the event of their proving to be of importance at any future period. mrs. todd's reply (addressed, by our own wish, to a post-office at some distance from us) had arrived at its destination when i went to apply for it. the chances, which had been all against us hitherto, turned from this moment in our favour. mrs. todd's letter contained the first item of information of which we were in search. mrs. clements, it appeared, had (as we had conjectured) written to todd's corner, asking pardon in the first place for the abrupt manner in which she and anne had left their friends at the farm-house (on the morning after i had met the woman in white in limmeridge churchyard), and then informing mrs. todd of anne's disappearance, and entreating that she would cause inquiries to be made in the neighbourhood, on the chance that the lost woman might have strayed back to limmeridge. in making this request, mrs. clements had been careful to add to it the address at which she might always be heard of, and that address mrs. todd now transmitted to marian. it was in london, and within half an hour's walk of our own lodging. in the words of the proverb, i was resolved not to let the grass grow under my feet. the next morning i set forth to seek an interview with mrs. clements. this was my first step forward in the investigation. the story of the desperate attempt to which i now stood committed begins here. vi the address communicated by mrs. todd took me to a lodging-house situated in a respectable street near the gray's inn road. when i knocked the door was opened by mrs. clements herself. she did not appear to remember me, and asked what my business was. i recalled to her our meeting in limmeridge churchyard at the close of my interview there with the woman in white, taking special care to remind her that i was the person who assisted anne catherick (as anne had herself declared) to escape the pursuit from the asylum. this was my only claim to the confidence of mrs. clements. she remembered the circumstance the moment i spoke of it, and asked me into the parlour, in the greatest anxiety to know if i had brought her any news of anne. it was impossible for me to tell her the whole truth without, at the same time, entering into particulars on the subject of the conspiracy, which it would have been dangerous to confide to a stranger. i could only abstain most carefully from raising any false hopes, and then explain that the object of my visit was to discover the persons who were really responsible for anne's disappearance. i even added, so as to exonerate myself from any after-reproach of my own conscience, that i entertained not the least hope of being able to trace her--that i believed we should never see her alive again--and that my main interest in the affair was to bring to punishment two men whom i suspected to be concerned in luring her away, and at whose hands i and some dear friends of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. with this explanation i left it to mrs. clements to say whether our interest in the matter (whatever difference there might be in the motives which actuated us) was not the same, and whether she felt any reluctance to forward my object by giving me such information on the subject of my inquiries as she happened to possess. the poor woman was at first too much confused and agitated to understand thoroughly what i said to her. she could only reply that i was welcome to anything she could tell me in return for the kindness i had shown to anne; but as she was not very quick and ready, at the best of times, in talking to strangers, she would beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where i wished her to begin. knowing by experience that the plainest narrative attainable from persons who are not accustomed to arrange their ideas, is the narrative which goes far enough back at the beginning to avoid all impediments of retrospection in its course, i asked mrs. clements to tell me first what had happened after she had left limmeridge, and so, by watchful questioning, carried her on from point to point, till we reached the period of anne's disappearance. the substance of the information which i thus obtained was as follows:-- on leaving the farm at todd's corner, mrs. clements and anne had travelled that day as far as derby, and had remained there a week on anne's account. they had then gone on to london, and had lived in the lodging occupied by mrs. clements at that time for a month or more, when circumstances connected with the house and the landlord had obliged them to change their quarters. anne's terror of being discovered in london or its neighbourhood, whenever they ventured to walk out, had gradually communicated itself to mrs. clements, and she had determined on removing to one of the most out-of-the-way places in england--to the town of grimsby in lincolnshire, where her deceased husband had passed all his early life. his relatives were respectable people settled in the town--they had always treated mrs. clements with great kindness, and she thought it impossible to do better than go there and take the advice of her husband's friends. anne would not hear of returning to her mother at welmingham, because she had been removed to the asylum from that place, and because sir percival would be certain to go back there and find her again. there was serious weight in this objection, and mrs. clements felt that it was not to be easily removed. at grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness had shown themselves in anne. they appeared soon after the news of lady glyde's marriage had been made public in the newspapers, and had reached her through that medium. the medical man who was sent for to attend the sick woman discovered at once that she was suffering from a serious affection of the heart. the illness lasted long, left her very weak, and returned at intervals, though with mitigated severity, again and again. they remained at grimsby, in consequence, during the first half of the new year, and there they might probably have stayed much longer, but for the sudden resolution which anne took at this time to venture back to hampshire, for the purpose of obtaining a private interview with lady glyde. mrs. clements did all in her power to oppose the execution of this hazardous and unaccountable project. no explanation of her motives was offered by anne, except that she believed the day of her death was not far off, and that she had something on her mind which must be communicated to lady glyde, at any risk, in secret. her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so firmly settled that she declared her intention of going to hampshire by herself if mrs. clements felt any unwillingness to go with her. the doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that serious opposition to her wishes would, in all probability, produce another and perhaps a fatal fit of illness, and mrs. clements, under this advice, yielded to necessity, and once more, with sad forebodings of trouble and danger to come, allowed anne catherick to have her own way. on the journey from london to hampshire mrs. clements discovered that one of their fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the neighbourhood of blackwater, and could give her all the information she needed on the subject of localities. in this way she found out that the only place they could go to, which was not dangerously near to sir percival's residence, was a large village called sandon. the distance here from blackwater park was between three and four miles--and that distance, and back again, anne had walked on each occasion when she had appeared in the neighbourhood of the lake. for the few days during which they were at sandon without being discovered they had lived a little away from the village, in the cottage of a decent widow-woman who had a bedroom to let, and whose discreet silence mrs. clements had done her best to secure, for the first week at least. she had also tried hard to induce anne to be content with writing to lady glyde, in the first instance; but the failure of the warning contained in the anonymous letter sent to limmeridge had made anne resolute to speak this time, and obstinate in the determination to go on her errand alone. mrs. clements, nevertheless, followed her privately on each occasion when she went to the lake, without, however, venturing near enough to the boat-house to be witness of what took place there. when anne returned for the last time from the dangerous neighbourhood, the fatigue of walking, day after day, distances which were far too great for her strength, added to the exhausting effect of the agitation from which she had suffered, produced the result which mrs. clements had dreaded all along. the old pain over the heart and the other symptoms of the illness at grimsby returned, and anne was confined to her bed in the cottage. in this emergency the first necessity, as mrs. clements knew by experience, was to endeavour to quiet anne's anxiety of mind, and for this purpose the good woman went herself the next day to the lake, to try if she could find lady glyde (who would be sure, as anne said, to take her daily walk to the boat-house), and prevail on her to come back privately to the cottage near sandon. on reaching the outskirts of the plantation mrs. clements encountered, not lady glyde, but a tall, stout, elderly gentleman, with a book in his hand--in other words, count fosco. the count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment, asked if she expected to see any one in that place, and added, before she could reply, that he was waiting there with a message from lady glyde, but that he was not quite certain whether the person then before him answered the description of the person with whom he was desired to communicate. upon this mrs. clements at once confided her errand to him, and entreated that he would help to allay anne's anxiety by trusting his message to her. the count most readily and kindly complied with her request. the message, he said, was a very important one. lady glyde entreated anne and her good friend to return immediately to london, as she felt certain that sir percival would discover them if they remained any longer in the neighbourhood of blackwater. she was herself going to london in a short time, and if mrs. clements and anne would go there first, and would let her know what their address was, they should hear from her and see her in a fortnight or less. the count added that he had already attempted to give a friendly warning to anne herself, but that she had been too much startled by seeing that he was a stranger to let him approach and speak to her. to this mrs. clements replied, in the greatest alarm and distress, that she asked nothing better than to take anne safely to london, but that there was no present hope of removing her from the dangerous neighbourhood, as she lay ill in her bed at that moment. the count inquired if mrs. clements had sent for medical advice, and hearing that she had hitherto hesitated to do so, from the fear of making their position publicly known in the village, informed her that he was himself a medical man, and that he would go back with her if she pleased, and see what could be done for anne. mrs. clements (feeling a natural confidence in the count, as a person trusted with a secret message from lady glyde) gratefully accepted the offer, and they went back together to the cottage. anne was asleep when they got there. the count started at the sight of her (evidently from astonishment at her resemblance to lady glyde). poor mrs. clements supposed that he was only shocked to see how ill she was. he would not allow her to be awakened--he was contented with putting questions to mrs. clements about her symptoms, with looking at her, and with lightly touching her pulse. sandon was a large enough place to have a grocer's and druggist's shop in it, and thither the count went to write his prescription and to get the medicine made up. he brought it back himself, and told mrs. clements that the medicine was a powerful stimulant, and that it would certainly give anne strength to get up and bear the fatigue of a journey to london of only a few hours. the remedy was to be administered at stated times on that day and on the day after. on the third day she would be well enough to travel, and he arranged to meet mrs. clements at the blackwater station, and to see them off by the midday train. if they did not appear he would assume that anne was worse, and would proceed at once to the cottage. as events turned out, no such emergency as this occurred. this medicine had an extraordinary effect on anne, and the good results of it were helped by the assurance mrs. clements could now give her that she would soon see lady glyde in london. at the appointed day and time (when they had not been quite so long as a week in hampshire altogether), they arrived at the station. the count was waiting there for them, and was talking to an elderly lady, who appeared to be going to travel by the train to london also. he most kindly assisted them, and put them into the carriage himself, begging mrs. clements not to forget to send her address to lady glyde. the elderly lady did not travel in the same compartment, and they did not notice what became of her on reaching the london terminus. mrs. clements secured respectable lodgings in a quiet neighbourhood, and then wrote, as she had engaged to do, to inform lady glyde of the address. a little more than a fortnight passed, and no answer came. at the end of that time a lady (the same elderly lady whom they had seen at the station) called in a cab, and said that she came from lady glyde, who was then at an hotel in london, and who wished to see mrs. clements, for the purpose of arranging a future interview with anne. mrs. clements expressed her willingness (anne being present at the time, and entreating her to do so) to forward the object in view, especially as she was not required to be away from the house for more than half an hour at the most. she and the elderly lady (clearly madame fosco) then left in the cab. the lady stopped the cab, after it had driven some distance, at a shop before they got to the hotel, and begged mrs. clements to wait for her for a few minutes while she made a purchase that had been forgotten. she never appeared again. after waiting some time mrs. clements became alarmed, and ordered the cabman to drive back to her lodgings. when she got there, after an absence of rather more than half an hour, anne was gone. the only information to be obtained from the people of the house was derived from the servant who waited on the lodgers. she had opened the door to a boy from the street, who had left a letter for "the young woman who lived on the second floor" (the part of the house which mrs. clements occupied). the servant had delivered the letter, had then gone downstairs, and five minutes afterwards had observed anne open the front door and go out, dressed in her bonnet and shawl. she had probably taken the letter with her, for it was not to be found, and it was therefore impossible to tell what inducement had been offered to make her leave the house. it must have been a strong one, for she would never stir out alone in london of her own accord. if mrs. clements had not known this by experience nothing would have induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short a time as half an hour only. as soon as she could collect her thoughts, the first idea that naturally occurred to mrs. clements was to go and make inquiries at the asylum, to which she dreaded that anne had been taken back. she went there the next day, having been informed of the locality in which the house was situated by anne herself. the answer she received (her application having in all probability been made a day or two before the false anne catherick had really been consigned to safe keeping in the asylum) was, that no such person had been brought back there. she had then written to mrs. catherick at welmingham to know if she had seen or heard anything of her daughter, and had received an answer in the negative. after that reply had reached her, she was at the end of her resources, and perfectly ignorant where else to inquire or what else to do. from that time to this she had remained in total ignorance of the cause of anne's disappearance and of the end of anne's story. vii thus far the information which i had received from mrs. clements--though it established facts of which i had not previously been aware--was of a preliminary character only. it was clear that the series of deceptions which had removed anne catherick to london, and separated her from mrs. clements, had been accomplished solely by count fosco and the countess, and the question whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife had been of a kind to place either of them within reach of the law might be well worthy of future consideration. but the purpose i had now in view led me in another direction than this. the immediate object of my visit to mrs. clements was to make some approach at least to the discovery of sir percival's secret, and she had said nothing as yet which advanced me on my way to that important end. i felt the necessity of trying to awaken her recollections of other times, persons, and events than those on which her memory had hitherto been employed, and when i next spoke i spoke with that object indirectly in view. "i wish i could be of any help to you in this sad calamity," i said. "all i can do is to feel heartily for your distress. if anne had been your own child, mrs. clements, you could have shown her no truer kindness--you could have made no readier sacrifices for her sake." "there's no great merit in that, sir," said mrs. clements simply. "the poor thing was as good as my own child to me. i nursed her from a baby, sir, bringing her up by hand--and a hard job it was to rear her. it wouldn't go to my heart so to lose her if i hadn't made her first short clothes and taught her to walk. i always said she was sent to console me for never having chick or child of my own. and now she's lost the old times keep coming back to my mind, and even at my age i can't help crying about her--i can't indeed, sir!" i waited a little to give mrs. clements time to compose herself. was the light that i had been looking for so long glimmering on me--far off, as yet--in the good woman's recollections of anne's early life? "did you know mrs. catherick before anne was born?" i asked. "not very long, sir--not above four months. we saw a great deal of each other in that time, but we were never very friendly together." her voice was steadier as she made that reply. painful as many of her recollections might be, i observed that it was unconsciously a relief to her mind to revert to the dimly-seen troubles of the past, after dwelling so long on the vivid sorrows of the present. "were you and mrs. catherick neighbours?" i inquired, leading her memory on as encouragingly as i could. "yes, sir--neighbours at old welmingham." "old welmingham? there are two places of that name, then, in hampshire?" "well, sir, there used to be in those days--better than three-and-twenty years ago. they built a new town about two miles off, convenient to the river--and old welmingham, which was never much more than a village, got in time to be deserted. the new town is the place they call welmingham now--but the old parish church is the parish church still. it stands by itself, with the houses pulled down or gone to ruin all round it. i've lived to see sad changes. it was a pleasant, pretty place in my time." "did you live there before your marriage, mrs. clements?" "no, sir--i'm a norfolk woman. it wasn't the place my husband belonged to either. he was from grimsby, as i told you, and he served his apprenticeship there. but having friends down south, and hearing of an opening, he got into business at southampton. it was in a small way, but he made enough for a plain man to retire on, and settled at old welmingham. i went there with him when he married me. we were neither of us young, but we lived very happy together--happier than our neighbour, mr. catherick, lived along with his wife when they came to old welmingham a year or two afterwards." "was your husband acquainted with them before that?" "with catherick, sir--not with his wife. she was a stranger to both of us. some gentlemen had made interest for catherick, and he got the situation of clerk at welmingham church, which was the reason of his coming to settle in our neighbourhood. he brought his newly-married wife along with him, and we heard in course of time she had been lady's-maid in a family that lived at varneck hall, near southampton. catherick had found it a hard matter to get her to marry him, in consequence of her holding herself uncommonly high. he had asked and asked, and given the thing up at last, seeing she was so contrary about it. when he had given it up she turned contrary just the other way, and came to him of her own accord, without rhyme or reason seemingly. my poor husband always said that was the time to have given her a lesson. but catherick was too fond of her to do anything of the sort--he never checked her either before they were married or after. he was a quick man in his feelings, letting them carry him a deal too far, now in one way and now in another, and he would have spoilt a better wife than mrs. catherick if a better had married him. i don't like to speak ill of any one, sir, but she was a heartless woman, with a terrible will of her own--fond of foolish admiration and fine clothes, and not caring to show so much as decent outward respect to catherick, kindly as he always treated her. my husband said he thought things would turn out badly when they first came to live near us, and his words proved true. before they had been quite four months in our neighbourhood there was a dreadful scandal and a miserable break-up in their household. both of them were in fault--i am afraid both of them were equally in fault." "you mean both husband and wife?" "oh, no, sir! i don't mean catherick--he was only to be pitied. i meant his wife and the person--" "and the person who caused the scandal?" "yes, sir. a gentleman born and brought up, who ought to have set a better example. you know him, sir--and my poor dear anne knew him only too well." "sir percival glyde?" "yes, sir percival glyde." my heart beat fast--i thought i had my hand on the clue. how little i knew then of the windings of the labyrinths which were still to mislead me! "did sir percival live in your neighbourhood at that time?" i asked. "no, sir. he came among us as a stranger. his father had died not long before in foreign parts. i remember he was in mourning. he put up at the little inn on the river (they have pulled it down since that time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. he wasn't much noticed when he first came--it was a common thing enough for gentlemen to travel from all parts of england to fish in our river." "did he make his appearance in the village before anne was born?" "yes, sir. anne was born in the june month of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven--and i think he came at the end of april or the beginning of may." "came as a stranger to all of you? a stranger to mrs. catherick as well as to the rest of the neighbours?" "so we thought at first, sir. but when the scandal broke out, nobody believed they were strangers. i remember how it happened as well as if it was yesterday. catherick came into our garden one night, and woke us by throwing up a handful of gravel from the walk at our window. i heard him beg my husband, for the lord's sake, to come down and speak to him. they were a long time together talking in the porch. when my husband came back upstairs he was all of a tremble. he sat down on the side of the bed and he says to me, 'lizzie! i always told you that woman was a bad one--i always said she would end ill, and i'm afraid in my own mind that the end has come already. catherick has found a lot of lace handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold watch and chain, hid away in his wife's drawer--things that nobody but a born lady ought ever to have--and his wife won't say how she came by them.' 'does he think she stole them?' says i. 'no,' says he, 'stealing would be bad enough. but it's worse than that, she's had no chance of stealing such things as those, and she's not a woman to take them if she had. they're gifts, lizzie--there's her own initials engraved inside the watch--and catherick has seen her talking privately, and carrying on as no married woman should, with that gentleman in mourning, sir percival glyde. don't you say anything about it--i've quieted catherick for to-night. i've told him to keep his tongue to himself, and his eyes and his ears open, and to wait a day or two, till he can be quite certain.' 'i believe you are both of you wrong,' says i. 'it's not in nature, comfortable and respectable as she is here, that mrs. catherick should take up with a chance stranger like sir percival glyde.' 'ay, but is he a stranger to her?' says my husband. 'you forget how catherick's wife came to marry him. she went to him of her own accord, after saying no over and over again when he asked her. there have been wicked women before her time, lizzie, who have used honest men who loved them as a means of saving their characters, and i'm sorely afraid this mrs. catherick is as wicked as the worst of them. we shall see,' says my husband, 'we shall soon see.' and only two days afterwards we did see." mrs. clements waited for a moment before she went on. even in that moment, i began to doubt whether the clue that i thought i had found was really leading me to the central mystery of the labyrinth after all. was this common, too common, story of a man's treachery and a woman's frailty the key to a secret which had been the lifelong terror of sir percival glyde? "well, sir, catherick took my husband's advice and waited," mrs. clements continued. "and as i told you, he hadn't long to wait. on the second day he found his wife and sir percival whispering together quite familiar, close under the vestry of the church. i suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last place in the world where anybody would think of looking after them, but, however that may be, there they were. sir percival, being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended himself in such a guilty way that poor catherick (whose quick temper i have told you of already) fell into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace, and struck sir percival. he was no match (and i am sorry to say it) for the man who had wronged him, and he was beaten in the cruelest manner, before the neighbours, who had come to the place on hearing the disturbance, could run in to part them. all this happened towards evening, and before nightfall, when my husband went to catherick's house, he was gone, nobody knew where. no living soul in the village ever saw him again. he knew too well, by that time, what his wife's vile reason had been for marrying him, and he felt his misery and disgrace, especially after what had happened to him with sir percival, too keenly. the clergyman of the parish put an advertisement in the paper begging him to come back, and saying that he should not lose his situation or his friends. but catherick had too much pride and spirit, as some people said--too much feeling, as i think, sir--to face his neighbours again, and try to live down the memory of his disgrace. my husband heard from him when he had left england, and heard a second time, when he was settled and doing well in america. he is alive there now, as far as i know, but none of us in the old country--his wicked wife least of all--are ever likely to set eyes on him again." "what became of sir percival?" i inquired. "did he stay in the neighbourhood?" "not he, sir. the place was too hot to hold him. he was heard at high words with mrs. catherick the same night when the scandal broke out, and the next morning he took himself off." "and mrs. catherick? surely she never remained in the village among the people who knew of her disgrace?" "she did, sir. she was hard enough and heartless enough to set the opinions of all her neighbours at flat defiance. she declared to everybody, from the clergyman downwards, that she was the victim of a dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers in the place should not drive her out of it, as if she was a guilty woman. all through my time she lived at old welmingham, and after my time, when the new town was building, and the respectable neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if she was determined to live among them and scandalise them to the very last. there she is now, and there she will stop, in defiance of the best of them, to her dying day." "but how has she lived through all these years?" i asked. "was her husband able and willing to help her?" "both able and willing, sir," said mrs. clements. "in the second letter he wrote to my good man, he said she had borne his name, and lived in his home, and, wicked as she was, she must not starve like a beggar in the street. he could afford to make her some small allowance, and she might draw for it quarterly at a place in london." "did she accept the allowance?" "not a farthing of it, sir. she said she would never be beholden to catherick for bit or drop, if she lived to be a hundred. and she has kept her word ever since. when my poor dear husband died, and left all to me, catherick's letter was put in my possession with the other things, and i told her to let me know if she was ever in want. 'i'll let all england know i'm in want,' she said, 'before i tell catherick, or any friend of catherick's. take that for your answer, and give it to him for an answer, if he ever writes again.'" "do you suppose that she had money of her own?" "very little, if any, sir. it was said, and said truly, i am afraid, that her means of living came privately from sir percival glyde." after that last reply i waited a little, to reconsider what i had heard. if i unreservedly accepted the story so far, it was now plain that no approach, direct or indirect, to the secret had yet been revealed to me, and that the pursuit of my object had ended again in leaving me face to face with the most palpable and the most disheartening failure. but there was one point in the narrative which made me doubt the propriety of accepting it unreservedly, and which suggested the idea of something hidden below the surface. i could not account to myself for the circumstance of the clerk's guilty wife voluntarily living out all her after-existence on the scene of her disgrace. the woman's own reported statement that she had taken this strange course as a practical assertion of her innocence did not satisfy me. it seemed, to my mind, more natural and more probable to assume that she was not so completely a free agent in this matter as she had herself asserted. in that case, who was the likeliest person to possess the power of compelling her to remain at welmingham? the person unquestionably from whom she derived the means of living. she had refused assistance from her husband, she had no adequate resources of her own, she was a friendless, degraded woman--from what source should she derive help but from the source at which report pointed--sir percival glyde? reasoning on these assumptions, and always bearing in mind the one certain fact to guide me, that mrs. catherick was in possession of the secret, i easily understood that it was sir percival's interest to keep her at welmingham, because her character in that place was certain to isolate her from all communication with female neighbours, and to allow her no opportunities of talking incautiously in moments of free intercourse with inquisitive bosom friends. but what was the mystery to be concealed? not sir percival's infamous connection with mrs. catherick's disgrace, for the neighbours were the very people who knew of it--not the suspicion that he was anne's father, for welmingham was the place in which that suspicion must inevitably exist. if i accepted the guilty appearances described to me as unreservedly as others had accepted them, if i drew from them the same superficial conclusion which mr. catherick and all his neighbours had drawn, where was the suggestion, in all that i had heard, of a dangerous secret between sir percival and mrs. catherick, which had been kept hidden from that time to this? and yet, in those stolen meetings, in those familiar whisperings between the clerk's wife and "the gentleman in mourning," the clue to discovery existed beyond a doubt. was it possible that appearances in this case had pointed one way while the truth lay all the while unsuspected in another direction? could mrs. catherick's assertion, that she was the victim of a dreadful mistake, by any possibility be true? or, assuming it to be false, could the conclusion which associated sir percival with her guilt have been founded in some inconceivable error? had sir percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that was wrong for the sake of diverting from himself some other suspicion that was right? here--if i could find it--here was the approach to the secret, hidden deep under the surface of the apparently unpromising story which i had just heard. my next questions were now directed to the one object of ascertaining whether mr. catherick had or had not arrived truly at the conviction of his wife's misconduct. the answers i received from mrs. clements left me in no doubt whatever on that point. mrs. catherick had, on the clearest evidence, compromised her reputation, while a single woman, with some person unknown, and had married to save her character. it had been positively ascertained, by calculations of time and place into which i need not enter particularly, that the daughter who bore her husband's name was not her husband's child. the next object of inquiry, whether it was equally certain that sir percival must have been the father of anne, was beset by far greater difficulties. i was in no position to try the probabilities on one side or on the other in this instance by any better test than the test of personal resemblance. "i suppose you often saw sir percival when he was in your village?" i said. "yes, sir, very often," replied mrs. clements. "did you ever observe that anne was like him?" "she was not at all like him, sir." "was she like her mother, then?" "not like her mother either, sir. mrs. catherick was dark, and full in the face." not like her mother and not like her (supposed) father. i knew that the test by personal resemblance was not to be implicitly trusted, but, on the other hand, it was not to be altogether rejected on that account. was it possible to strengthen the evidence by discovering any conclusive facts in relation to the lives of mrs. catherick and sir percival before they either of them appeared at old welmingham? when i asked my next questions i put them with this view. "when sir percival first arrived in your neighbourhood," i said, "did you hear where he had come from last?" "no, sir. some said from blackwater park, and some said from scotland--but nobody knew." "was mrs. catherick living in service at varneck hall immediately before her marriage?" "yes, sir." "and had she been long in her place?" "three or four years, sir; i am not quite certain which." "did you ever hear the name of the gentleman to whom varneck hall belonged at that time?" "yes, sir. his name was major donthorne." "did mr. catherick, or did any one else you knew, ever hear that sir percival was a friend of major donthorne's, or ever see sir percival in the neighbourhood of varneck hall?" "catherick never did, sir, that i can remember--nor any one else either, that i know of." i noted down major donthorne's name and address, on the chance that he might still be alive, and that it might be useful at some future time to apply to him. meanwhile, the impression on my mind was now decidedly adverse to the opinion that sir percival was anne's father, and decidedly favourable to the conclusion that the secret of his stolen interviews with mrs. catherick was entirely unconnected with the disgrace which the woman had inflicted on her husband's good name. i could think of no further inquiries which i might make to strengthen this impression--i could only encourage mrs. clements to speak next of anne's early days, and watch for any chance-suggestion which might in this way offer itself to me. "i have not heard yet," i said, "how the poor child, born in all this sin and misery, came to be trusted, mrs. clements, to your care." "there was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature in hand," replied mrs. clements. "the wicked mother seemed to hate it--as if the poor baby was in fault!--from the day it was born. my heart was heavy for the child, and i made the offer to bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own." "did anne remain entirely under your care from that time?" "not quite entirely, sir. mrs. catherick had her whims and fancies about it at times, and used now and then to lay claim to the child, as if she wanted to spite me for bringing it up. but these fits of hers never lasted for long. poor little anne was always returned to me, and was always glad to get back--though she led but a gloomy life in my house, having no playmates, like other children, to brighten her up. our longest separation was when her mother took her to limmeridge. just at that time i lost my husband, and i felt it was as well, in that miserable affliction, that anne should not be in the house. she was between ten and eleven years old then, slow at her lessons, poor soul, and not so cheerful as other children--but as pretty a little girl to look at as you would wish to see. i waited at home till her mother brought her back, and then i made the offer to take her with me to london--the truth being, sir, that i could not find it in my heart to stop at old welmingham after my husband's death, the place was so changed and so dismal to me." "and did mrs. catherick consent to your proposal?" "no, sir. she came back from the north harder and bitterer than ever. folks did say that she had been obliged to ask sir percival's leave to go, to begin with; and that she only went to nurse her dying sister at limmeridge because the poor woman was reported to have saved money--the truth being that she hardly left enough to bury her. these things may have soured mrs. catherick likely enough, but however that may be, she wouldn't hear of my taking the child away. she seemed to like distressing us both by parting us. all i could do was to give anne my direction, and to tell her privately, if she was ever in trouble, to come to me. but years passed before she was free to come. i never saw her again, poor soul, till the night she escaped from the mad-house." "you know, mrs. clements, why sir percival glyde shut her up?" "i only know what anne herself told me, sir. the poor thing used to ramble and wander about it sadly. she said her mother had got some secret of sir percival's to keep, and had let it out to her long after i left hampshire--and when sir percival found she knew it, he shut her up. but she never could say what it was when i asked her. all she could tell me was, that her mother might be the ruin and destruction of sir percival if she chose. mrs. catherick may have let out just as much as that, and no more. i'm next to certain i should have heard the whole truth from anne, if she had really known it as she pretended to do, and as she very likely fancied she did, poor soul." this idea had more than once occurred to my own mind. i had already told marian that i doubted whether laura was really on the point of making any important discovery when she and anne catherick were disturbed by count fosco at the boat-house. it was perfectly in character with anne's mental affliction that she should assume an absolute knowledge of the secret on no better grounds than vague suspicion, derived from hints which her mother had incautiously let drop in her presence. sir percival's guilty distrust would, in that case, infallibly inspire him with the false idea that anne knew all from her mother, just as it had afterwards fixed in his mind the equally false suspicion that his wife knew all from anne. the time was passing, the morning was wearing away. it was doubtful, if i stayed longer, whether i should hear anything more from mrs. clements that would be at all useful to my purpose. i had already discovered those local and family particulars, in relation to mrs. catherick, of which i had been in search, and i had arrived at certain conclusions, entirely new to me, which might immensely assist in directing the course of my future proceedings. i rose to take my leave, and to thank mrs. clements for the friendly readiness she had shown in affording me information. "i am afraid you must have thought me very inquisitive," i said. "i have troubled you with more questions than many people would have cared to answer." "you are heartily welcome, sir, to anything i can tell you," answered mrs. clements. she stopped and looked at me wistfully. "but i do wish," said the poor woman, "you could have told me a little more about anne, sir. i thought i saw something in your face when you came in which looked as if you could. you can't think how hard it is not even to know whether she is living or dead. i could bear it better if i was only certain. you said you never expected we should see her alive again. do you know, sir--do you know for truth--that it has pleased god to take her?" i was not proof against this appeal, it would have been unspeakably mean and cruel of me if i had resisted it. "i am afraid there is no doubt of the truth," i answered gently; "i have the certainty in my own mind that her troubles in this world are over." the poor woman dropped into her chair and hid her face from me. "oh, sir," she said, "how do you know it? who can have told you?" "no one has told me, mrs. clements. but i have reasons for feeling sure of it--reasons which i promise you shall know as soon as i can safely explain them. i am certain she was not neglected in her last moments--i am certain the heart complaint from which she suffered so sadly was the true cause of her death. you shall feel as sure of this as i do, soon--you shall know, before long, that she is buried in a quiet country churchyard--in a pretty, peaceful place, which you might have chosen for her yourself." "dead!" said mrs. clements, "dead so young, and i am left to hear it! i made her first short frocks. i taught her to walk. the first time she ever said mother she said it to me--and now i am left and anne is taken! did you say, sir," said the poor woman, removing the handkerchief from her face, and looking up at me for the first time, "did you say that she had been nicely buried? was it the sort of funeral she might have had if she had really been my own child?" i assured her that it was. she seemed to take an inexplicable pride in my answer--to find a comfort in it which no other and higher considerations could afford. "it would have broken my heart," she said simply, "if anne had not been nicely buried--but how do you know it, sir? who told you?" i once more entreated her to wait until i could speak to her unreservedly. "you are sure to see me again," i said, "for i have a favour to ask when you are a little more composed--perhaps in a day or two." "don't keep it waiting, sir, on my account," said mrs. clements. "never mind my crying if i can be of use. if you have anything on your mind to say to me, sir, please to say it now." "i only wish to ask you one last question," i said. "i only want to know mrs. catherick's address at welmingham." my request so startled mrs. clements, that, for the moment, even the tidings of anne's death seemed to be driven from her mind. her tears suddenly ceased to flow, and she sat looking at me in blank amazement. "for the lord's sake, sir!" she said, "what do you want with mrs. catherick!" "i want this, mrs. clements," i replied, "i want to know the secret of those private meetings of hers with sir percival glyde. there is something more in what you have told me of that woman's past conduct, and of that man's past relations with her, than you or any of your neighbours ever suspected. there is a secret we none of us know between those two, and i am going to mrs. catherick with the resolution to find it out." "think twice about it, sir!" said mrs. clements, rising in her earnestness and laying her hand on my arm. "she's an awful woman--you don't know her as i do. think twice about it." "i am sure your warning is kindly meant, mrs. clements. but i am determined to see the woman, whatever comes of it." mrs. clements looked me anxiously in the face. "i see your mind is made up, sir," she said. "i will give you the address." i wrote it down in my pocket-book and then took her hand to say farewell. "you shall hear from me soon," i said; "you shall know all that i have promised to tell you." mrs. clements sighed and shook her head doubtfully. "an old woman's advice is sometimes worth taking, sir," she said. "think twice before you go to welmingham." viii when i reached home again after my interview with mrs. clements, i was struck by the appearance of a change in laura. the unvarying gentleness and patience which long misfortune had tried so cruelly and had never conquered yet, seemed now to have suddenly failed her. insensible to all marian's attempts to soothe and amuse her, she sat, with her neglected drawing pushed away on the table, her eyes resolutely cast down, her fingers twining and untwining themselves restlessly in her lap. marian rose when i came in, with a silent distress in her face, waited for a moment to see if laura would look up at my approach, whispered to me, "try if you can rouse her," and left the room. i sat down in the vacant chair--gently unclasped the poor, worn, restless fingers, and took both her hands in mine. "what are you thinking of, laura? tell me, my darling--try and tell me what it is." she struggled with herself, and raised her eyes to mine. "i can't feel happy," she said, "i can't help thinking----" she stopped, bent forward a little, and laid her head on my shoulder, with a terrible mute helplessness that struck me to the heart. "try to tell me," i repeated gently; "try to tell me why you are not happy." "i am so useless--i am such a burden on both of you," she answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh. "you work and get money, walter, and marian helps you. why is there nothing i can do? you will end in liking marian better than you like me--you will, because i am so helpless! oh, don't, don't, don't treat me like a child!" i raised her head, and smoothed away the tangled hair that fell over her face, and kissed her--my poor, faded flower! my lost, afflicted sister! "you shall help us, laura," i said, "you shall begin, my darling, to-day." she looked at me with a feverish eagerness, with a breathless interest, that made me tremble for the new life of hope which i had called into being by those few words. i rose, and set her drawing materials in order, and placed them near her again. "you know that i work and get money by drawing," i said. "now you have taken such pains, now you are so much improved, you shall begin to work and get money too. try to finish this little sketch as nicely and prettily as you can. when it is done i will take it away with me, and the same person will buy it who buys all that i do. you shall keep your own earnings in your own purse, and marian shall come to you to help us, as often as she comes to me. think how useful you are going to make yourself to both of us, and you will soon be as happy, laura, as the day is long." her face grew eager, and brightened into a smile. in the moment while it lasted, in the moment when she again took up the pencils that had been laid aside, she almost looked like the laura of past days. i had rightly interpreted the first signs of a new growth and strength in her mind, unconsciously expressing themselves in the notice she had taken of the occupations which filled her sister's life and mine. marian (when i told her what had passed) saw, as i saw, that she was longing to assume her own little position of importance, to raise herself in her own estimation and in ours--and, from that day, we tenderly helped the new ambition which gave promise of the hopeful, happier future, that might now not be far off. her drawings, as she finished them, or tried to finish them, were placed in my hands. marian took them from me and hid them carefully, and i set aside a little weekly tribute from my earnings, to be offered to her as the price paid by strangers for the poor, faint, valueless sketches, of which i was the only purchaser. it was hard sometimes to maintain our innocent deception, when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute her share towards the expenses, and wondered with serious interest, whether i or she had earned the most that week. i have all those hidden drawings in my possession still--they are my treasures beyond price--the dear remembrances that i love to keep alive--the friends in past adversity that my heart will never part from, my tenderness never forget. am i trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am i looking forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet reached? yes. back again--back to the days of doubt and dread, when the spirit within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy stillness of perpetual suspense. i have paused and rested for a while on my forward course. it is not, perhaps, time wasted, if the friends who read these pages have paused and rested too. i took the first opportunity i could find of speaking to marian in private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries which i had made that morning. she seemed to share the opinion on the subject of my proposed journey to welmingham, which mrs. clements had already expressed to me. "surely, walter," she said, "you hardly know enough yet to give you any hope of claiming mrs. catherick's confidence? is it wise to proceed to these extremities, before you have really exhausted all safer and simpler means of attaining your object? when you told me that sir percival and the count were the only two people in existence who knew the exact date of laura's journey, you forgot, and i forgot, that there was a third person who must surely know it--i mean mrs. rubelle. would it not be far easier, and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession from her, than to force it from sir percival?" "it might be easier," i replied, "but we are not aware of the full extent of mrs. rubelle's connivance and interest in the conspiracy, and we are therefore not certain that the date has been impressed on her mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on the minds of sir percival and the count. it is too late, now, to waste the time on mrs. rubelle, which may be all-important to the discovery of the one assailable point in sir percival's life. are you thinking a little too seriously, marian, of the risk i may run in returning to hampshire? are you beginning to doubt whether sir percival glyde may not in the end be more than a match for me?" "he will not be more than your match," she replied decidedly, "because he will not be helped in resisting you by the impenetrable wickedness of the count." "what has led you to that conclusion?" i replied, in some surprise. "my own knowledge of sir percival's obstinacy and impatience of the count's control," she answered. "i believe he will insist on meeting you single-handed--just as he insisted at first on acting for himself at blackwater park. the time for suspecting the count's interference will be the time when you have sir percival at your mercy. his own interests will then be directly threatened, and he will act, walter, to terrible purpose in his own defence." "we may deprive him of his weapons beforehand," i said. "some of the particulars i have heard from mrs. clements may yet be turned to account against him, and other means of strengthening the case may be at our disposal. there are passages in mrs. michelson's narrative which show that the count found it necessary to place himself in communication with mr. fairlie, and there may be circumstances which compromise him in that proceeding. while i am away, marian, write to mr. fairlie and say that you want an answer describing exactly what passed between the count and himself, and informing you also of any particulars that may have come to his knowledge at the same time in connection with his niece. tell him that the statement you request will, sooner or later, be insisted on, if he shows any reluctance to furnish you with it of his own accord." "the letter shall be written, walter. but are you really determined to go to welmingham?" "absolutely determined. i will devote the next two days to earning what we want for the week to come, and on the third day i go to hampshire." when the third day came i was ready for my journey. as it was possible that i might be absent for some little time, i arranged with marian that we were to correspond every day--of course addressing each other by assumed names, for caution's sake. as long as i heard from her regularly, i should assume that nothing was wrong. but if the morning came and brought me no letter, my return to london would take place, as a matter of course, by the first train. i contrived to reconcile laura to my departure by telling her that i was going to the country to find new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and i left her occupied and happy. marian followed me downstairs to the street door. "remember what anxious hearts you leave here," she whispered, as we stood together in the passage. "remember all the hopes that hang on your safe return. if strange things happen to you on this journey--if you and sir percival meet----" "what makes you think we shall meet?" i asked. "i don't know--i have fears and fancies that i cannot account for. laugh at them, walter, if you like--but, for god's sake, keep your temper if you come in contact with that man!" "never fear, marian! i answer for my self-control." with those words we parted. i walked briskly to the station. there was a glow of hope in me. there was a growing conviction in my mind that my journey this time would not be taken in vain. it was a fine, clear, cold morning. my nerves were firmly strung, and i felt all the strength of my resolution stirring in me vigorously from head to foot. as i crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among the people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them that i knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my advantage if i had adopted a disguise before setting out for hampshire. but there was something so repellent to me in the idea--something so meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise--that i dismissed the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in my mind. even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding was doubtful in the extreme. if i tried the experiment at home the landlord of the house would sooner or later discover me, and would have his suspicions aroused immediately. if i tried it away from home the same persons might see me, by the commonest accident, with the disguise and without it, and i should in that way be inviting the notice and distrust which it was my most pressing interest to avoid. in my own character i had acted thus far--and in my own character i was resolved to continue to the end. the train left me at welmingham early in the afternoon. is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of arabia, is there any prospect of desolation among the ruins of palestine, which can rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the mind, of an english country town in the first stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its prosperity? i asked myself that question as i passed through the clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim torpor of the streets of welmingham. and the tradesmen who stared after me from their lonely shops--the trees that drooped helpless in their arid exile of unfinished crescents and squares--the dead house-carcasses that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to animate them with the breath of life--every creature that i saw, every object that i passed, seemed to answer with one accord: the deserts of arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation--the ruins of palestine are incapable of our modern gloom! i inquired my way to the quarter of the town in which mrs. catherick lived, and on reaching it found myself in a square of small houses, one story high. there was a bare little plot of grass in the middle, protected by a cheap wire fence. an elderly nursemaid and two children were standing in a corner of the enclosure, looking at a lean goat tethered to the grass. two foot-passengers were talking together on one side of the pavement before the houses, and an idle little boy was leading an idle little dog along by a string on the other. i heard the dull tinkling of a piano at a distance, accompanied by the intermittent knocking of a hammer nearer at hand. these were all the sights and sounds of life that encountered me when i entered the square. i walked at once to the door of number thirteen--the number of mrs. catherick's house--and knocked, without waiting to consider beforehand how i might best present myself when i got in. the first necessity was to see mrs. catherick. i could then judge, from my own observation, of the safest and easiest manner of approaching the object of my visit. the door was opened by a melancholy middle-aged woman servant. i gave her my card, and asked if i could see mrs. catherick. the card was taken into the front parlour, and the servant returned with a message requesting me to mention what my business was. "say, if you please, that my business relates to mrs. catherick's daughter," i replied. this was the best pretext i could think of, on the spur of the moment, to account for my visit. the servant again retired to the parlour, again returned, and this time begged me, with a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in. i entered a little room, with a flaring paper of the largest pattern on the walls. chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. on the largest table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart bible, placed exactly in the centre on a red and yellow woollen mat and at the side of the table nearest to the window, with a little knitting-basket on her lap, and a wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-coloured mittens on her hands. her iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either side of her face--her dark eyes looked straight forward, with a hard, defiant, implacable stare. she had full square cheeks, a long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. her figure was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed. this was mrs. catherick. "you have come to speak to me about my daughter," she said, before i could utter a word on my side. "be so good as to mention what you have to say." the tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant, as implacable as the expression of her eyes. she pointed to a chair, and looked me all over attentively, from head to foot, as i sat down in it. i saw that my only chance with this woman was to speak to her in her own tone, and to meet her, at the outset of our interview, on her own ground. "you are aware," i said, "that your daughter has been lost?" "i am perfectly aware of it." "have you felt any apprehension that the misfortune of her loss might be followed by the misfortune of her death?" "yes. have you come here to tell me she is dead?" "i have." "why?" she put that extraordinary question without the slightest change in her voice, her face, or her manner. she could not have appeared more perfectly unconcerned if i had told her of the death of the goat in the enclosure outside. "why?" i repeated. "do you ask why i come here to tell you of your daughter's death?" "yes. what interest have you in me, or in her? how do you come to know anything about my daughter?" "in this way. i met her on the night when she escaped from the asylum, and i assisted her in reaching a place of safety." "you did very wrong." "i am sorry to hear her mother say so." "her mother does say so. how do you know she is dead?" "i am not at liberty to say how i know it--but i do know it." "are you at liberty to say how you found out my address?" "certainly. i got your address from mrs. clements." "mrs. clements is a foolish woman. did she tell you to come here?" "she did not." "then, i ask you again, why did you come?" as she was determined to have her answer, i gave it to her in the plainest possible form. "i came," i said, "because i thought anne catherick's mother might have some natural interest in knowing whether she was alive or dead." "just so," said mrs. catherick, with additional self-possession. "had you no other motive?" i hesitated. the right answer to that question was not easy to find at a moment's notice. "if you have no other motive," she went on, deliberately taking off her slate-coloured mittens, and rolling them up, "i have only to thank you for your visit, and to say that i will not detain you here any longer. your information would be more satisfactory if you were willing to explain how you became possessed of it. however, it justifies me, i suppose, in going into mourning. there is not much alteration necessary in my dress, as you see. when i have changed my mittens, i shall be all in black." she searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black lace mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest composure, and then quietly crossed her hands in her lap. "i wish you good morning," she said. the cool contempt of her manner irritated me into directly avowing that the purpose of my visit had not been answered yet. "i have another motive in coming here," i said. "ah! i thought so," remarked mrs. catherick. "your daughter's death----" "what did she die of?" "of disease of the heart." "yes. go on." "your daughter's death has been made the pretext for inflicting serious injury on a person who is very dear to me. two men have been concerned, to my certain knowledge, in doing that wrong. one of them is sir percival glyde." "indeed!" i looked attentively to see if she flinched at the sudden mention of that name. not a muscle of her stirred--the hard, defiant, implacable stare in her eyes never wavered for an instant. "you may wonder," i went on, "how the event of your daughter's death can have been made the means of inflicting injury on another person." "no," said mrs. catherick; "i don't wonder at all. this appears to be your affair. you are interested in my affairs. i am not interested in yours." "you may ask, then," i persisted, "why i mention the matter in your presence." "yes, i do ask that." "i mention it because i am determined to bring sir percival glyde to account for the wickedness he has committed." "what have i to do with your determination?" "you shall hear. there are certain events in sir percival's past life which it is necessary for my purpose to be fully acquainted with. you know them--and for that reason i come to you." "what events do you mean?" "events that occurred at old welmingham when your husband was parish-clerk at that place, and before the time when your daughter was born." i had reached the woman at last through the barrier of impenetrable reserve that she had tried to set up between us. i saw her temper smouldering in her eyes--as plainly as i saw her hands grow restless, then unclasp themselves, and begin mechanically smoothing her dress over her knees. "what do you know of those events?" she asked. "all that mrs. clements could tell me," i answered. there was a momentary flush on her firm square face, a momentary stillness in her restless hands, which seemed to betoken a coming outburst of anger that might throw her off her guard. but no--she mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms on her broad bosom, and with a smile of grim sarcasm on her thick lips, looked at me as steadily as ever. "ah! i begin to understand it all now," she said, her tamed and disciplined anger only expressing itself in the elaborate mockery of her tone and manner. "you have got a grudge of your own against sir percival glyde, and i must help you to wreak it. i must tell you this, that, and the other about sir percival and myself, must i? yes, indeed? you have been prying into my private affairs. you think you have found a lost woman to deal with, who lives here on sufferance, and who will do anything you ask for fear you may injure her in the opinions of the town's-people. i see through you and your precious speculation--i do! and it amuses me. ha! ha!" she stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over her bosom, and she laughed to herself--a hard, harsh, angry laugh. "you don't know how i have lived in this place, and what i have done in this place, mr. what's-your-name," she went on. "i'll tell you, before i ring the bell and have you shown out. i came here a wronged woman--i came here robbed of my character and determined to claim it back. i've been years and years about it--and i have claimed it back. i have matched the respectable people fairly and openly on their own ground. if they say anything against me now they must say it in secret--they can't say it, they daren't say it, openly. i stand high enough in this town to be out of your reach. the clergyman bows to me. aha! you didn't bargain for that when you came here. go to the church and inquire about me--you will find mrs. catherick has her sitting like the rest of them, and pays the rent on the day it's due. go to the town-hall. there's a petition lying there--a petition of the respectable inhabitants against allowing a circus to come and perform here and corrupt our morals--yes! our morals. i signed that petition this morning. go to the bookseller's shop. the clergyman's wednesday evening lectures on justification by faith are publishing there by subscription--i'm down on the list. the doctor's wife only put a shilling in the plate at our last charity sermon--i put half-a-crown. mr. churchwarden soward held the plate, and bowed to me. ten years ago he told pigrum the chemist i ought to be whipped out of the town at the cart's tail. is your mother alive? has she got a better bible on her table than i have got on mine? does she stand better with her trades-people than i do with mine? has she always lived within her income? i have always lived within mine. ah! there is the clergyman coming along the square. look, mr. what's-your-name--look, if you please!" she started up with the activity of a young woman, went to the window, waited till the clergyman passed, and bowed to him solemnly. the clergyman ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked on. mrs. catherick returned to her chair, and looked at me with a grimmer sarcasm than ever. "there!" she said. "what do you think of that for a woman with a lost character? how does your speculation look now?" the singular manner in which she had chosen to assert herself, the extraordinary practical vindication of her position in the town which she had just offered, had so perplexed me that i listened to her in silent surprise. i was not the less resolved, however, to make another effort to throw her off her guard. if the woman's fierce temper once got beyond her control, and once flamed out on me, she might yet say the words which would put the clue in my hands. "how does your speculation look now?" she repeated. "exactly as it looked when i first came in," i answered. "i don't doubt the position you have gained in the town, and i don't wish to assail it even if i could. i came here because sir percival glyde is, to my certain knowledge, your enemy, as well as mine. if i have a grudge against him, you have a grudge against him too. you may deny it if you like, you may distrust me as much as you please, you may be as angry as you will--but, of all the women in england, you, if you have any sense of injury, are the woman who ought to help me to crush that man." "crush him for yourself," she said; "then come back here, and see what i say to you." she spoke those words as she had not spoken yet, quickly, fiercely, vindictively. i had stirred in its lair the serpent-hatred of years, but only for a moment. like a lurking reptile it leaped up at me as she eagerly bent forward towards the place in which i was sitting. like a lurking reptile it dropped out of sight again as she instantly resumed her former position in the chair. "you won't trust me?" i said. "no." "you are afraid?" "do i look as if i was?" "you are afraid of sir percival glyde?" "am i?" her colour was rising, and her hands were at work again smoothing her gown. i pressed the point farther and farther home, i went on without allowing her a moment of delay. "sir percival has a high position in the world," i said; "it would be no wonder if you were afraid of him. sir percival is a powerful man, a baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the descendant of a great family----" she amazed me beyond expression by suddenly bursting out laughing. "yes," she repeated, in tones of the bitterest, steadiest contempt. "a baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the descendant of a great family. yes, indeed! a great family--especially by the mother's side." there was no time to reflect on the words that had just escaped her, there was only time to feel that they were well worth thinking over the moment i left the house. "i am not here to dispute with you about family questions," i said. "i know nothing of sir percival's mother----" "and you know as little of sir percival himself," she interposed sharply. "i advise you not to be too sure of that," i rejoined. "i know some things about him, and i suspect many more." "what do you suspect?" "i'll tell you what i don't suspect. i don't suspect him of being anne's father." she started to her feet, and came close up to me with a look of fury. "how dare you talk to me about anne's father! how dare you say who was her father, or who wasn't!" she broke out, her face quivering, her voice trembling with passion. "the secret between you and sir percival is not that secret," i persisted. "the mystery which darkens sir percival's life was not born with your daughter's birth, and has not died with your daughter's death." she drew back a step. "go!" she said, and pointed sternly to the door. "there was no thought of the child in your heart or in his," i went on, determined to press her back to her last defences. "there was no bond of guilty love between you and him when you held those stolen meetings, when your husband found you whispering together under the vestry of the church." her pointing hand instantly dropped to her side, and the deep flush of anger faded from her face while i spoke. i saw the change pass over her--i saw that hard, firm, fearless, self-possessed woman quail under a terror which her utmost resolution was not strong enough to resist when i said those five last words, "the vestry of the church." for a minute or more we stood looking at each other in silence. i spoke first. "do you still refuse to trust me?" i asked. she could not call the colour that had left it back to her face, but she had steadied her voice, she had recovered the defiant self-possession of her manner when she answered me. "i do refuse," she said. "do you still tell me to go?" "yes. go--and never come back." i walked to the door, waited a moment before i opened it, and turned round to look at her again. "i may have news to bring you of sir percival which you don't expect," i said, "and in that case i shall come back." "there is no news of sir percival that i don't expect, except----" she stopped, her pale face darkened, and she stole back with a quiet, stealthy, cat-like step to her chair. "except the news of his death," she said, sitting down again, with the mockery of a smile just hovering on her cruel lips, and the furtive light of hatred lurking deep in her steady eyes. as i opened the door of the room to go out, she looked round at me quickly. the cruel smile slowly widened her lips--she eyed me, with a strange stealthy interest, from head to foot--an unutterable expectation showed itself wickedly all over her face. was she speculating, in the secrecy of her own heart, on my youth and strength, on the force of my sense of injury and the limits of my self-control, and was she considering the lengths to which they might carry me, if sir percival and i ever chanced to meet? the bare doubt that it might be so drove me from her presence, and silenced even the common forms of farewell on my lips. without a word more, on my side or on hers, i left the room. as i opened the outer door, i saw the same clergyman who had already passed the house once, about to pass it again, on his way back through the square. i waited on the door-step to let him go by, and looked round, as i did so, at the parlour window. mrs. catherick had heard his footsteps approaching, in the silence of that lonely place, and she was on her feet at the window again, waiting for him. not all the strength of all the terrible passions i had roused in that woman's heart, could loosen her desperate hold on the one fragment of social consideration which years of resolute effort had just dragged within her grasp. there she was again, not a minute after i had left her, placed purposely in a position which made it a matter of common courtesy on the part of the clergyman to bow to her for a second time. he raised his hat once more. i saw the hard ghastly face behind the window soften, and light up with gratified pride--i saw the head with the grim black cap bend ceremoniously in return. the clergyman had bowed to her, and in my presence, twice in one day! ix i left the house, feeling that mrs. catherick had helped me a step forward, in spite of herself. before i had reached the turning which led out of the square, my attention was suddenly aroused by the sound of a closing door behind me. i looked round, and saw an undersized man in black on the door-step of a house, which, as well as i could judge, stood next to mrs. catherick's place of abode--next to it, on the side nearest to me. the man did not hesitate a moment about the direction he should take. he advanced rapidly towards the turning at which i had stopped. i recognised him as the lawyer's clerk, who had preceded me in my visit to blackwater park, and who had tried to pick a quarrel with me, when i asked him if i could see the house. i waited where i was, to ascertain whether his object was to come to close quarters and speak on this occasion. to my surprise he passed on rapidly, without saying a word, without even looking up in my face as he went by. this was such a complete inversion of the course of proceeding which i had every reason to expect on his part, that my curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and i determined on my side to keep him cautiously in view, and to discover what the business might be in which he was now employed. without caring whether he saw me or not, i walked after him. he never looked back, and he led me straight through the streets to the railway station. the train was on the point of starting, and two or three passengers who were late were clustering round the small opening through which the tickets were issued. i joined them, and distinctly heard the lawyer's clerk demand a ticket for the blackwater station. i satisfied myself that he had actually left by the train before i came away. there was only one interpretation that i could place on what i had just seen and heard. i had unquestionably observed the man leaving a house which closely adjoined mrs. catherick's residence. he had been probably placed there, by sir percival's directions, as a lodger, in anticipation of my inquiries leading me, sooner or later, to communicate with mrs. catherick. he had doubtless seen me go in and come out, and he had hurried away by the first train to make his report at blackwater park, to which place sir percival would naturally betake himself (knowing what he evidently knew of my movements), in order to be ready on the spot, if i returned to hampshire. before many days were over, there seemed every likelihood now that he and i might meet. whatever result events might be destined to produce, i resolved to pursue my own course, straight to the end in view, without stopping or turning aside for sir percival or for any one. the great responsibility which weighed on me heavily in london--the responsibility of so guiding my slightest actions as to prevent them from leading accidentally to the discovery of laura's place of refuge--was removed, now that i was in hampshire. i could go and come as i pleased at welmingham, and if i chanced to fail in observing any necessary precautions, the immediate results, at least, would affect no one but myself. when i left the station the winter evening was beginning to close in. there was little hope of continuing my inquiries after dark to any useful purpose in a neighbourhood that was strange to me. accordingly, i made my way to the nearest hotel, and ordered my dinner and my bed. this done, i wrote to marian, to tell her that i was safe and well, and that i had fair prospects of success. i had directed her, on leaving home, to address the first letter she wrote to me (the letter i expected to receive the next morning) to "the post-office, welmingham," and i now begged her to send her second day's letter to the same address. i could easily receive it by writing to the postmaster if i happened to be away from the town when it arrived. the coffee-room of the hotel, as it grew late in the evening, became a perfect solitude. i was left to reflect on what i had accomplished that afternoon as uninterruptedly as if the house had been my own. before i retired to rest i had attentively thought over my extraordinary interview with mrs. catherick from beginning to end, and had verified at my leisure the conclusions which i had hastily drawn in the earlier part of the day. the vestry of old welmingham church was the starting-point from which my mind slowly worked its way back through all that i had heard mrs. catherick say, and through all i had seen mrs. catherick do. at the time when the neighbourhood of the vestry was first referred to in my presence by mrs. clements, i had thought it the strangest and most unaccountable of all places for sir percival to select for a clandestine meeting with the clerk's wife. influenced by this impression, and by no other, i had mentioned "the vestry of the church" before mrs. catherick on pure speculation--it represented one of the minor peculiarities of the story which occurred to me while i was speaking. i was prepared for her answering me confusedly or angrily, but the blank terror that seized her when i said the words took me completely by surprise. i had long before associated sir percival's secret with the concealment of a serious crime which mrs. catherick knew of, but i had gone no further than this. now the woman's paroxysm of terror associated the crime, either directly or indirectly, with the vestry, and convinced me that she had been more than the mere witness of it--she was also the accomplice, beyond a doubt. what had been the nature of the crime? surely there was a contemptible side to it, as well as a dangerous side, or mrs. catherick would not have repeated my own words, referring to sir percival's rank and power, with such marked disdain as she had certainly displayed. it was a contemptible crime then and a dangerous crime, and she had shared in it, and it was associated with the vestry of the church. the next consideration to be disposed of led me a step farther from this point. mrs. catherick's undisguised contempt for sir percival plainly extended to his mother as well. she had referred with the bitterest sarcasm to the great family he had descended from--"especially by the mother's side." what did this mean? there appeared to be only two explanations of it. either his mother's birth had been low, or his mother's reputation was damaged by some hidden flaw with which mrs. catherick and sir percival were both privately acquainted? i could only put the first explanation to the test by looking at the register of her marriage, and so ascertaining her maiden name and her parentage as a preliminary to further inquiries. on the other hand, if the second case supposed were the true one, what had been the flaw in her reputation? remembering the account which marian had given me of sir percival's father and mother, and of the suspiciously unsocial secluded life they had both led, i now asked myself whether it might not be possible that his mother had never been married at all. here again the register might, by offering written evidence of the marriage, prove to me, at any rate, that this doubt had no foundation in truth. but where was the register to be found? at this point i took up the conclusions which i had previously formed, and the same mental process which had discovered the locality of the concealed crime, now lodged the register also in the vestry of old welmingham church. these were the results of my interview with mrs. catherick--these were the various considerations, all steadily converging to one point, which decided the course of my proceedings on the next day. the morning was cloudy and lowering, but no rain fell. i left my bag at the hotel to wait there till i called for it, and, after inquiring the way, set forth on foot for old welmingham church. it was a walk of rather more than two miles, the ground rising slowly all the way. on the highest point stood the church--an ancient, weather-beaten building, with heavy buttresses at its sides, and a clumsy square tower in front. the vestry at the back was built out from the church, and seemed to be of the same age. round the building at intervals appeared the remains of the village which mrs. clements had described to me as her husband's place of abode in former years, and which the principal inhabitants had long since deserted for the new town. some of the empty houses had been dismantled to their outer walls, some had been left to decay with time, and some were still inhabited by persons evidently of the poorest class. it was a dreary scene, and yet, in the worst aspect of its ruin, not so dreary as the modern town that i had just left. here there was the brown, breezy sweep of surrounding fields for the eye to repose on--here the trees, leafless as they were, still varied the monotony of the prospect, and helped the mind to look forward to summer-time and shade. as i moved away from the back of the church, and passed some of the dismantled cottages in search of a person who might direct me to the clerk, i saw two men saunter out after me from behind a wall. the tallest of the two--a stout muscular man in the dress of a gamekeeper--was a stranger to me. the other was one of the men who had followed me in london on the day when i left mr. kyrle's office. i had taken particular notice of him at the time; and i felt sure that i was not mistaken in identifying the fellow on this occasion. neither he nor his companion attempted to speak to me, and both kept themselves at a respectful distance, but the motive of their presence in the neighbourhood of the church was plainly apparent. it was exactly as i had supposed--sir percival was already prepared for me. my visit to mrs. catherick had been reported to him the evening before, and those two men had been placed on the look-out near the church in anticipation of my appearance at old welmingham. if i had wanted any further proof that my investigations had taken the right direction at last, the plan now adopted for watching me would have supplied it. i walked on away from the church till i reached one of the inhabited houses, with a patch of kitchen garden attached to it on which a labourer was at work. he directed me to the clerk's abode, a cottage at some little distance off, standing by itself on the outskirts of the forsaken village. the clerk was indoors, and was just putting on his greatcoat. he was a cheerful, familiar, loudly-talkative old man, with a very poor opinion (as i soon discovered) of the place in which he lived, and a happy sense of superiority to his neighbours in virtue of the great personal distinction of having once been in london. "it's well you came so early, sir," said the old man, when i had mentioned the object of my visit. "i should have been away in ten minutes more. parish business, sir, and a goodish long trot before it's all done for a man at my age. but, bless you, i'm strong on my legs still! as long as a man don't give at his legs, there's a deal of work left in him. don't you think so yourself, sir?" he took his keys down while he was talking from a hook behind the fireplace, and locked his cottage door behind us. "nobody at home to keep house for me," said the clerk, with a cheerful sense of perfect freedom from all family encumbrances. "my wife's in the churchyard there, and my children are all married. a wretched place this, isn't it, sir? but the parish is a large one--every man couldn't get through the business as i do. it's learning does it, and i've had my share, and a little more. i can talk the queen's english (god bless the queen!), and that's more than most of the people about here can do. you're from london, i suppose, sir? i've been in london a matter of five-and-twenty year ago. what's the news there now, if you please?" chattering on in this way, he led me back to the vestry. i looked about to see if the two spies were still in sight. they were not visible anywhere. after having discovered my application to the clerk, they had probably concealed themselves where they could watch my next proceedings in perfect freedom. the vestry door was of stout old oak, studded with strong nails, and the clerk put his large heavy key into the lock with the air of a man who knew that he had a difficulty to encounter, and who was not quite certain of creditably conquering it. "i'm obliged to bring you this way, sir," he said, "because the door from the vestry to the church is bolted on the vestry side. we might have got in through the church otherwise. this is a perverse lock, if ever there was one yet. it's big enough for a prison-door--it's been hampered over and over again, and it ought to be changed for a new one. i've mentioned that to the churchwarden fifty times over at least--he's always saying, 'i'll see about it'--and he never does see. ah, it's a sort of lost corner, this place. not like london--is it, sir? bless you, we are all asleep here! we don't march with the times." after some twisting and turning of the key, the heavy lock yielded, and he opened the door. the vestry was larger than i should have supposed it to be, judging from the outside only. it was a dim, mouldy, melancholy old room, with a low, raftered ceiling. round two sides of it, the sides nearest to the interior of the church, ran heavy wooden presses, worm-eaten and gaping with age. hooked to the inner corner of one of these presses hung several surplices, all bulging out at their lower ends in an irreverent-looking bundle of limp drapery. below the surplices, on the floor, stood three packing-cases, with the lids half off, half on, and the straw profusely bursting out of their cracks and crevices in every direction. behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty papers, some large and rolled up like architects' plans, some loosely strung together on files like bills or letters. the room had once been lighted by a small side window, but this had been bricked up, and a lantern skylight was now substituted for it. the atmosphere of the place was heavy and mouldy, being rendered additionally oppressive by the closing of the door which led into the church. this door also was composed of solid oak, and was bolted at the top and bottom on the vestry side. "we might be tidier, mightn't we, sir?" said the cheerful clerk; "but when you're in a lost corner of a place like this, what are you to do? why, look here now, just look at these packing-cases. there they've been, for a year or more, ready to go down to london--there they are, littering the place, and there they'll stop as long as the nails hold them together. i'll tell you what, sir, as i said before, this is not london. we are all asleep here. bless you, we don't march with the times!" "what is there in the packing-cases?" i asked. "bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and panels from the chancel, and images from the organ-loft," said the clerk. "portraits of the twelve apostles in wood, and not a whole nose among 'em. all broken, and worm-eaten, and crumbling to dust at the edges. as brittle as crockery, sir, and as old as the church, if not older." "and why were they going to london? to be repaired?" "that's it, sir, to be repaired, and where they were past repair, to be copied in sound wood. but, bless you, the money fell short, and there they are, waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to subscribe. it was all done a year ago, sir. six gentlemen dined together about it, at the hotel in the new town. they made speeches, and passed resolutions, and put their names down, and printed off thousands of prospectuses. beautiful prospectuses, sir, all flourished over with gothic devices in red ink, saying it was a disgrace not to restore the church and repair the famous carvings, and so on. there are the prospectuses that couldn't be distributed, and the architect's plans and estimates, and the whole correspondence which set everybody at loggerheads and ended in a dispute, all down together in that corner, behind the packing-cases. the money dribbled in a little at first--but what can you expect out of london? there was just enough, you know, to pack the broken carvings, and get the estimates, and pay the printer's bill, and after that there wasn't a halfpenny left. there the things are, as i said before. we have nowhere else to put them--nobody in the new town cares about accommodating us--we're in a lost corner--and this is an untidy vestry--and who's to help it?--that's what i want to know." my anxiety to examine the register did not dispose me to offer much encouragement to the old man's talkativeness. i agreed with him that nobody could help the untidiness of the vestry, and then suggested that we should proceed to our business without more delay. "ay, ay, the marriage-register, to be sure," said the clerk, taking a little bunch of keys from his pocket. "how far do you want to look back, sir?" marian had informed me of sir percival's age at the time when we had spoken together of his marriage engagement with laura. she had then described him as being forty-five years old. calculating back from this, and making due allowance for the year that had passed since i had gained my information, i found that he must have been born in eighteen hundred and four, and that i might safely start on my search through the register from that date. "i want to begin with the year eighteen hundred and four," i said. "which way after that, sir?" asked the clerk. "forwards to our time or backwards away from us?" "backwards from eighteen hundred and four." he opened the door of one of the presses--the press from the side of which the surplices were hanging--and produced a large volume bound in greasy brown leather. i was struck by the insecurity of the place in which the register was kept. the door of the press was warped and cracked with age, and the lock was of the smallest and commonest kind. i could have forced it easily with the walking-stick i carried in my hand. "is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?" i inquired. "surely a book of such importance as this ought to be protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?" "well, now, that's curious!" said the clerk, shutting up the book again, just after he had opened it, and smacking his hand cheerfully on the cover. "those were the very words my old master was always saying years and years ago, when i was a lad. 'why isn't the register' (meaning this register here, under my hand)--'why isn't it kept in an iron safe?' if i've heard him say that once, i've heard him say it a hundred times. he was the solicitor in those days, sir, who had the appointment of vestry-clerk to this church. a fine hearty old gentleman, and the most particular man breathing. as long as he lived he kept a copy of this book in his office at knowlesbury, and had it posted up regular, from time to time, to correspond with the fresh entries here. you would hardly think it, but he had his own appointed days, once or twice in every quarter, for riding over to this church on his old white pony, to check the copy, by the register, with his own eyes and hands. 'how do i know?' (he used to say) 'how do i know that the register in this vestry may not be stolen or destroyed? why isn't it kept in an iron safe? why can't i make other people as careful as i am myself? some of these days there will be an accident happen, and when the register's lost, then the parish will find out the value of my copy.' he used to take his pinch of snuff after that, and look about him as bold as a lord. ah! the like of him for doing business isn't easy to find now. you may go to london and not match him, even there. which year did you say, sir? eighteen hundred and what?" "eighteen hundred and four," i replied, mentally resolving to give the old man no more opportunities of talking, until my examination of the register was over. the clerk put on his spectacles, and turned over the leaves of the register, carefully wetting his finger and thumb at every third page. "there it is, sir," said he, with another cheerful smack on the open volume. "there's the year you want." as i was ignorant of the month in which sir percival was born, i began my backward search with the early part of the year. the register-book was of the old-fashioned kind, the entries being all made on blank pages in manuscript, and the divisions which separated them being indicated by ink lines drawn across the page at the close of each entry. i reached the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and four without encountering the marriage, and then travelled back through december eighteen hundred and three--through november and october--through---- no! not through september also. under the heading of that month in the year i found the marriage. i looked carefully at the entry. it was at the bottom of a page, and was for want of room compressed into a smaller space than that occupied by the marriages above. the marriage immediately before it was impressed on my attention by the circumstance of the bridegroom's christian name being the same as my own. the entry immediately following it (on the top of the next page) was noticeable in another way from the large space it occupied, the record in this case registering the marriages of two brothers at the same time. the register of the marriage of sir felix glyde was in no respect remarkable except for the narrowness of the space into which it was compressed at the bottom of the page. the information about his wife was the usual information given in such cases. she was described as "cecilia jane elster, of park-view cottages, knowlesbury, only daughter of the late patrick elster, esq., formerly of bath." i noted down these particulars in my pocket-book, feeling as i did so both doubtful and disheartened about my next proceedings. the secret which i had believed until this moment to be within my grasp seemed now farther from my reach than ever. what suggestions of any mystery unexplained had arisen out of my visit to the vestry? i saw no suggestions anywhere. what progress had i made towards discovering the suspected stain on the reputation of sir percival's mother? the one fact i had ascertained vindicated her reputation. fresh doubts, fresh difficulties, fresh delays began to open before me in interminable prospect. what was i to do next? the one immediate resource left to me appeared to be this. i might institute inquiries about "miss elster of knowlesbury," on the chance of advancing towards the main object of my investigation, by first discovering the secret of mrs. catherick's contempt for sir percival's mother. "have you found what you wanted, sir?" said the clerk, as i closed the register-book. "yes," i replied, "but i have some inquiries still to make. i suppose the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen hundred and three is no longer alive?" "no, no, sir, he was dead three or four years before i came here, and that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. i got this place, sir," persisted my talkative old friend, "through the clerk before me leaving it. they say he was driven out of house and home by his wife--and she's living still down in the new town there. i don't know the rights of the story myself--all i know is i got the place. mr. wansborough got it for me--the son of my old master that i was tell you of. he's a free, pleasant gentleman as ever lived--rides to the hounds, keeps his pointers and all that. he's vestry-clerk here now as his father was before him." "did you not tell me your former master lived at knowlesbury?" i asked, calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman of the old school with which my talkative friend had wearied me before he opened the register-book. "yes, to be sure, sir," replied the clerk. "old mr. wansborough lived at knowlesbury, and young mr. wansborough lives there too." "you said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before him. i am not quite sure that i know what a vestry-clerk is." "don't you indeed, sir?--and you come from london too! every parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. the parish-clerk is a man like me (except that i've got a deal more learning than most of them--though i don't boast of it). the vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get, and if there's any business to be done for the vestry, why there they are to do it. it's just the same in london. every parish church there has got its vestry-clerk--and you may take my word for it he's sure to be a lawyer." "then young mr. wansborough is a lawyer, i suppose?" "of course he is, sir! a lawyer in high street, knowlesbury--the old offices that his father had before him. the number of times i've swept those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting in to business on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street and nodding to everybody! bless you, he was a popular character!--he'd have done in london!" "how far is it to knowlesbury from this place?" "a long stretch, sir," said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea of distances, and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting from place to place, which is peculiar to all country people. "nigh on five mile, i can tell you!" it was still early in the forenoon. there was plenty of time for a walk to knowlesbury and back again to welmingham; and there was no person probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about the character and position of sir percival's mother before her marriage than the local solicitor. resolving to go at once to knowlesbury on foot, i led the way out of the vestry. "thank you kindly, sir," said the clerk, as i slipped my little present into his hand. "are you really going to walk all the way to knowlesbury and back? well! you're strong on your legs, too--and what a blessing that is, isn't it? there's the road, you can't miss it. i wish i was going your way--it's pleasant to meet with gentlemen from london in a lost corner like this. one hears the news. wish you good-morning, sir, and thank you kindly once more." we parted. as i left the church behind me i looked back, and there were the two men again on the road below, with a third in their company, that third person being the short man in black whom i had traced to the railway the evening before. the three stood talking together for a little while, then separated. the man in black went away by himself towards welmingham--the other two remained together, evidently waiting to follow me as soon as i walked on. i proceeded on my way without letting the fellows see that i took any special notice of them. they caused me no conscious irritation of feeling at that moment--on the contrary, they rather revived my sinking hopes. in the surprise of discovering the evidence of the marriage, i had forgotten the inference i had drawn on first perceiving the men in the neighbourhood of the vestry. their reappearance reminded me that sir percival had anticipated my visit to old welmingham church as the next result of my interview with mrs. catherick--otherwise he would never have placed his spies there to wait for me. smoothly and fairly as appearances looked in the vestry, there was something wrong beneath them--there was something in the register-book, for aught i knew, that i had not discovered yet. x once out of sight of the church, i pressed forward briskly on my way to knowlesbury. the road was, for the most part, straight and level. whenever i looked back over it i saw the two spies steadily following me. for the greater part of the way they kept at a safe distance behind. but once or twice they quickened their pace, as if with the purpose of overtaking me, then stopped, consulted together, and fell back again to their former position. they had some special object evidently in view, and they seemed to be hesitating or differing about the best means of accomplishing it. i could not guess exactly what their design might be, but i felt serious doubts of reaching knowlesbury without some mischance happening to me on the way. these doubts were realised. i had just entered on a lonely part of the road, with a sharp turn at some distance ahead, and had just concluded (calculating by time) that i must be getting near to the town, when i suddenly heard the steps of the men close behind me. before i could look round, one of them (the man by whom i had been followed in london) passed rapidly on my left side and hustled me with his shoulder. i had been more irritated by the manner in which he and his companion had dogged my steps all the way from old welmingham than i was myself aware of, and i unfortunately pushed the fellow away smartly with my open hand. he instantly shouted for help. his companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper's clothes, sprang to my right side, and the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned between them in the middle of the road. the conviction that a trap had been laid for me, and the vexation of knowing that i had fallen into it, fortunately restrained me from making my position still worse by an unavailing struggle with two men, one of whom would, in all probability, have been more than a match for me single-handed. i repressed the first natural movement by which i had attempted to shake them off, and looked about to see if there was any person near to whom i could appeal. a labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have witnessed all that had passed. i called to him to follow us to the town. he shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction of a cottage which stood back from the high-road. at the same time the men who held me between them declared their intention of charging me with an assault. i was cool enough and wise enough now to make no opposition. "drop your hold of my arms," i said, "and i will go with you to the town." the man in the gamekeeper's dress roughly refused. but the shorter man was sharp enough to look to consequences, and not to let his companion commit himself by unnecessary violence. he made a sign to the other, and i walked on between them with my arms free. we reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us, were the suburbs of knowlesbury. one of the local policemen was walking along the path by the roadside. the men at once appealed to him. he replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the town-hall, and recommended that we should appear before him immediately. we went on to the town-hall. the clerk made out a formal summons, and the charge was preferred against me, with the customary exaggeration and the customary perversion of the truth on such occasions. the magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour enjoyment in the exercise of his own power) inquired if any one on or near the road had witnessed the assault, and, greatly to my surprise, the complainant admitted the presence of the labourer in the field. i was enlightened, however, as to the object of the admission by the magistrate's next words. he remanded me at once for the production of the witness, expressing, at the same time, his willingness to take bail for my reappearance if i could produce one responsible surety to offer it. if i had been known in the town he would have liberated me on my own recognisances, but as i was a total stranger it was necessary that i should find responsible bail. the whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me. it had been so managed as to make a remand necessary in a town where i was a perfect stranger, and where i could not hope to get my liberty on bail. the remand merely extended over three days, until the next sitting of the magistrate. but in that time, while i was in confinement, sir percival might use any means he pleased to embarrass my future proceedings--perhaps to screen himself from detection altogether--without the slightest fear of any hindrance on my part. at the end of the three days the charge would, no doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of the witness would be perfectly useless. my indignation, i may almost say, my despair, at this mischievous check to all further progress--so base and trifling in itself, and yet so disheartening and so serious in its probable results--quite unfitted me at first to reflect on the best means of extricating myself from the dilemma in which i now stood. i had the folly to call for writing materials, and to think of privately communicating my real position to the magistrate. the hopelessness and the imprudence of this proceeding failed to strike me before i had actually written the opening lines of the letter. it was not till i had pushed the paper away--not till, i am ashamed to say, i had almost allowed the vexation of my helpless position to conquer me--that a course of action suddenly occurred to my mind, which sir percival had probably not anticipated, and which might set me free again in a few hours. i determined to communicate the situation in which i was placed to mr. dawson, of oak lodge. i had visited this gentleman's house, it may be remembered, at the time of my first inquiries in the blackwater park neighbourhood, and i had presented to him a letter of introduction from miss halcombe, in which she recommended me to his friendly attention in the strongest terms. i now wrote, referring to this letter, and to what i had previously told mr. dawson of the delicate and dangerous nature of my inquiries. i had not revealed to him the truth about laura, having merely described my errand as being of the utmost importance to private family interests with which miss halcombe was concerned. using the same caution still, i now accounted for my presence at knowlesbury in the same manner, and i put it to the doctor to say whether the trust reposed in me by a lady whom he well knew, and the hospitality i had myself received in his house, justified me or not in asking him to come to my assistance in a place where i was quite friendless. i obtained permission to hire a messenger to drive away at once with my letter in a conveyance which might be used to bring the doctor back immediately. oak lodge was on the knowlesbury side of blackwater. the man declared he could drive there in forty minutes, and could bring mr. dawson back in forty more. i directed him to follow the doctor wherever he might happen to be, if he was not at home, and then sat down to wait for the result with all the patience and all the hope that i could summon to help me. it was not quite half-past one when the messenger departed. before half-past three he returned, and brought the doctor with him. mr. dawson's kindness, and the delicacy with which he treated his prompt assistance quite as a matter of course, almost overpowered me. the bail required was offered, and accepted immediately. before four o'clock, on that afternoon, i was shaking hands warmly with the good old doctor--a free man again--in the streets of knowlesbury. mr. dawson hospitably invited me to go back with him to oak lodge, and take up my quarters there for the night. i could only reply that my time was not my own, and i could only ask him to let me pay my visit in a few days, when i might repeat my thanks, and offer to him all the explanations which i felt to be only his due, but which i was not then in a position to make. we parted with friendly assurances on both sides, and i turned my steps at once to mr. wansborough's office in the high street. time was now of the last importance. the news of my being free on bail would reach sir percival, to an absolute certainty, before night. if the next few hours did not put me in a position to justify his worst fears, and to hold him helpless at my mercy, i might lose every inch of the ground i had gained, never to recover it again. the unscrupulous nature of the man, the local influence he possessed, the desperate peril of exposure with which my blindfold inquiries threatened him--all warned me to press on to positive discovery, without the useless waste of a single minute. i had found time to think while i was waiting for mr. dawson's arrival, and i had well employed it. certain portions of the conversation of the talkative old clerk, which had wearied me at the time, now recurred to my memory with a new significance, and a suspicion crossed my mind darkly which had not occurred to me while i was in the vestry. on my way to knowlesbury, i had only proposed to apply to mr. wansborough for information on the subject of sir percival's mother. my object now was to examine the duplicate register of old welmingham church. mr. wansborough was in his office when i inquired for him. he was a jovial, red-faced, easy-looking man--more like a country squire than a lawyer--and he seemed to be both surprised and amused by my application. he had heard of his father's copy of the register, but had not even seen it himself. it had never been inquired after, and it was no doubt in the strong room among other papers that had not been disturbed since his father's death. it was a pity (mr. wansborough said) that the old gentleman was not alive to hear his precious copy asked for at last. he would have ridden his favourite hobby harder than ever now. how had i come to hear of the copy? was it through anybody in the town? i parried the question as well as i could. it was impossible at this stage of the investigation to be too cautious, and it was just as well not to let mr. wansborough know prematurely that i had already examined the original register. i described myself, therefore, as pursuing a family inquiry, to the object of which every possible saving of time was of great importance. i was anxious to send certain particulars to london by that day's post, and one look at the duplicate register (paying, of course, the necessary fees) might supply what i required, and save me a further journey to old welmingham. i added that, in the event of my subsequently requiring a copy of the original register, i should make application to mr. wansborough's office to furnish me with the document. after this explanation no objection was made to producing the copy. a clerk was sent to the strong room, and after some delay returned with the volume. it was of exactly the same size as the volume in the vestry, the only difference being that the copy was more smartly bound. i took it with me to an unoccupied desk. my hands were trembling--my head was burning hot--i felt the necessity of concealing my agitation as well as i could from the persons about me in the room, before i ventured on opening the book. on the blank page at the beginning, to which i first turned, were traced some lines in faded ink. they contained these words-- "copy of the marriage register of welmingham parish church. executed under my orders, and afterwards compared, entry by entry, with the original, by myself. (signed) robert wansborough, vestry-clerk." below this note there was a line added, in another handwriting, as follows: "extending from the first of january, , to the thirtieth of june, ." i turned to the month of september, eighteen hundred and three. i found the marriage of the man whose christian name was the same as my own. i found the double register of the marriages of the two brothers. and between these entries, at the bottom of the page? nothing! not a vestige of the entry which recorded the marriage of sir felix glyde and cecilia jane elster in the register of the church! my heart gave a great bound, and throbbed as if it would stifle me. i looked again--i was afraid to believe the evidence of my own eyes. no! not a doubt. the marriage was not there. the entries on the copy occupied exactly the same places on the page as the entries in the original. the last entry on one page recorded the marriage of the man with my christian name. below it there was a blank space--a space evidently left because it was too narrow to contain the entry of the marriages of the two brothers, which in the copy, as in the original, occupied the top of the next page. that space told the whole story! there it must have remained in the church register from eighteen hundred and three (when the marriages had been solemnised and the copy had been made) to eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when sir percival appeared at old welmingham. here, at knowlesbury, was the chance of committing the forgery shown to me in the copy, and there, at old welmingham, was the forgery committed in the register of the church. my head turned giddy--i held by the desk to keep myself from falling. of all the suspicions which had struck me in relation to that desperate man, not one had been near the truth. the idea that he was not sir percival glyde at all, that he had no more claim to the baronetcy and to blackwater park than the poorest labourer who worked on the estate, had never once occurred to my mind. at one time i had thought he might be anne catherick's father--at another time i had thought he might have been anne catherick's husband--the offence of which he was really guilty had been, from first to last, beyond the widest reach of my imagination. the paltry means by which the fraud had been effected, the magnitude and daring of the crime that it represented, the horror of the consequences involved in its discovery, overwhelmed me. who could wonder now at the brute-restlessness of the wretch's life--at his desperate alternations between abject duplicity and reckless violence--at the madness of guilty distrust which had made him imprison anne catherick in the asylum, and had given him over to the vile conspiracy against his wife, on the bare suspicion that the one and the other knew his terrible secret? the disclosure of that secret might, in past years, have hanged him--might now transport him for life. the disclosure of that secret, even if the sufferers by his deception spared him the penalties of the law, would deprive him at one blow of the name, the rank, the estate, the whole social existence that he had usurped. this was the secret, and it was mine! a word from me, and house, lands, baronetcy, were gone from him for ever--a word from me, and he was driven out into the world, a nameless, penniless, friendless outcast! the man's whole future hung on my lips--and he knew it by this time as certainly as i did! that last thought steadied me. interests far more precious than my own depended on the caution which must now guide my slightest actions. there was no possible treachery which sir percival might not attempt against me. in the danger and desperation of his position he would be staggered by no risks, he would recoil at no crime--he would literally hesitate at nothing to save himself. i considered for a minute. my first necessity was to secure positive evidence in writing of the discovery that i had just made, and in the event of any personal misadventure happening to me, to place that evidence beyond sir percival's reach. the copy of the register was sure to be safe in mr. wansborough's strong room. but the position of the original in the vestry was, as i had seen with my own eyes, anything but secure. in this emergency i resolved to return to the church, to apply again to the clerk, and to take the necessary extract from the register before i slept that night. i was not then aware that a legally-certified copy was necessary, and that no document merely drawn out by myself could claim the proper importance as a proof. i was not aware of this, and my determination to keep my present proceedings a secret prevented me from asking any questions which might have procured the necessary information. my one anxiety was the anxiety to get back to old welmingham. i made the best excuses i could for the discomposure in my face and manner which mr. wansborough had already noticed, laid the necessary fee on his table, arranged that i should write to him in a day or two, and left the office, with my head in a whirl and my blood throbbing through my veins at fever heat. it was just getting dark. the idea occurred to me that i might be followed again and attacked on the high-road. my walking-stick was a light one, of little or no use for purposes of defence. i stopped before leaving knowlesbury and bought a stout country cudgel, short, and heavy at the head. with this homely weapon, if any one man tried to stop me i was a match for him. if more than one attacked me i could trust to my heels. in my school-days i had been a noted runner, and i had not wanted for practice since in the later time of my experience in central america. i started from the town at a brisk pace, and kept the middle of the road. a small misty rain was falling, and it was impossible for the first half of the way to make sure whether i was followed or not. but at the last half of my journey, when i supposed myself to be about two miles from the church, i saw a man run by me in the rain, and then heard the gate of a field by the roadside shut to sharply. i kept straight on, with my cudgel ready in my hand, my ears on the alert, and my eyes straining to see through the mist and the darkness. before i had advanced a hundred yards there was a rustling in the hedge on my right, and three men sprang out into the road. i drew aside on the instant to the footpath. the two foremost men were carried beyond me before they could check themselves. the third was as quick as lightning. he stopped, half turned, and struck at me with his stick. the blow was aimed at hazard, and was not a severe one. it fell on my left shoulder. i returned it heavily on his head. he staggered back and jostled his two companions just as they were both rushing at me. this circumstance gave me a moment's start. i slipped by them, and took to the middle of the road again at the top of my speed. the two unhurt men pursued me. they were both good runners--the road was smooth and level, and for the first five minutes or more i was conscious that i did not gain on them. it was perilous work to run for long in the darkness. i could barely see the dim black line of the hedges on either side, and any chance obstacle in the road would have thrown me down to a certainty. ere long i felt the ground changing--it descended from the level at a turn, and then rose again beyond. downhill the men rather gained on me, but uphill i began to distance them. the rapid, regular thump of their feet grew fainter on my ear, and i calculated by the sound that i was far enough in advance to take to the fields with a good chance of their passing me in the darkness. diverging to the footpath, i made for the first break that i could guess at, rather than see, in the hedge. it proved to be a closed gate. i vaulted over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it steadily with my back to the road. i heard the men pass the gate, still running, then in a minute more heard one of them call to the other to come back. it was no matter what they did now, i was out of their sight and out of their hearing. i kept straight across the field, and when i had reached the farther extremity of it, waited there for a minute to recover my breath. it was impossible to venture back to the road, but i was determined nevertheless to get to old welmingham that evening. neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me. i only knew that i had kept the wind and rain at my back on leaving knowlesbury, and if i now kept them at my back still, i might at least be certain of not advancing altogether in the wrong direction. proceeding on this plan, i crossed the country--meeting with no worse obstacles than hedges, ditches, and thickets, which every now and then obliged me to alter my course for a little while--until i found myself on a hill-side, with the ground sloping away steeply before me. i descended to the bottom of the hollow, squeezed my way through a hedge, and got out into a lane. having turned to the right on leaving the road, i now turned to the left, on the chance of regaining the line from which i had wandered. after following the muddy windings of the lane for ten minutes or more, i saw a cottage with a light in one of the windows. the garden gate was open to the lane, and i went in at once to inquire my way. before i could knock at the door it was suddenly opened, and a man came running out with a lighted lantern in his hand. he stopped and held it up at the sight of me. we both started as we saw each other. my wanderings had led me round the outskirts of the village, and had brought me out at the lower end of it. i was back at old welmingham, and the man with the lantern was no other than my acquaintance of the morning, the parish clerk. his manner appeared to have altered strangely in the interval since i had last seen him. he looked suspicious and confused--his ruddy cheeks were deeply flushed--and his first words, when he spoke, were quite unintelligible to me. "where are the keys?" he asked. "have you taken them?" "what keys?" i repeated. "i have this moment come from knowlesbury. what keys do you mean?" "the keys of the vestry. lord save us and help us! what shall i do? the keys are gone! do you hear?" cried the old man, shaking the lantern at me in his agitation, "the keys are gone!" "how? when? who can have taken them?" "i don't know," said the clerk, staring about him wildly in the darkness. "i've only just got back. i told you i had a long day's work this morning--i locked the door and shut the window down--it's open now, the window's open. look! somebody has got in there and taken the keys." he turned to the casement window to show me that it was wide open. the door of the lantern came loose from its fastening as he swayed it round, and the wind blew the candle out instantly. "get another light," i said, "and let us both go to the vestry together. quick! quick!" i hurried him into the house. the treachery that i had every reason to expect, the treachery that might deprive me of every advantage i had gained, was at that moment, perhaps, in process of accomplishment. my impatience to reach the church was so great that i could not remain inactive in the cottage while the clerk lit the lantern again. i walked out, down the garden path, into the lane. before i had advanced ten paces a man approached me from the direction leading to the church. he spoke respectfully as we met. i could not see his face, but judging by his voice only, he was a perfect stranger to me. "i beg your pardon, sir percival----" he began. i stopped him before he could say more. "the darkness misleads you," i said. "i am not sir percival." the man drew back directly. "i thought it was my master," he muttered, in a confused, doubtful way. "you expected to meet your master here?" "i was told to wait in the lane." with that answer he retraced his steps. i looked back at the cottage and saw the clerk coming out, with the lantern lighted once more. i took the old man's arm to help him on the more quickly. we hastened along the lane, and passed the person who had accosted me. as well as i could see by the light of the lantern, he was a servant out of livery. "who's that?" whispered the clerk. "does he know anything about the keys?" "we won't wait to ask him," i replied. "we will go on to the vestry first." the church was not visible, even by daytime, until the end of the lane was reached. as we mounted the rising ground which led to the building from that point, one of the village children--a boy--came close up to us, attracted by the light we carried, and recognised the clerk. "i say, measter," said the boy, pulling officiously at the clerk's coat, "there be summun up yander in the church. i heerd un lock the door on hisself--i heerd un strike a loight wi' a match." the clerk trembled and leaned against me heavily. "come! come!" i said encouragingly. "we are not too late. we will catch the man, whoever he is. keep the lantern, and follow me as fast as you can." i mounted the hill rapidly. the dark mass of the church-tower was the first object i discerned dimly against the night sky. as i turned aside to get round to the vestry, i heard heavy footsteps close to me. the servant had ascended to the church after us. "i don't mean any harm," he said, when i turned round on him, "i'm only looking for my master." the tones in which he spoke betrayed unmistakable fear. i took no notice of him and went on. the instant i turned the corner and came in view of the vestry, i saw the lantern-skylight on the roof brilliantly lit up from within. it shone out with dazzling brightness against the murky, starless sky. i hurried through the churchyard to the door. as i got near there was a strange smell stealing out on the damp night air. i heard a snapping noise inside--i saw the light above grow brighter and brighter--a pane of the glass cracked--i ran to the door and put my hand on it. the vestry was on fire! before i could move, before i could draw my breath after that discovery, i was horror-struck by a heavy thump against the door from the inside. i heard the key worked violently in the lock--i heard a man's voice behind the door, raised to a dreadful shrillness, screaming for help. the servant who had followed me staggered back shuddering, and dropped to his knees. "oh, my god!" he said, "it's sir percival!" as the words passed his lips the clerk joined us, and at the same moment there was another and a last grating turn of the key in the lock. "the lord have mercy on his soul!" said the old man. "he is doomed and dead. he has hampered the lock." i rushed to the door. the one absorbing purpose that had filled all my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions, for weeks and weeks past, vanished in an instant from my mind. all remembrance of the heartless injury the man's crimes had inflicted--of the love, the innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste--of the oath i had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning that he deserved--passed from my memory like a dream. i remembered nothing but the horror of his situation. i felt nothing but the natural human impulse to save him from a frightful death. "try the other door!" i shouted. "try the door into the church! the lock's hampered. you're a dead man if you waste another moment on it." there had been no renewed cry for help when the key was turned for the last time. there was no sound now of any kind, to give token that he was still alive. i heard nothing but the quickening crackle of the flames, and the sharp snap of the glass in the skylight above. i looked round at my two companions. the servant had risen to his feet--he had taken the lantern, and was holding it up vacantly at the door. terror seemed to have struck him with downright idiocy--he waited at my heels, he followed me about when i moved like a dog. the clerk sat crouched up on one of the tombstones, shivering, and moaning to himself. the one moment in which i looked at them was enough to show me that they were both helpless. hardly knowing what i did, acting desperately on the first impulse that occurred to me, i seized the servant and pushed him against the vestry wall. "stoop!" i said, "and hold by the stones. i am going to climb over you to the roof--i am going to break the skylight, and give him some air!" the man trembled from head to foot, but he held firm. i got on his back, with my cudgel in my mouth, seized the parapet with both hands, and was instantly on the roof. in the frantic hurry and agitation of the moment, it never struck me that i might let out the flame instead of letting in the air. i struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow. the fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. if the wind had not chanced, in the position i occupied, to set it away from me, my exertions might have ended then and there. i crouched on the roof as the smoke poured out above me with the flame. the gleams and flashes of the light showed me the servant's face staring up vacantly under the wall--the clerk risen to his feet on the tombstone, wringing his hands in despair--and the scanty population of the village, haggard men and terrified women, clustered beyond in the churchyard--all appearing and disappearing, in the red of the dreadful glare, in the black of the choking smoke. and the man beneath my feet!--the man, suffocating, burning, dying so near us all, so utterly beyond our reach! the thought half maddened me. i lowered myself from the roof, by my hands, and dropped to the ground. "the key of the church!" i shouted to the clerk. "we must try it that way--we may save him yet if we can burst open the inner door." "no, no, no!" cried the old man. "no hope! the church key and the vestry key are on the same ring--both inside there! oh, sir, he's past saving--he's dust and ashes by this time!" "they'll see the fire from the town," said a voice from among the men behind me. "there's a ingine in the town. they'll save the church." i called to that man--he had his wits about him--i called to him to come and speak to me. it would be a quarter of an hour at least before the town engine could reach us. the horror of remaining inactive all that time was more than i could face. in defiance of my own reason i persuaded myself that the doomed and lost wretch in the vestry might still be lying senseless on the floor, might not be dead yet. if we broke open the door, might we save him? i knew the strength of the heavy lock--i knew the thickness of the nailed oak--i knew the hopelessness of assailing the one and the other by ordinary means. but surely there were beams still left in the dismantled cottages near the church? what if we got one, and used it as a battering-ram against the door? the thought leaped through me like the fire leaping out of the shattered skylight. i appealed to the man who had spoken first of the fire-engine in the town. "have you got your pickaxes handy?" yes, they had. "and a hatchet, and a saw, and a bit of rope?" yes! yes! yes! i ran down among the villagers, with the lantern in my hand. "five shillings apiece to every man who helps me!" they started into life at the words. that ravenous second hunger of poverty--the hunger for money--roused them into tumult and activity in a moment. "two of you for more lanterns, if you have them! two of you for the pickaxes and the tools! the rest after me to find the beam!" they cheered--with shrill starveling voices they cheered. the women and the children fled back on either side. we rushed in a body down the churchyard path to the first empty cottage. not a man was left behind but the clerk--the poor old clerk standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing over the church. the servant was still at my heels--his white, helpless, panic-stricken face was close over my shoulder as we pushed into the cottage. there were rafters from the torn-down floor above, lying loose on the ground--but they were too light. a beam ran across over our heads, but not out of reach of our arms and our pickaxes--a beam fast at each end in the ruined wall, with ceiling and flooring all ripped away, and a great gap in the roof above, open to the sky. we attacked the beam at both ends at once. god! how it held--how the brick and mortar of the wall resisted us! we struck, and tugged, and tore. the beam gave at one end--it came down with a lump of brickwork after it. there was a scream from the women all huddled in the doorway to look at us--a shout from the men--two of them down but not hurt. another tug all together--and the beam was loose at both ends. we raised it, and gave the word to clear the doorway. now for the work! now for the rush at the door! there is the fire streaming into the sky, streaming brighter than ever to light us! steady along the churchyard path--steady with the beam for a rush at the door. one, two, three--and off. out rings the cheering again, irrepressibly. we have shaken it already, the hinges must give if the lock won't. another run with the beam! one, two, three--and off. it's loose! the stealthy fire darts at us through the crevice all round it. another, and a last rush! the door falls in with a crash. a great hush of awe, a stillness of breathless expectation, possesses every living soul of us. we look for the body. the scorching heat on our faces drives us back: we see nothing--above, below, all through the room, we see nothing but a sheet of living fire. "where is he?" whispered the servant, staring vacantly at the flames. "he's dust and ashes," said the clerk. "and the books are dust and ashes--and oh, sirs! the church will be dust and ashes soon." those were the only two who spoke. when they were silent again, nothing stirred in the stillness but the bubble and the crackle of the flames. hark! a harsh rattling sound in the distance--then the hollow beat of horses' hoofs at full gallop--then the low roar, the all-predominant tumult of hundreds of human voices clamouring and shouting together. the engine at last. the people about me all turned from the fire, and ran eagerly to the brow of the hill. the old clerk tried to go with the rest, but his strength was exhausted. i saw him holding by one of the tombstones. "save the church!" he cried out faintly, as if the firemen could hear him already. save the church! the only man who never moved was the servant. there he stood, his eyes still fastened on the flames in a changeless, vacant stare. i spoke to him, i shook him by the arm. he was past rousing. he only whispered once more, "where is he?" in ten minutes the engine was in position, the well at the back of the church was feeding it, and the hose was carried to the doorway of the vestry. if help had been wanted from me i could not have afforded it now. my energy of will was gone--my strength was exhausted--the turmoil of my thoughts was fearfully and suddenly stilled, now i knew that he was dead. i stood useless and helpless--looking, looking, looking into the burning room. i saw the fire slowly conquered. the brightness of the glare faded--the steam rose in white clouds, and the smouldering heaps of embers showed red and black through it on the floor. there was a pause--then an advance all together of the firemen and the police which blocked up the doorway--then a consultation in low voices--and then two men were detached from the rest, and sent out of the churchyard through the crowd. the crowd drew back on either side in dead silence to let them pass. after a while a great shudder ran through the people, and the living lane widened slowly. the men came back along it with a door from one of the empty houses. they carried it to the vestry and went in. the police closed again round the doorway, and men stole out from among the crowd by twos and threes and stood behind them to be the first to see. others waited near to be the first to hear. women and children were among these last. the tidings from the vestry began to flow out among the crowd--they dropped slowly from mouth to mouth till they reached the place where i was standing. i heard the questions and answers repeated again and again in low, eager tones all round me. "have they found him?" "yes."--"where?" "against the door, on his face."--"which door?" "the door that goes into the church. his head was against it--he was down on his face."--"is his face burnt?" "no." "yes, it is." "no, scorched, not burnt--he lay on his face, i tell you."--"who was he? a lord, they say." "no, not a lord. sir something; sir means knight." "and baronight, too." "no." "yes, it does."--"what did he want in there?" "no good, you may depend on it."--"did he do it on purpose?"--"burn himself on purpose!"--"i don't mean himself, i mean the vestry."--"is he dreadful to look at?" "dreadful!"--"not about the face, though?" "no, no, not so much about the face. don't anybody know him?" "there's a man says he does."--"who?" "a servant, they say. but he's struck stupid-like, and the police don't believe him."--"don't anybody else know who it is?" "hush----!" the loud, clear voice of a man in authority silenced the low hum of talking all round me in an instant. "where is the gentleman who tried to save him?" said the voice. "here, sir--here he is!" dozens of eager faces pressed about me--dozens of eager arms parted the crowd. the man in authority came up to me with a lantern in his hand. "this way, sir, if you please," he said quietly. i was unable to speak to him, i was unable to resist him when he took my arm. i tried to say that i had never seen the dead man in his lifetime--that there was no hope of identifying him by means of a stranger like me. but the words failed on my lips. i was faint, and silent, and helpless. "do you know him, sir?" i was standing inside a circle of men. three of them opposite to me were holding lanterns low down to the ground. their eyes, and the eyes of all the rest, were fixed silently and expectantly on my face. i knew what was at my feet--i knew why they were holding the lanterns so low to the ground. "can you identify him, sir?" my eyes dropped slowly. at first i saw nothing under them but a coarse canvas cloth. the dripping of the rain on it was audible in the dreadful silence. i looked up, along the cloth, and there at the end, stark and grim and black, in the yellow light--there was his dead face. so, for the first and last time, i saw him. so the visitation of god ruled it that he and i should meet. xi the inquest was hurried for certain local reasons which weighed with the coroner and the town authorities. it was held on the afternoon of the next day. i was necessarily one among the witnesses summoned to assist the objects of the investigation. my first proceeding in the morning was to go to the post-office, and inquire for the letter which i expected from marian. no change of circumstances, however extraordinary, could affect the one great anxiety which weighed on my mind while i was away from london. the morning's letter, which was the only assurance i could receive that no misfortune had happened in my absence, was still the absorbing interest with which my day began. to my relief, the letter from marian was at the office waiting for me. nothing had happened--they were both as safe and as well as when i had left them. laura sent her love, and begged that i would let her know of my return a day beforehand. her sister added, in explanation of this message, that she had saved "nearly a sovereign" out of her own private purse, and that she had claimed the privilege of ordering the dinner and giving the dinner which was to celebrate the day of my return. i read these little domestic confidences in the bright morning with the terrible recollection of what had happened the evening before vivid in my memory. the necessity of sparing laura any sudden knowledge of the truth was the first consideration which the letter suggested to me. i wrote at once to marian to tell her what i have told in these pages--presenting the tidings as gradually and gently as i could, and warning her not to let any such thing as a newspaper fall in laura's way while i was absent. in the case of any other woman, less courageous and less reliable, i might have hesitated before i ventured on unreservedly disclosing the whole truth. but i owed it to marian to be faithful to my past experience of her, and to trust her as i trusted herself. my letter was necessarily a long one. it occupied me until the time came for proceeding to the inquest. the objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily beset by peculiar complications and difficulties. besides the investigation into the manner in which the deceased had met his death, there were serious questions to be settled relating to the cause of the fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time when the flames broke out. even the identification of the dead man had not yet been accomplished. the helpless condition of the servant had made the police distrustful of his asserted recognition of his master. they had sent to knowlesbury overnight to secure the attendance of witnesses who were well acquainted with the personal appearance of sir percival glyde, and they had communicated, the first thing in the morning, with blackwater park. these precautions enabled the coroner and jury to settle the question of identity, and to confirm the correctness of the servant's assertion; the evidence offered by competent witnesses, and by the discovery of certain facts, being subsequently strengthened by an examination of the dead man's watch. the crest and the name of sir percival glyde were engraved inside it. the next inquiries related to the fire. the servant and i, and the boy who had heard the light struck in the vestry, were the first witnesses called. the boy gave his evidence clearly enough, but the servant's mind had not yet recovered the shock inflicted on it--he was plainly incapable of assisting the objects of the inquiry, and he was desired to stand down. to my own relief, my examination was not a long one. i had not known the deceased--i had never seen him--i was not aware of his presence at old welmingham--and i had not been in the vestry at the finding of the body. all i could prove was that i had stopped at the clerk's cottage to ask my way--that i had heard from him of the loss of the keys--that i had accompanied him to the church to render what help i could--that i had seen the fire--that i had heard some person unknown, inside the vestry, trying vainly to unlock the door--and that i had done what i could, from motives of humanity, to save the man. other witnesses, who had been acquainted with the deceased, were asked if they could explain the mystery of his presumed abstraction of the keys, and his presence in the burning room. but the coroner seemed to take it for granted, naturally enough, that i, as a total stranger in the neighbourhood, and a total stranger to sir percival glyde, could not be in a position to offer any evidence on these two points. the course that i was myself bound to take, when my formal examination had closed, seemed clear to me. i did not feel called on to volunteer any statement of my own private convictions; in the first place, because my doing so could serve no practical purpose, now that all proof in support of any surmises of mine was burnt with the burnt register; in the second place, because i could not have intelligibly stated my opinion--my unsupported opinion--without disclosing the whole story of the conspiracy, and producing beyond a doubt the same unsatisfactory effect an the minds of the coroner and the jury, which i had already produced on the mind of mr. kyrle. in these pages, however, and after the time that has now elapsed, no such cautions and restraints as are here described need fetter the free expression of my opinion. i will state briefly, before my pen occupies itself with other events, how my own convictions lead me to account for the abstraction of the keys, for the outbreak of the fire, and for the death of the man. the news of my being free on bail drove sir percival, as i believe, to his last resources. the attempted attack on the road was one of those resources, and the suppression of all practical proof of his crime, by destroying the page of the register on which the forgery had been committed, was the other, and the surest of the two. if i could produce no extract from the original book to compare with the certified copy at knowlesbury, i could produce no positive evidence, and could threaten him with no fatal exposure. all that was necessary to the attainment of his end was, that he should get into the vestry unperceived, that he should tear out the page in the register, and that he should leave the vestry again as privately as he had entered it. on this supposition, it is easy to understand why he waited until nightfall before he made the attempt, and why he took advantage of the clerk's absence to possess himself of the keys. necessity would oblige him to strike a light to find his way to the right register, and common caution would suggest his locking the door on the inside in case of intrusion on the part of any inquisitive stranger, or on my part, if i happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time. i cannot believe that it was any part of his intention to make the destruction of the register appear to be the result of accident, by purposely setting the vestry on fire. the bare chance that prompt assistance might arrive, and that the books might, by the remotest possibility, be saved, would have been enough, on a moment's consideration, to dismiss any idea of this sort from his mind. remembering the quantity of combustible objects in the vestry--the straw, the papers, the packing-cases, the dry wood, the old worm-eaten presses--all the probabilities, in my estimation, point to the fire as the result of an accident with his matches or his light. his first impulse, under these circumstances, was doubtless to try to extinguish the flames, and failing in that, his second impulse (ignorant as he was of the state of the lock) had been to attempt to escape by the door which had given him entrance. when i had called to him, the flames must have reached across the door leading into the church, on either side of which the presses extended, and close to which the other combustible objects were placed. in all probability, the smoke and flame (confined as they were to the room) had been too much for him when he tried to escape by the inner door. he must have dropped in his death-swoon--he must have sunk in the place where he was found--just as i got on the roof to break the skylight window. even if we had been able, afterwards, to get into the church, and to burst open the door from that side, the delay must have been fatal. he would have been past saving, long past saving, by that time. we should only have given the flames free ingress into the church--the church, which was now preserved, but which, in that event, would have shared the fate of the vestry. there is no doubt in my mind, there can be no doubt in the mind of any one, that he was a dead man before ever we got to the empty cottage, and worked with might and main to tear down the beam. this is the nearest approach that any theory of mine can make towards accounting for a result which was visible matter of fact. as i have described them, so events passed to us outside. as i have related it, so his body was found. the inquest was adjourned over one day--no explanation that the eye of the law could recognise having been discovered thus far to account for the mysterious circumstances of the case. it was arranged that more witnesses should be summoned, and that the london solicitor of the deceased should be invited to attend. a medical man was also charged with the duty of reporting on the mental condition of the servant, which appeared at present to debar him from giving any evidence of the least importance. he could only declare, in a dazed way, that he had been ordered, on the night of the fire, to wait in the lane, and that he knew nothing else, except that the deceased was certainly his master. my own impression was, that he had been first used (without any guilty knowledge on his own part) to ascertain the fact of the clerk's absence from home on the previous day, and that he had been afterwards ordered to wait near the church (but out of sight of the vestry) to assist his master, in the event of my escaping the attack on the road, and of a collision occurring between sir percival and myself. it is necessary to add, that the man's own testimony was never obtained to confirm this view. the medical report of him declared that what little mental faculty he possessed was seriously shaken; nothing satisfactory was extracted from him at the adjourned inquest, and for aught i know to the contrary, he may never have recovered to this day. i returned to the hotel at welmingham so jaded in body and mind, so weakened and depressed by all that i had gone through, as to be quite unfit to endure the local gossip about the inquest, and to answer the trivial questions that the talkers addressed to me in the coffee-room. i withdrew from my scanty dinner to my cheap garret-chamber to secure myself a little quiet, and to think undisturbed of laura and marian. if i had been a richer man i would have gone back to london, and would have comforted myself with a sight of the two dear faces again that night. but i was bound to appear, if called on, at the adjourned inquest, and doubly bound to answer my bail before the magistrate at knowlesbury. our slender resources had suffered already, and the doubtful future--more doubtful than ever now--made me dread decreasing our means unnecessarily by allowing myself an indulgence even at the small cost of a double railway journey in the carriages of the second class. the next day--the day immediately following the inquest--was left at my own disposal. i began the morning by again applying at the post-office for my regular report from marian. it was waiting for me as before, and it was written throughout in good spirits. i read the letter thankfully, and then set forth with my mind at ease for the day to go to old welmingham, and to view the scene of the fire by the morning light. what changes met me when i got there! through all the ways of our unintelligible world the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together. the irony of circumstances holds no mortal catastrophe in respect. when i reached the church, the trampled condition of the burial-ground was the only serious trace left to tell of the fire and the death. a rough hoarding of boards had been knocked up before the vestry doorway. rude caricatures were scrawled on it already, and the village children were fighting and shouting for the possession of the best peep-hole to see through. on the spot where i had heard the cry for help from the burning room, on the spot where the panic-stricken servant had dropped on his knees, a fussy flock of poultry was now scrambling for the first choice of worms after the rain; and on the ground at my feet, where the door and its dreadful burden had been laid, a workman's dinner was waiting for him, tied up in a yellow basin, and his faithful cur in charge was yelping at me for coming near the food. the old clerk, looking idly at the slow commencement of the repairs, had only one interest that he could talk about now--the interest of escaping all blame for his own part on account of the accident that had happened. one of the village women, whose white wild face i remembered the picture of terror when we pulled down the beam, was giggling with another woman, the picture of inanity, over an old washing-tub. there is nothing serious in mortality! solomon in all his glory was solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace. as i left the place, my thoughts turned, not for the first time, to the complete overthrow that all present hope of establishing laura's identity had now suffered through sir percival's death. he was gone--and with him the chance was gone which had been the one object of all my labours and all my hopes. could i look at my failure from no truer point of view than this? suppose he had lived, would that change of circumstance have altered the result? could i have made my discovery a marketable commodity, even for laura's sake, after i had found out that robbery of the rights of others was the essence of sir percival's crime? could i have offered the price of my silence for his confession of the conspiracy, when the effect of that silence must have been to keep the right heir from the estates, and the right owner from the name? impossible! if sir percival had lived, the discovery, from which (in my ignorance of the true nature of the secret) i had hoped so much, could not have been mine to suppress or to make public, as i thought best, for the vindication of laura's rights. in common honesty and common honour i must have gone at once to the stranger whose birthright had been usurped--i must have renounced the victory at the moment when it was mine by placing my discovery unreservedly in that stranger's hands--and i must have faced afresh all the difficulties which stood between me and the one object of my life, exactly as i was resolved in my heart of hearts to face them now! i returned to welmingham with my mind composed, feeling more sure of myself and my resolution than i had felt yet. on my way to the hotel i passed the end of the square in which mrs. catherick lived. should i go back to the house, and make another attempt to see her. no. that news of sir percival's death, which was the last news she ever expected to hear, must have reached her hours since. all the proceedings at the inquest had been reported in the local paper that morning--there was nothing i could tell her which she did not know already. my interest in making her speak had slackened. i remembered the furtive hatred in her face when she said, "there is no news of sir percival that i don't expect--except the news of his death." i remembered the stealthy interest in her eyes when they settled on me at parting, after she had spoken those words. some instinct, deep in my heart, which i felt to be a true one, made the prospect of again entering her presence repulsive to me--i turned away from the square, and went straight back to the hotel. some hours later, while i was resting in the coffee-room, a letter was placed in my hands by the waiter. it was addressed to me by name, and i found on inquiry that it had been left at the bar by a woman just as it was near dusk, and just before the gas was lighted. she had said nothing, and she had gone away again before there was time to speak to her, or even to notice who she was. i opened the letter. it was neither dated nor signed, and the handwriting was palpably disguised. before i had read the first sentence, however, i knew who my correspondent was--mrs. catherick. the letter ran as follows--i copy it exactly, word for word:-- the story continued by mrs. catherick sir,--you have not come back, as you said you would. no matter--i know the news, and i write to tell you so. did you see anything particular in my face when you left me? i was wondering, in my own mind, whether the day of his downfall had come at last, and whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. you were, and you have worked it. you were weak enough, as i have heard, to try and save his life. if you had succeeded, i should have looked upon you as my enemy. now you have failed, i hold you as my friend. your inquiries frightened him into the vestry by night--your inquiries, without your privity and against your will, have served the hatred and wreaked the vengeance of three-and-twenty years. thank you, sir, in spite of yourself. i owe something to the man who has done this. how can i pay my debt? if i was a young woman still i might say, "come, put your arm round my waist, and kiss me, if you like." i should have been fond enough of you even to go that length, and you would have accepted my invitation--you would, sir, twenty years ago! but i am an old woman now. well! i can satisfy your curiosity, and pay my debt in that way. you had a great curiosity to know certain private affairs of mine when you came to see me--private affairs which all your sharpness could not look into without my help--private affairs which you have not discovered, even now. you shall discover them--your curiosity shall be satisfied. i will take any trouble to please you, my estimable young friend! you were a little boy, i suppose, in the year twenty-seven? i was a handsome young woman at that time, living at old welmingham. i had a contemptible fool for a husband. i had also the honour of being acquainted (never mind how) with a certain gentleman (never mind whom). i shall not call him by his name. why should i? it was not his own. he never had a name: you know that, by this time, as well as i do. it will be more to the purpose to tell you how he worked himself into my good graces. i was born with the tastes of a lady, and he gratified them--in other words, he admired me, and he made me presents. no woman can resist admiration and presents--especially presents, provided they happen to be just the thing she wants. he was sharp enough to know that--most men are. naturally he wanted something in return--all men do. and what do you think was the something? the merest trifle. nothing but the key of the vestry, and the key of the press inside it, when my husband's back was turned. of course he lied when i asked him why he wished me to get him the keys in that private way. he might have saved himself the trouble--i didn't believe him. but i liked my presents, and i wanted more. so i got him the keys, without my husband's knowledge, and i watched him, without his own knowledge. once, twice, four times i watched him, and the fourth time i found him out. i was never over-scrupulous where other people's affairs were concerned, and i was not over-scrupulous about his adding one to the marriages in the register on his own account. of course i knew it was wrong, but it did no harm to me, which was one good reason for not making a fuss about it. and i had not got a gold watch and chain, which was another, still better--and he had promised me one from london only the day before, which was a third, best of all. if i had known what the law considered the crime to be, and how the law punished it, i should have taken proper care of myself, and have exposed him then and there. but i knew nothing, and i longed for the gold watch. all the conditions i insisted on were that he should take me into his confidence and tell me everything. i was as curious about his affairs then as you are about mine now. he granted my conditions--why, you will see presently. this, put in short, is what i heard from him. he did not willingly tell me all that i tell you here. i drew some of it from him by persuasion and some of it by questions. i was determined to have all the truth, and i believe i got it. he knew no more than any one else of what the state of things really was between his father and mother till after his mother's death. then his father confessed it, and promised to do what he could for his son. he died having done nothing--not having even made a will. the son (who can blame him?) wisely provided for himself. he came to england at once, and took possession of the property. there was no one to suspect him, and no one to say him nay. his father and mother had always lived as man and wife--none of the few people who were acquainted with them ever supposed them to be anything else. the right person to claim the property (if the truth had been known) was a distant relation, who had no idea of ever getting it, and who was away at sea when his father died. he had no difficulty so far--he took possession, as a matter of course. but he could not borrow money on the property as a matter of course. there were two things wanted of him before he could do this. one was a certificate of his birth, and the other was a certificate of his parents' marriage. the certificate of his birth was easily got--he was born abroad, and the certificate was there in due form. the other matter was a difficulty, and that difficulty brought him to old welmingham. but for one consideration he might have gone to knowlesbury instead. his mother had been living there just before she met with his father--living under her maiden name, the truth being that she was really a married woman, married in ireland, where her husband had ill-used her, and had afterwards gone off with some other person. i give you this fact on good authority--sir felix mentioned it to his son as the reason why he had not married. you may wonder why the son, knowing that his parents had met each other at knowlesbury, did not play his first tricks with the register of that church, where it might have been fairly presumed his father and mother were married. the reason was that the clergyman who did duty at knowlesbury church, in the year eighteen hundred and three (when, according to his birth certificate, his father and mother ought to have been married), was alive still when he took possession of the property in the new year of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven. this awkward circumstance forced him to extend his inquiries to our neighbourhood. there no such danger existed, the former clergyman at our church having been dead for some years. old welmingham suited his purpose as well as knowlesbury. his father had removed his mother from knowlesbury, and had lived with her at a cottage on the river, a little distance from our village. people who had known his solitary ways when he was single did not wonder at his solitary ways when he was supposed to be married. if he had not been a hideous creature to look at, his retired life with the lady might have raised suspicions; but, as things were, his hiding his ugliness and his deformity in the strictest privacy surprised nobody. he lived in our neighbourhood till he came in possession of the park. after three or four and twenty years had passed, who was to say (the clergyman being dead) that his marriage had not been as private as the rest of his life, and that it had not taken place at old welmingham church? so, as i told you, the son found our neighbourhood the surest place he could choose to set things right secretly in his own interests. it may surprise you to hear that what he really did to the marriage register was done on the spur of the moment--done on second thoughts. his first notion was only to tear the leaf out (in the right year and month), to destroy it privately, to go back to london, and to tell the lawyers to get him the necessary certificate of his father's marriage, innocently referring them of course to the date on the leaf that was gone. nobody could say his father and mother had not been married after that, and whether, under the circumstances, they would stretch a point or not about lending him the money (he thought they would), he had his answer ready at all events, if a question was ever raised about his right to the name and the estate. but when he came to look privately at the register for himself, he found at the bottom of one of the pages for the year eighteen hundred and three a blank space left, seemingly through there being no room to make a long entry there, which was made instead at the top of the next page. the sight of this chance altered all his plans. it was an opportunity he had never hoped for, or thought of--and he took it--you know how. the blank space, to have exactly tallied with his birth certificate, ought to have occurred in the july part of the register. it occurred in the september part instead. however, in this case, if suspicious questions were asked, the answer was not hard to find. he had only to describe himself as a seven months' child. i was fool enough, when he told me his story, to feel some interest and some pity for him--which was just what he calculated on, as you will see. i thought him hardly used. it was not his fault that his father and mother were not married, and it was not his father's and mother's fault either. a more scrupulous woman than i was--a woman who had not set her heart on a gold watch and chain--would have found some excuses for him. at all events, i held my tongue, and helped to screen what he was about. he was some time getting the ink the right colour (mixing it over and over again in pots and bottles of mine), and some time afterwards in practising the handwriting. but he succeeded in the end, and made an honest woman of his mother after she was dead in her grave! so far, i don't deny that he behaved honourably enough to myself. he gave me my watch and chain, and spared no expense in buying them; both were of superior workmanship, and very expensive. i have got them still--the watch goes beautifully. you said the other day that mrs. clements had told you everything she knew. in that case there is no need for me to write about the trumpery scandal by which i was the sufferer--the innocent sufferer, i positively assert. you must know as well as i do what the notion was which my husband took into his head when he found me and my fine-gentleman acquaintance meeting each other privately and talking secrets together. but what you don't know is how it ended between that same gentleman and myself. you shall read and see how he behaved to me. the first words i said to him, when i saw the turn things had taken, were, "do me justice--clear my character of a stain on it which you know i don't deserve. i don't want you to make a clean breast of it to my husband--only tell him, on your word of honour as a gentleman, that he is wrong, and that i am not to blame in the way he thinks i am. do me that justice, at least, after all i have done for you." he flatly refused, in so many words. he told me plainly that it was his interest to let my husband and all my neighbours believe the falsehood--because, as long as they did so they were quite certain never to suspect the truth. i had a spirit of my own, and i told him they should know the truth from my lips. his reply was short, and to the point. if i spoke, i was a lost woman, as certainly as he was a lost man. yes! it had come to that. he had deceived me about the risk i ran in helping him. he had practised on my ignorance, he had tempted me with his gifts, he had interested me with his story--and the result of it was that he made me his accomplice. he owned this coolly, and he ended by telling me, for the first time, what the frightful punishment really was for his offence, and for any one who helped him to commit it. in those days the law was not so tender-hearted as i hear it is now. murderers were not the only people liable to be hanged, and women convicts were not treated like ladies in undeserved distress. i confess he frightened me--the mean impostor! the cowardly blackguard! do you understand now how i hated him? do you understand why i am taking all this trouble--thankfully taking it--to gratify the curiosity of the meritorious young gentleman who hunted him down? well, to go on. he was hardly fool enough to drive me to downright desperation. i was not the sort of woman whom it was quite safe to hunt into a corner--he knew that, and wisely quieted me with proposals for the future. i deserved some reward (he was kind enough to say) for the service i had done him, and some compensation (he was so obliging as to add) for what i had suffered. he was quite willing--generous scoundrel!--to make me a handsome yearly allowance, payable quarterly, on two conditions. first, i was to hold my tongue--in my own interests as well as in his. secondly, i was not to stir away from welmingham without first letting him know, and waiting till i had obtained his permission. in my own neighbourhood, no virtuous female friends would tempt me into dangerous gossiping at the tea-table. in my own neighbourhood, he would always know where to find me. a hard condition, that second one--but i accepted it. what else was i to do? i was left helpless, with the prospect of a coming incumbrance in the shape of a child. what else was i to do? cast myself on the mercy of my runaway idiot of a husband who had raised the scandal against me? i would have died first. besides, the allowance was a handsome one. i had a better income, a better house over my head, better carpets on my floors, than half the women who turned up the whites of their eyes at the sight of me. the dress of virtue, in our parts, was cotton print. i had silk. so i accepted the conditions he offered me, and made the best of them, and fought my battle with my respectable neighbours on their own ground, and won it in course of time--as you saw yourself. how i kept his secret (and mine) through all the years that have passed from that time to this, and whether my late daughter, anne, ever really crept into my confidence, and got the keeping of the secret too--are questions, i dare say, to which you are curious to find an answer. well! my gratitude refuses you nothing. i will turn to a fresh page and give you the answer immediately. but you must excuse one thing--you must excuse my beginning, mr. hartright, with an expression of surprise at the interest which you appear to have felt in my late daughter. it is quite unaccountable to me. if that interest makes you anxious for any particulars of her early life, i must refer you to mrs. clements, who knows more of the subject than i do. pray understand that i do not profess to have been at all overfond of my late daughter. she was a worry to me from first to last, with the additional disadvantage of being always weak in the head. you like candour, and i hope this satisfies you. there is no need to trouble you with many personal particulars relating to those past times. it will be enough to say that i observed the terms of the bargain on my side, and that i enjoyed my comfortable income in return, paid quarterly. now and then i got away and changed the scene for a short time, always asking leave of my lord and master first, and generally getting it. he was not, as i have already told you, fool enough to drive me too hard, and he could reasonably rely on my holding my tongue for my own sake, if not for his. one of my longest trips away from home was the trip i took to limmeridge to nurse a half-sister there, who was dying. she was reported to have saved money, and i thought it as well (in case any accident happened to stop my allowance) to look after my own interests in that direction. as things turned out, however, my pains were all thrown away, and i got nothing, because nothing was to be had. i had taken anne to the north with me, having my whims and fancies, occasionally, about my child, and getting, at such times, jealous of mrs. clements' influence over her. i never liked mrs. clements. she was a poor, empty-headed, spiritless woman--what you call a born drudge--and i was now and then not averse to plaguing her by taking anne away. not knowing what else to do with my girl while i was nursing in cumberland, i put her to school at limmeridge. the lady of the manor, mrs. fairlie (a remarkably plain-looking woman, who had entrapped one of the handsomest men in england into marrying her), amused me wonderfully by taking a violent fancy to my girl. the consequence was, she learnt nothing at school, and was petted and spoilt at limmeridge house. among other whims and fancies which they taught her there, they put some nonsense into her head about always wearing white. hating white and liking colours myself, i determined to take the nonsense out of her head as soon as we got home again. strange to say, my daughter resolutely resisted me. when she had got a notion once fixed in her mind she was, like other half-witted people, as obstinate as a mule in keeping it. we quarrelled finely, and mrs. clements, not liking to see it, i suppose, offered to take anne away to live in london with her. i should have said yes, if mrs. clements had not sided with my daughter about her dressing herself in white. but being determined she should not dress herself in white, and disliking mrs. clements more than ever for taking part against me, i said no, and meant no, and stuck to no. the consequence was, my daughter remained with me, and the consequence of that, in its turn, was the first serious quarrel that happened about the secret. the circumstance took place long after the time i have just been writing of. i had been settled for years in the new town, and was steadily living down my bad character and slowly gaining ground among the respectable inhabitants. it helped me forward greatly towards this object to have my daughter with me. her harmlessness and her fancy for dressing in white excited a certain amount of sympathy. i left off opposing her favourite whim on that account, because some of the sympathy was sure, in course of time, to fall to my share. some of it did fall. i date my getting a choice of the two best sittings to let in the church from that time, and i date the clergyman's first bow from my getting the sittings. well, being settled in this way, i received a letter one morning from that highly born gentleman (now deceased) in answer to one of mine, warning him, according to agreement, of my wishing to leave the town for a little change of air and scene. the ruffianly side of him must have been uppermost, i suppose, when he got my letter, for he wrote back, refusing me in such abominably insolent language, that i lost all command over myself, and abused him, in my daughter's presence, as "a low impostor whom i could ruin for life if i chose to open my lips and let out his secret." i said no more about him than that, being brought to my senses as soon as those words had escaped me by the sight of my daughter's face looking eagerly and curiously at mine. i instantly ordered her out of the room until i had composed myself again. my sensations were not pleasant, i can tell you, when i came to reflect on my own folly. anne had been more than usually crazy and queer that year, and when i thought of the chance there might be of her repeating my words in the town, and mentioning his name in connection with them, if inquisitive people got hold of her, i was finely terrified at the possible consequences. my worst fears for myself, my worst dread of what he might do, led me no farther than this. i was quite unprepared for what really did happen only the next day. on that next day, without any warning to me to expect him, he came to the house. his first words, and the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was too late. seeing my daughter in the room with me (i had been afraid to let her out of my sight after what had happened the day before) he ordered her away. they neither of them liked each other, and he vented the ill-temper on her which he was afraid to show to me. "leave us," he said, looking at her over his shoulder. she looked back over her shoulder and waited as if she didn't care to go. "do you hear?" he roared out, "leave the room." "speak to me civilly," says she, getting red in the face. "turn the idiot out," says he, looking my way. she had always had crazy notions of her own about her dignity, and that word "idiot" upset her in a moment. before i could interfere she stepped up to him in a fine passion. "beg my pardon, directly," says she, "or i'll make it the worse for you. i'll let out your secret. i can ruin you for life if i choose to open my lips." my own words!--repeated exactly from what i had said the day before--repeated, in his presence, as if they had come from herself. he sat speechless, as white as the paper i am writing on, while i pushed her out of the room. when he recovered himself---- no! i am too respectable a woman to mention what he said when he recovered himself. my pen is the pen of a member of the rector's congregation, and a subscriber to the "wednesday lectures on justification by faith"--how can you expect me to employ it in writing bad language? suppose, for yourself, the raging, swearing frenzy of the lowest ruffian in england, and let us get on together, as fast as may be, to the way in which it all ended. it ended, as you probably guess by this time, in his insisting on securing his own safety by shutting her up. i tried to set things right. i told him that she had merely repeated, like a parrot, the words she had heard me say and that she knew no particulars whatever, because i had mentioned none. i explained that she had affected, out of crazy spite against him, to know what she really did not know--that she only wanted to threaten him and aggravate him for speaking to her as he had just spoken--and that my unlucky words gave her just the chance of doing mischief of which she was in search. i referred him to other queer ways of hers, and to his own experience of the vagaries of half-witted people--it was all to no purpose--he would not believe me on my oath--he was absolutely certain i had betrayed the whole secret. in short, he would hear of nothing but shutting her up. under these circumstances, i did my duty as a mother. "no pauper asylum," i said, "i won't have her put in a pauper asylum. a private establishment, if you please. i have my feelings as a mother, and my character to preserve in the town, and i will submit to nothing but a private establishment, of the sort which my genteel neighbours would choose for afflicted relatives of their own." those were my words. it is gratifying to me to reflect that i did my duty. though never overfond of my late daughter, i had a proper pride about her. no pauper stain--thanks to my firmness and resolution--ever rested on my child. having carried my point (which i did the more easily, in consequence of the facilities offered by private asylums), i could not refuse to admit that there were certain advantages gained by shutting her up. in the first place, she was taken excellent care of--being treated (as i took care to mention in the town) on the footing of a lady. in the second place, she was kept away from welmingham, where she might have set people suspecting and inquiring, by repeating my own incautious words. the only drawback of putting her under restraint was a very slight one. we merely turned her empty boast about knowing the secret into a fixed delusion. having first spoken in sheer crazy spitefulness against the man who had offended her, she was cunning enough to see that she had seriously frightened him, and sharp enough afterwards to discover that he was concerned in shutting her up. the consequence was she flamed out into a perfect frenzy of passion against him, going to the asylum, and the first words she said to the nurses, after they had quieted her, were, that she was put in confinement for knowing his secret, and that she meant to open her lips and ruin him, when the right time came. she may have said the same thing to you, when you thoughtlessly assisted her escape. she certainly said it (as i heard last summer) to the unfortunate woman who married our sweet-tempered, nameless gentleman lately deceased. if either you, or that unlucky lady, had questioned my daughter closely, and had insisted on her explaining what she really meant, you would have found her lose all her self-importance suddenly, and get vacant, and restless, and confused--you would have discovered that i am writing nothing here but the plain truth. she knew that there was a secret--she knew who was connected with it--she knew who would suffer by its being known--and beyond that, whatever airs of importance she may have given herself, whatever crazy boasting she may have indulged in with strangers, she never to her dying day knew more. have i satisfied your curiosity? i have taken pains enough to satisfy it at any rate. there is really nothing else i have to tell you about myself or my daughter. my worst responsibilities, so far as she was concerned, were all over when she was secured in the asylum. i had a form of letter relating to the circumstances under which she was shut up, given me to write, in answer to one miss halcombe, who was curious in the matter, and who must have heard plenty of lies about me from a certain tongue well accustomed to the telling of the same. and i did what i could afterwards to trace my runaway daughter, and prevent her from doing mischief by making inquiries myself in the neighbourhood where she was falsely reported to have been seen. but these, and other trifles like them, are of little or no interest to you after what you have heard already. so far, i have written in the friendliest possible spirit. but i cannot close this letter without adding a word here of serious remonstrance and reproof, addressed to yourself. in the course of your personal interview with me, you audaciously referred to my late daughter's parentage on the father's side, as if that parentage was a matter of doubt. this was highly improper and very ungentlemanlike on your part! if we see each other again, remember, if you please, that i will allow no liberties to be taken with my reputation, and that the moral atmosphere of welmingham (to use a favourite expression of my friend the rector's) must not be tainted by loose conversation of any kind. if you allow yourself to doubt that my husband was anne's father, you personally insult me in the grossest manner. if you have felt, and if you still continue to feel, an unhallowed curiosity on this subject, i recommend you, in your own interests, to check it at once, and for ever. on this side of the grave, mr. hartright, whatever may happen on the other, that curiosity will never be gratified. perhaps, after what i have just said, you will see the necessity of writing me an apology. do so, and i will willingly receive it. i will, afterwards, if your wishes point to a second interview with me, go a step farther, and receive you. my circumstances only enable me to invite you to tea--not that they are at all altered for the worse by what has happened. i have always lived, as i think i told you, well within my income, and i have saved enough, in the last twenty years, to make me quite comfortable for the rest of my life. it is not my intention to leave welmingham. there are one or two little advantages which i have still to gain in the town. the clergyman bows to me--as you saw. he is married, and his wife is not quite so civil. i propose to join the dorcas society, and i mean to make the clergyman's wife bow to me next. if you favour me with your company, pray understand that the conversation must be entirely on general subjects. any attempted reference to this letter will be quite useless--i am determined not to acknowledge having written it. the evidence has been destroyed in the fire, i know, but i think it desirable to err on the side of caution, nevertheless. on this account no names are mentioned here, nor is any signature attached to these lines: the handwriting is disguised throughout, and i mean to deliver the letter myself, under circumstances which will prevent all fear of its being traced to my house. you can have no possible cause to complain of these precautions, seeing that they do not affect the information i here communicate, in consideration of the special indulgence which you have deserved at my hands. my hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody. the story continued by walter hartright i my first impulse, after reading mrs. catherick's extraordinary narrative, was to destroy it. the hardened shameless depravity of the whole composition, from beginning to end--the atrocious perversity of mind which persistently associated me with a calamity for which i was in no sense answerable, and with a death which i had risked my life in trying to avert--so disgusted me, that i was on the point of tearing the letter, when a consideration suggested itself which warned me to wait a little before i destroyed it. this consideration was entirely unconnected with sir percival. the information communicated to me, so far as it concerned him, did little more than confirm the conclusions at which i had already arrived. he had committed his offence, as i had supposed him to have committed it, and the absence of all reference, on mrs. catherick's part, to the duplicate register at knowlesbury, strengthened my previous conviction that the existence of the book, and the risk of detection which it implied, must have been necessarily unknown to sir percival. my interest in the question of the forgery was now at an end, and my only object in keeping the letter was to make it of some future service in clearing up the last mystery that still remained to baffle me--the parentage of anne catherick on the father's side. there were one or two sentences dropped in her mother's narrative, which it might be useful to refer to again, when matters of more immediate importance allowed me leisure to search for the missing evidence. i did not despair of still finding that evidence, and i had lost none of my anxiety to discover it, for i had lost none of my interest in tracing the father of the poor creature who now lay at rest in mrs. fairlie's grave. accordingly, i sealed up the letter and put it away carefully in my pocket-book, to be referred to again when the time came. the next day was my last in hampshire. when i had appeared again before the magistrate at knowlesbury, and when i had attended at the adjourned inquest, i should be free to return to london by the afternoon or the evening train. my first errand in the morning was, as usual, to the post-office. the letter from marian was there, but i thought when it was handed to me that it felt unusually light. i anxiously opened the envelope. there was nothing inside but a small strip of paper folded in two. the few blotted hurriedly-written lines which were traced on it contained these words: "come back as soon as you can. i have been obliged to move. come to gower's walk, fulham (number five). i will be on the look-out for you. don't be alarmed about us, we are both safe and well. but come back.--marian." the news which those lines contained--news which i instantly associated with some attempted treachery on the part of count fosco--fairly overwhelmed me. i stood breathless with the paper crumpled up in my hand. what had happened? what subtle wickedness had the count planned and executed in my absence? a night had passed since marian's note was written--hours must elapse still before i could get back to them--some new disaster might have happened already of which i was ignorant. and here, miles and miles away from them, here i must remain--held, doubly held, at the disposal of the law! i hardly know to what forgetfulness of my obligations anxiety and alarm might not have tempted me, but for the quieting influence of my faith in marian. my absolute reliance on her was the one earthly consideration which helped me to restrain myself, and gave me courage to wait. the inquest was the first of the impediments in the way of my freedom of action. i attended it at the appointed time, the legal formalities requiring my presence in the room, but as it turned out, not calling on me to repeat my evidence. this useless delay was a hard trial, although i did my best to quiet my impatience by following the course of the proceedings as closely as i could. the london solicitor of the deceased (mr. merriman) was among the persons present. but he was quite unable to assist the objects of the inquiry. he could only say that he was inexpressibly shocked and astonished, and that he could throw no light whatever on the mysterious circumstances of the case. at intervals during the adjourned investigation, he suggested questions which the coroner put, but which led to no results. after a patient inquiry, which lasted nearly three hours, and which exhausted every available source of information, the jury pronounced the customary verdict in cases of sudden death by accident. they added to the formal decision a statement, that there had been no evidence to show how the keys had been abstracted, how the fire had been caused, or what the purpose was for which the deceased had entered the vestry. this act closed the proceedings. the legal representative of the dead man was left to provide for the necessities of the interment, and the witnesses were free to retire. resolved not to lose a minute in getting to knowlesbury, i paid my bill at the hotel, and hired a fly to take me to the town. a gentleman who heard me give the order, and who saw that i was going alone, informed me that he lived in the neighbourhood of knowlesbury, and asked if i would have any objection to his getting home by sharing the fly with me. i accepted his proposal as a matter of course. our conversation during the drive was naturally occupied by the one absorbing subject of local interest. my new acquaintance had some knowledge of the late sir percival's solicitor, and he and mr. merriman had been discussing the state of the deceased gentleman's affairs and the succession to the property. sir percival's embarrassments were so well known all over the county that his solicitor could only make a virtue of necessity and plainly acknowledge them. he had died without leaving a will, and he had no personal property to bequeath, even if he had made one, the whole fortune which he had derived from his wife having been swallowed up by his creditors. the heir to the estate (sir percival having left no issue) was a son of sir felix glyde's first cousin, an officer in command of an east indiaman. he would find his unexpected inheritance sadly encumbered, but the property would recover with time, and, if "the captain" was careful, he might be a rich man yet before he died. absorbed as i was in the one idea of getting to london, this information (which events proved to be perfectly correct) had an interest of its own to attract my attention. i thought it justified me in keeping secret my discovery of sir percival's fraud. the heir, whose rights he had usurped, was the heir who would now have the estate. the income from it, for the last three-and-twenty years, which should properly have been his, and which the dead man had squandered to the last farthing, was gone beyond recall. if i spoke, my speaking would confer advantage on no one. if i kept the secret, my silence concealed the character of the man who had cheated laura into marrying him. for her sake, i wished to conceal it--for her sake, still, i tell this story under feigned names. i parted with my chance companion at knowlesbury, and went at once to the town-hall. as i had anticipated, no one was present to prosecute the case against me--the necessary formalities were observed, and i was discharged. on leaving the court a letter from mr. dawson was put into my hand. it informed me that he was absent on professional duty, and it reiterated the offer i had already received from him of any assistance which i might require at his hands. i wrote back, warmly acknowledging my obligations to his kindness, and apologising for not expressing my thanks personally, in consequence of my immediate recall on pressing business to town. half an hour later i was speeding back to london by the express train. ii it was between nine and ten o'clock before i reached fulham, and found my way to gower's walk. both laura and marian came to the door to let me in. i think we had hardly known how close the tie was which bound us three together, until the evening came which united us again. we met as if we had been parted for months instead of for a few days only. marian's face was sadly worn and anxious. i saw who had known all the danger and borne all the trouble in my absence the moment i looked at her. laura's brighter looks and better spirits told me how carefully she had been spared all knowledge of the dreadful death at welmingham, and of the true reason of our change of abode. the stir of the removal seemed to have cheered and interested her. she only spoke of it as a happy thought of marian's to surprise me on my return with a change from the close, noisy street to the pleasant neighbourhood of trees and fields and the river. she was full of projects for the future--of the drawings she was to finish--of the purchasers i had found in the country who were to buy them--of the shillings and sixpences she had saved, till her purse was so heavy that she proudly asked me to weigh it in my own hand. the change for the better which had been wrought in her during the few days of my absence was a surprise to me for which i was quite unprepared--and for all the unspeakable happiness of seeing it, i was indebted to marian's courage and to marian's love. when laura had left us, and when we could speak to one another without restraint, i tried to give some expression to the gratitude and the admiration which filled my heart. but the generous creature would not wait to hear me. that sublime self-forgetfulness of women, which yields so much and asks so little, turned all her thoughts from herself to me. "i had only a moment left before post-time," she said, "or i should have written less abruptly. you look worn and weary, walter. i am afraid my letter must have seriously alarmed you?" "only at first," i replied. "my mind was quieted, marian, by my trust in you. was i right in attributing this sudden change of place to some threatened annoyance on the part of count fosco?" "perfectly right," she said. "i saw him yesterday, and worse than that, walter--i spoke to him." "spoke to him? did he know where we lived? did he come to the house?" "he did. to the house--but not upstairs. laura never saw him--laura suspects nothing. i will tell you how it happened: the danger, i believe and hope, is over now. yesterday, i was in the sitting-room, at our old lodgings. laura was drawing at the table, and i was walking about and setting things to rights. i passed the window, and as i passed it, looked out into the street. there, on the opposite side of the way, i saw the count, with a man talking to him----" "did he notice you at the window?" "no--at least, i thought not. i was too violently startled to be quite sure." "who was the other man? a stranger?" "not a stranger, walter. as soon as i could draw my breath again, i recognised him. he was the owner of the lunatic asylum." "was the count pointing out the house to him?" "no, they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in the street. i remained at the window looking at them from behind the curtain. if i had turned round, and if laura had seen my face at that moment----thank god, she was absorbed over her drawing! they soon parted. the man from the asylum went one way, and the count the other. i began to hope they were in the street by chance, till i saw the count come back, stop opposite to us again, take out his card-case and pencil, write something, and then cross the road to the shop below us. i ran past laura before she could see me, and said i had forgotten something upstairs. as soon as i was out of the room i went down to the first landing and waited--i was determined to stop him if he tried to come upstairs. he made no such attempt. the girl from the shop came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand--a large gilt card with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath in pencil: 'dear lady' (yes! the villain could address me in that way still)--'dear lady, one word, i implore you, on a matter serious to us both.' if one can think at all, in serious difficulties, one thinks quick. i felt directly that it might be a fatal mistake to leave myself and to leave you in the dark, where such a man as the count was concerned. i felt that the doubt of what he might do, in your absence, would be ten times more trying to me if i declined to see him than if i consented. 'ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,' i said. 'i will be with him in a moment.' i ran upstairs for my bonnet, being determined not to let him speak to me indoors. i knew his deep ringing voice, and i was afraid laura might hear it, even in the shop. in less than a minute i was down again in the passage, and had opened the door into the street. he came round to meet me from the shop. there he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold knob to it. all the horrible time at blackwater came back to me the moment i set eyes on him. all the old loathing crept and crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish and spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a day since." "you remember what he said?" "i can't repeat it, walter. you shall know directly what he said about you---but i can't repeat what he said to me. it was worse than the polite insolence of his letter. my hands tingled to strike him, as if i had been a man! i only kept them quiet by tearing his card to pieces under my shawl. without saying a word on my side, i walked away from the house (for fear of laura seeing us), and he followed, protesting softly all the way. in the first by-street i turned, and asked him what he wanted with me. he wanted two things. first, if i had no objection, to express his sentiments. i declined to hear them. secondly, to repeat the warning in his letter. i asked, what occasion there was for repeating it. he bowed and smiled, and said he would explain. the explanation exactly confirmed the fears i expressed before you left us. i told you, if you remember, that sir percival would be too headstrong to take his friend's advice where you were concerned, and that there was no danger to be dreaded from the count till his own interests were threatened, and he was roused into acting for himself?" "i recollect, marian." "well, so it has really turned out. the count offered his advice, but it was refused. sir percival would only take counsel of his own violence, his own obstinacy, and his own hatred of you. the count let him have his way, first privately ascertaining, in case of his own interests being threatened next, where we lived. you were followed, walter, on returning here, after your first journey to hampshire, by the lawyer's men for some distance from the railway, and by the count himself to the door of the house. how he contrived to escape being seen by you he did not tell me, but he found us out on that occasion, and in that way. having made the discovery, he took no advantage of it till the news reached him of sir percival's death, and then, as i told you, he acted for himself, because he believed you would next proceed against the dead man's partner in the conspiracy. he at once made his arrangements to meet the owner of the asylum in london, and to take him to the place where his runaway patient was hidden, believing that the results, whichever way they ended, would be to involve you in interminable legal disputes and difficulties, and to tie your hands for all purposes of offence, so far as he was concerned. that was his purpose, on his own confession to me. the only consideration which made him hesitate, at the last moment----" "yes?" "it is hard to acknowledge it, walter, and yet i must. i was the only consideration. no words can say how degraded i feel in my own estimation when i think of it, but the one weak point in that man's iron character is the horrible admiration he feels for me. i have tried, for the sake of my own self-respect, to disbelieve it as long as i could; but his looks, his actions, force on me the shameful conviction of the truth. the eyes of that monster of wickedness moistened while he was speaking to me--they did, walter! he declared that at the moment of pointing out the house to the doctor, he thought of my misery if i was separated from laura, of my responsibility if i was called on to answer for effecting her escape, and he risked the worst that you could do to him, the second time, for my sake. all he asked was that i would remember the sacrifice, and restrain your rashness, in my own interests--interests which he might never be able to consult again. i made no such bargain with him--i would have died first. but believe him or not, whether it is true or false that he sent the doctor away with an excuse, one thing is certain, i saw the man leave him without so much as a glance at our window, or even at our side of the way." "i believe it, marian. the best men are not consistent in good--why should the worst men be consistent in evil? at the same time, i suspect him of merely attempting to frighten you, by threatening what he cannot really do. i doubt his power of annoying us, by means of the owner of the asylum, now that sir percival is dead, and mrs. catherick is free from all control. but let me hear more. what did the count say of me?" "he spoke last of you. his eyes brightened and hardened, and his manner changed to what i remember it in past times--to that mixture of pitiless resolution and mountebank mockery which makes it so impossible to fathom him. 'warn mr. hartright!' he said in his loftiest manner. 'he has a man of brains to deal with, a man who snaps his big fingers at the laws and conventions of society, when he measures himself with me. if my lamented friend had taken my advice, the business of the inquest would have been with the body of mr. hartright. but my lamented friend was obstinate. see! i mourn his loss--inwardly in my soul, outwardly on my hat. this trivial crape expresses sensibilities which i summon mr. hartright to respect. they may be transformed to immeasurable enmities if he ventures to disturb them. let him be content with what he has got--with what i leave unmolested, for your sake, to him and to you. say to him (with my compliments), if he stirs me, he has fosco to deal with. in the english of the popular tongue, i inform him--fosco sticks at nothing. dear lady, good morning.' his cold grey eyes settled on my face--he took off his hat solemnly--bowed, bare-headed--and left me." "without returning? without saying more last words?" "he turned at the corner of the street, and waved his hand, and then struck it theatrically on his breast. i lost sight of him after that. he disappeared in the opposite direction to our house, and i ran back to laura. before i was indoors again, i had made up my mind that we must go. the house (especially in your absence) was a place of danger instead of a place of safety, now that the count had discovered it. if i could have felt certain of your return, i should have risked waiting till you came back. but i was certain of nothing, and i acted at once on my own impulse. you had spoken, before leaving us, of moving into a quieter neighbourhood and purer air, for the sake of laura's health. i had only to remind her of that, and to suggest surprising you and saving you trouble by managing the move in your absence, to make her quite as anxious for the change as i was. she helped me to pack up your things, and she has arranged them all for you in your new working-room here." "what made you think of coming to this place?" "my ignorance of other localities in the neighbourhood of london. i felt the necessity of getting as far away as possible from our old lodgings, and i knew something of fulham, because i had once been at school there. i despatched a messenger with a note, on the chance that the school might still be in existence. it was in existence--the daughters of my old mistress were carrying it on for her, and they engaged this place from the instructions i had sent. it was just post-time when the messenger returned to me with the address of the house. we moved after dark--we came here quite unobserved. have i done right, walter? have i justified your trust in me?" i answered her warmly and gratefully, as i really felt. but the anxious look still remained on her face while i was speaking, and the first question she asked, when i had done, related to count fosco. i saw that she was thinking of him now with a changed mind. no fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten the day of reckoning escaped her. her conviction that the man's hateful admiration of herself was really sincere, seemed to have increased a hundredfold her distrust of his unfathomable cunning, her inborn dread of the wicked energy and vigilance of all his faculties. her voice fell low, her manner was hesitating, her eyes searched into mine with an eager fear when she asked me what i thought of his message, and what i meant to do next after hearing it. "not many weeks have passed, marian," i answered, "since my interview with mr. kyrle. when he and i parted, the last words i said to him about laura were these: 'her uncle's house shall open to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and the two men who have wronged her shall answer for their crime to me, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them.' one of those men is beyond mortal reach. the other remains, and my resolution remains." her eyes lit up--her colour rose. she said nothing, but i saw all her sympathies gathering to mine in her face. "i don't disguise from myself, or from you," i went on, "that the prospect before us is more than doubtful. the risks we have run already are, it may be, trifles compared with the risks that threaten us in the future, but the venture shall be tried, marian, for all that. i am not rash enough to measure myself against such a man as the count before i am well prepared for him. i have learnt patience--i can wait my time. let him believe that his message has produced its effect--let him know nothing of us, and hear nothing of us--let us give him full time to feel secure--his own boastful nature, unless i seriously mistake him, will hasten that result. this is one reason for waiting, but there is another more important still. my position, marian, towards you and towards laura ought to be a stronger one than it is now before i try our last chance." she leaned near to me, with a look of surprise. "how can it be stronger?" she asked. "i will tell you," i replied, "when the time comes. it has not come yet--it may never come at all. i may be silent about it to laura for ever--i must be silent now, even to you, till i see for myself that i can harmlessly and honourably speak. let us leave that subject. there is another which has more pressing claims on our attention. you have kept laura, mercifully kept her, in ignorance of her husband's death----" "oh, walter, surely it must be long yet before we tell her of it?" "no, marian. better that you should reveal it to her now, than that accident, which no one can guard against, should reveal it to her at some future time. spare her all the details--break it to her very tenderly, but tell her that he is dead." "you have a reason, walter, for wishing her to know of her husband's death besides the reason you have just mentioned?" "i have." "a reason connected with that subject which must not be mentioned between us yet?--which may never be mentioned to laura at all?" she dwelt on the last words meaningly. when i answered her in the affirmative, i dwelt on them too. her face grew pale. for a while she looked at me with a sad, hesitating interest. an unaccustomed tenderness trembled in her dark eyes and softened her firm lips, as she glanced aside at the empty chair in which the dear companion of all our joys and sorrows had been sitting. "i think i understand," she said. "i think i owe it to her and to you, walter, to tell her of her husband's death." she sighed, and held my hand fast for a moment--then dropped it abruptly, and left the room. on the next day laura knew that his death had released her, and that the error and the calamity of her life lay buried in his tomb. his name was mentioned among us no more. thenceforward, we shrank from the slightest approach to the subject of his death, and in the same scrupulous manner, marian and i avoided all further reference to that other subject, which, by her consent and mine, was not to be mentioned between us yet. it was not the less present in our minds--it was rather kept alive in them by the restraint which we had imposed on ourselves. we both watched laura more anxiously than ever, sometimes waiting and hoping, sometimes waiting and fearing, till the time came. by degrees we returned to our accustomed way of life. i resumed the daily work, which had been suspended during my absence in hampshire. our new lodgings cost us more than the smaller and less convenient rooms which we had left, and the claim thus implied on my increased exertions was strengthened by the doubtfulness of our future prospects. emergencies might yet happen which would exhaust our little fund at the banker's, and the work of my hands might be, ultimately, all we had to look to for support. more permanent and more lucrative employment than had yet been offered to me was a necessity of our position--a necessity for which i now diligently set myself to provide. it must not be supposed that the interval of rest and seclusion of which i am now writing, entirely suspended, on my part, all pursuit of the one absorbing purpose with which my thoughts and actions are associated in these pages. that purpose was, for months and months yet, never to relax its claims on me. the slow ripening of it still left me a measure of precaution to take, an obligation of gratitude to perform, and a doubtful question to solve. the measure of precaution related, necessarily, to the count. it was of the last importance to ascertain, if possible, whether his plans committed him to remaining in england--or, in other words, to remaining within my reach. i contrived to set this doubt at rest by very simple means. his address in st. john's wood being known to me, i inquired in the neighbourhood, and having found out the agent who had the disposal of the furnished house in which he lived, i asked if number five, forest road, was likely to be let within a reasonable time. the reply was in the negative. i was informed that the foreign gentleman then residing in the house had renewed his term of occupation for another six months, and would remain in possession until the end of june in the following year. we were then at the beginning of december only. i left the agent with my mind relieved from all present fear of the count's escaping me. the obligation i had to perform took me once more into the presence of mrs. clements. i had promised to return, and to confide to her those particulars relating to the death and burial of anne catherick which i had been obliged to withhold at our first interview. changed as circumstances now were, there was no hindrance to my trusting the good woman with as much of the story of the conspiracy as it was necessary to tell. i had every reason that sympathy and friendly feeling could suggest to urge on me the speedy performance of my promise, and i did conscientiously and carefully perform it. there is no need to burden these pages with any statement of what passed at the interview. it will be more to the purpose to say, that the interview itself necessarily brought to my mind the one doubtful question still remaining to be solved--the question of anne catherick's parentage on the father's side. a multitude of small considerations in connection with this subject--trifling enough in themselves, but strikingly important when massed together--had latterly led my mind to a conclusion which i resolved to verify. i obtained marian's permission to write to major donthorne, of varneck hall (where mrs. catherick had lived in service for some years previous to her marriage), to ask him certain questions. i made the inquiries in marian's name, and described them as relating to matters of personal history in her family, which might explain and excuse my application. when i wrote the letter i had no certain knowledge that major donthorne was still alive--i despatched it on the chance that he might be living, and able and willing to reply. after a lapse of two days proof came, in the shape of a letter, that the major was living, and that he was ready to help us. the idea in my mind when i wrote to him, and the nature of my inquiries will be easily inferred from his reply. his letter answered my questions by communicating these important facts-- in the first place, "the late sir percival glyde, of blackwater park," had never set foot in varneck hall. the deceased gentleman was a total stranger to major donthorne, and to all his family. in the second place, "the late mr. philip fairlie, of limmeridge house," had been, in his younger days, the intimate friend and constant guest of major donthorne. having refreshed his memory by looking back to old letters and other papers, the major was in a position to say positively that mr. philip fairlie was staying at varneck hall in the month of august, eighteen hundred and twenty-six, and that he remained there for the shooting during the month of september and part of october following. he then left, to the best of the major's belief, for scotland, and did not return to varneck hall till after a lapse of time, when he reappeared in the character of a newly-married man. taken by itself, this statement was, perhaps, of little positive value, but taken in connection with certain facts, every one of which either marian or i knew to be true, it suggested one plain conclusion that was, to our minds, irresistible. knowing, now, that mr. philip fairlie had been at varneck hall in the autumn of eighteen hundred and twenty-six, and that mrs. catherick had been living there in service at the same time, we knew also--first, that anne had been born in june, eighteen hundred and twenty-seven; secondly, that she had always presented an extraordinary personal resemblance to laura; and, thirdly, that laura herself was strikingly like her father. mr. philip fairlie had been one of the notoriously handsome men of his time. in disposition entirely unlike his brother frederick, he was the spoilt darling of society, especially of the women--an easy, light-hearted, impulsive, affectionate man--generous to a fault--constitutionally lax in his principles, and notoriously thoughtless of moral obligations where women were concerned. such were the facts we knew--such was the character of the man. surely the plain inference that follows needs no pointing out? read by the new light which had now broken upon me, even mrs. catherick's letter, in despite of herself, rendered its mite of assistance towards strengthening the conclusion at which i had arrived. she had described mrs. fairlie (in writing to me) as "plain-looking," and as having "entrapped the handsomest man in england into marrying her." both assertions were gratuitously made, and both were false. jealous dislike (which, in such a woman as mrs. catherick, would express itself in petty malice rather than not express itself at all) appeared to me to be the only assignable cause for the peculiar insolence of her reference to mrs. fairlie, under circumstances which did not necessitate any reference at all. the mention here of mrs. fairlie's name naturally suggests one other question. did she ever suspect whose child the little girl brought to her at limmeridge might be? marian's testimony was positive on this point. mrs. fairlie's letter to her husband, which had been read to me in former days--the letter describing anne's resemblance to laura, and acknowledging her affectionate interest in the little stranger--had been written, beyond all question, in perfect innocence of heart. it even seemed doubtful, on consideration, whether mr. philip fairlie himself had been nearer than his wife to any suspicion of the truth. the disgracefully deceitful circumstances under which mrs. catherick had married, the purpose of concealment which the marriage was intended to answer, might well keep her silent for caution's sake, perhaps for her own pride's sake also, even assuming that she had the means, in his absence, of communicating with the father of her unborn child. as this surmise floated through my mind, there rose on my memory the remembrance of the scripture denunciation which we have all thought of in our time with wonder and with awe: "the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children." but for the fatal resemblance between the two daughters of one father, the conspiracy of which anne had been the innocent instrument and laura the innocent victim could never have been planned. with what unerring and terrible directness the long chain of circumstances led down from the thoughtless wrong committed by the father to the heartless injury inflicted on the child! these thoughts came to me, and others with them, which drew my mind away to the little cumberland churchyard where anne catherick now lay buried. i thought of the bygone days when i had met her by mrs. fairlie's grave, and met her for the last time. i thought of her poor helpless hands beating on the tombstone, and her weary, yearning words, murmured to the dead remains of her protectress and her friend: "oh, if i could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!" little more than a year had passed since she breathed that wish; and how inscrutably, how awfully, it had been fulfilled! the words she had spoken to laura by the shores of the lake, the very words had now come true. "oh, if i could only be buried with your mother! if i could only wake at her side when the angel's trumpet sounds and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!" through what mortal crime and horror, through what darkest windings of the way down to death--the lost creature had wandered in god's leading to the last home that, living, she never hoped to reach! in that sacred rest i leave her--in that dread companionship let her remain undisturbed. so the ghostly figure which has haunted these pages, as it haunted my life, goes down into the impenetrable gloom. like a shadow she first came to me in the loneliness of the night. like a shadow she passes away in the loneliness of the dead. iii four months elapsed. april came--the month of spring--the month of change. the course of time had flowed through the interval since the winter peacefully and happily in our new home. i had turned my long leisure to good account, had largely increased my sources of employment, and had placed our means of subsistence on surer grounds. freed from the suspense and the anxiety which had tried her so sorely and hung over her so long, marian's spirits rallied, and her natural energy of character began to assert itself again, with something, if not all, of the freedom and the vigour of former times. more pliable under change than her sister, laura showed more plainly the progress made by the healing influences of her new life. the worn and wasted look which had prematurely aged her face was fast leaving it, and the expression which had been the first of its charms in past days was the first of its beauties that now returned. my closest observations of her detected but one serious result of the conspiracy which had once threatened her reason and her life. her memory of events, from the period of her leaving blackwater park to the period of our meeting in the burial-ground of limmeridge church, was lost beyond all hope of recovery. at the slightest reference to that time she changed and trembled still, her words became confused, her memory wandered and lost itself as helplessly as ever. here, and here only, the traces of the past lay deep--too deep to be effaced. in all else she was now so far on the way to recovery that, on her best and brightest days, she sometimes looked and spoke like the laura of old times. the happy change wrought its natural result in us both. from their long slumber, on her side and on mine, those imperishable memories of our past life in cumberland now awoke, which were one and all alike, the memories of our love. gradually and insensibly our daily relations towards each other became constrained. the fond words which i had spoken to her so naturally, in the days of her sorrow and her suffering, faltered strangely on my lips. in the time when my dread of losing her was most present to my mind, i had always kissed her when she left me at night and when she met me in the morning. the kiss seemed now to have dropped between us--to be lost out of our lives. our hands began to tremble again when they met. we hardly ever looked long at one another out of marian's presence. the talk often flagged between us when we were alone. when i touched her by accident i felt my heart beating fast, as it used to beat at limmeridge house--i saw the lovely answering flush glowing again in her cheeks, as if we were back among the cumberland hills in our past characters of master and pupil once more. she had long intervals of silence and thoughtfulness, and denied she had been thinking when marian asked her the question. i surprised myself one day neglecting my work to dream over the little water-colour portrait of her which i had taken in the summer-house where we first met--just as i used to neglect mr. fairlie's drawings to dream over the same likeness when it was newly finished in the bygone time. changed as all the circumstances now were, our position towards each other in the golden days of our first companionship seemed to be revived with the revival of our love. it was as if time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early hopes to the old familiar shore! to any other woman i could have spoken the decisive words which i still hesitated to speak to her. the utter helplessness of her position--her friendless dependence on all the forbearing gentleness that i could show her--my fear of touching too soon some secret sensitiveness in her which my instinct as a man might not have been fine enough to discover--these considerations, and others like them, kept me self-distrustfully silent. and yet i knew that the restraint on both sides must be ended, that the relations in which we stood towards one another must be altered in some settled manner for the future, and that it rested with me, in the first instance, to recognise the necessity for a change. the more i thought of our position, the harder the attempt to alter it appeared, while the domestic conditions on which we three had been living together since the winter remained undisturbed. i cannot account for the capricious state of mind in which this feeling originated, but the idea nevertheless possessed me that some previous change of place and circumstances, some sudden break in the quiet monotony of our lives, so managed as to vary the home aspect under which we had been accustomed to see each other, might prepare the way for me to speak, and might make it easier and less embarrassing for laura and marian to hear. with this purpose in view, i said, one morning, that i thought we had all earned a little holiday and a change of scene. after some consideration, it was decided that we should go for a fortnight to the sea-side. on the next day we left fulham for a quiet town on the south coast. at that early season of the year we were the only visitors in the place. the cliffs, the beach, and the walks inland were all in the solitary condition which was most welcome to us. the air was mild--the prospects over hill and wood and down were beautifully varied by the shifting april light and shade, and the restless sea leapt under our windows, as if it felt, like the land, the glow and freshness of spring. i owed it to marian to consult her before i spoke to laura, and to be guided afterwards by her advice. on the third day from our arrival i found a fit opportunity of speaking to her alone. the moment we looked at one another, her quick instinct detected the thought in my mind before i could give it expression. with her customary energy and directness she spoke at once, and spoke first. "you are thinking of that subject which was mentioned between us on the evening of your return from hampshire," she said. "i have been expecting you to allude to it for some time past. there must be a change in our little household, walter, we cannot go on much longer as we are now. i see it as plainly as you do--as plainly as laura sees it, though she says nothing. how strangely the old times in cumberland seem to have come back! you and i are together again, and the one subject of interest between us is laura once more. i could almost fancy that this room is the summer-house at limmeridge, and that those waves beyond us are beating on our sea-shore." "i was guided by your advice in those past days," i said, "and now, marian, with reliance tenfold greater i will be guided by it again." she answered by pressing my hand. i saw that she was deeply touched by my reference to the past. we sat together near the window, and while i spoke and she listened, we looked at the glory of the sunlight shining on the majesty of the sea. "whatever comes of this confidence between us," i said, "whether it ends happily or sorrowfully for me, laura's interests will still be the interests of my life. when we leave this place, on whatever terms we leave it, my determination to wrest from count fosco the confession which i failed to obtain from his accomplice, goes back with me to london, as certainly as i go back myself. neither you nor i can tell how that man may turn on me, if i bring him to bay; we only know, by his own words and actions, that he is capable of striking at me through laura, without a moment's hesitation, or a moment's remorse. in our present position i have no claim on her which society sanctions, which the law allows, to strengthen me in resisting him, and in protecting her. this places me at a serious disadvantage. if i am to fight our cause with the count, strong in the consciousness of laura's safety, i must fight it for my wife. do you agree to that, marian, so far?" "to every word of it," she answered. "i will not plead out of my own heart," i went on; "i will not appeal to the love which has survived all changes and all shocks--i will rest my only vindication of myself for thinking of her, and speaking of her as my wife, on what i have just said. if the chance of forcing a confession from the count is, as i believe it to be, the last chance left of publicly establishing the fact of laura's existence, the least selfish reason that i can advance for our marriage is recognised by us both. but i may be wrong in my conviction--other means of achieving our purpose may be in our power, which are less uncertain and less dangerous. i have searched anxiously, in my own mind, for those means, and i have not found them. have you?" "no. i have thought about it too, and thought in vain." "in all likelihood," i continued, "the same questions have occurred to you, in considering this difficult subject, which have occurred to me. ought we to return with her to limmeridge, now that she is like herself again, and trust to the recognition of her by the people of the village, or by the children at the school? ought we to appeal to the practical test of her handwriting? suppose we did so. suppose the recognition of her obtained, and the identity of the handwriting established. would success in both those cases do more than supply an excellent foundation for a trial in a court of law? would the recognition and the handwriting prove her identity to mr. fairlie and take her back to limmeridge house, against the evidence of her aunt, against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact of the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? no! we could only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the assertion of her death, a doubt which nothing short of a legal inquiry can settle. i will assume that we possess (what we have certainly not got) money enough to carry this inquiry on through all its stages. i will assume that mr. fairlie's prejudices might be reasoned away--that the false testimony of the count and his wife, and all the rest of the false testimony, might be confuted--that the recognition could not possibly be ascribed to a mistake between laura and anne catherick, or the handwriting be declared by our enemies to be a clever fraud--all these are assumptions which, more or less, set plain probabilities at defiance; but let them pass--and let us ask ourselves what would be the first consequence or the first questions put to laura herself on the subject of the conspiracy. we know only too well what the consequence would be, for we know that she has never recovered her memory of what happened to her in london. examine her privately, or examine her publicly, she is utterly incapable of assisting the assertion of her own case. if you don't see this, marian, as plainly as i see it, we will go to limmeridge and try the experiment to-morrow." "i do see it, walter. even if we had the means of paying all the law expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be unendurable, the perpetual suspense, after what we have suffered already, would be heartbreaking. you are right about the hopelessness of going to limmeridge. i wish i could feel sure that you are right also in determining to try that last chance with the count. is it a chance at all?" "beyond a doubt, yes. it is the chance of recovering the lost date of laura's journey to london. without returning to the reasons i gave you some time since, i am still as firmly persuaded as ever that there is a discrepancy between the date of that journey and the date on the certificate of death. there lies the weak point of the whole conspiracy--it crumbles to pieces if we attack it in that way, and the means of attacking it are in possession of the count. if i succeed in wresting them from him, the object of your life and mine is fulfilled. if i fail, the wrong that laura has suffered will, in this world, never be redressed." "do you fear failure yourself, walter?" "i dare not anticipate success, and for that very reason, marian, i speak openly and plainly as i have spoken now. in my heart and my conscience i can say it, laura's hopes for the future are at their lowest ebb. i know that her fortune is gone--i know that the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the end. with every worldly advantage gone from her, with all prospect of recovering her rank and station more than doubtful, with no clearer future before her than the future which her husband can provide, the poor drawing-master may harmlessly open his heart at last. in the days of her prosperity, marian, i was only the teacher who guided her hand--i ask for it, in her adversity, as the hand of my wife!" marian's eyes met mine affectionately--i could say no more. my heart was full, my lips were trembling. in spite of myself i was in danger of appealing to her pity. i got up to leave the room. she rose at the same moment, laid her hand gently on my shoulder, and stopped me. "walter!" she said, "i once parted you both, for your good and for hers. wait here, my brother!--wait, my dearest, best friend, till laura comes, and tells you what i have done now!" for the first time since the farewell morning at limmeridge she touched my forehead with her lips. a tear dropped on my face as she kissed me. she turned quickly, pointed to the chair from which i had risen, and left the room. i sat down alone at the window to wait through the crisis of my life. my mind in that breathless interval felt like a total blank. i was conscious of nothing but a painful intensity of all familiar perceptions. the sun grew blinding bright, the white sea birds chasing each other far beyond me seemed to be flitting before my face, the mellow murmur of the waves on the beach was like thunder in my ears. the door opened, and laura came in alone. so she had entered the breakfast-room at limmeridge house on the morning when we parted. slowly and falteringly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once approached me. now she came with the haste of happiness in her feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. of their own accord those dear arms clasped themselves round me, of their own accord the sweet lips came to meet mine. "my darling!" she whispered, "we may own we love each other now?" her head nestled with a tender contentedness on my bosom. "oh," she said innocently, "i am so happy at last!" ten days later we were happier still. we were married. iv the course of this narrative, steadily flowing on, bears me away from the morning-time of our married life, and carries me forward to the end. in a fortnight more we three were back in london, and the shadow was stealing over us of the struggle to come. marian and i were careful to keep laura in ignorance of the cause that had hurried us back--the necessity of making sure of the count. it was now the beginning of may, and his term of occupation at the house in forest road expired in june. if he renewed it (and i had reasons, shortly to be mentioned, for anticipating that he would), i might be certain of his not escaping me. but if by any chance he disappointed my expectations and left the country, then i had no time to lose in arming myself to meet him as i best might. in the first fulness of my new happiness, there had been moments when my resolution faltered--moments when i was tempted to be safely content, now that the dearest aspiration of my life was fulfilled in the possession of laura's love. for the first time i thought faint-heartedly of the greatness of the risk, of the adverse chances arrayed against me, of the fair promise of our new life, and of the peril in which i might place the happiness which we had so hardly earned. yes! let me own it honestly. for a brief time i wandered, in the sweet guiding of love, far from the purpose to which i had been true under sterner discipline and in darker days. innocently laura had tempted me aside from the hard path--innocently she was destined to lead me back again. at times, dreams of the terrible past still disconnectedly recalled to her, in the mystery of sleep, the events of which her waking memory had lost all trace. one night (barely two weeks after our marriage), when i was watching her at rest, i saw the tears come slowly through her closed eyelids, i heard the faint murmuring words escape her which told me that her spirit was back again on the fatal journey from blackwater park. that unconscious appeal, so touching and so awful in the sacredness of her sleep, ran through me like fire. the next day was the day we came back to london--the day when my resolution returned to me with tenfold strength. the first necessity was to know something of the man. thus far, the true story of his life was an impenetrable mystery to me. i began with such scanty sources of information as were at my own disposal. the important narrative written by mr. frederick fairlie (which marian had obtained by following the directions i had given to her in the winter) proved to be of no service to the special object with which i now looked at it. while reading it i reconsidered the disclosure revealed to me by mrs. clements of the series of deceptions which had brought anne catherick to london, and which had there devoted her to the interests of the conspiracy. here, again, the count had not openly committed himself--here, again, he was, to all practical purpose, out of my reach. i next returned to marian's journal at blackwater park. at my request she read to me again a passage which referred to her past curiosity about the count, and to the few particulars which she had discovered relating to him. the passage to which i allude occurs in that part of her journal which delineates his character and his personal appearance. she describes him as "not having crossed the frontiers of his native country for years past"--as "anxious to know if any italian gentlemen were settled in the nearest town to blackwater park"--as "receiving letters with all sorts of odd stamps on them, and one with a large official-looking seal on it." she is inclined to consider that his long absence from his native country may be accounted for by assuming that he is a political exile. but she is, on the other hand, unable to reconcile this idea with the reception of the letter from abroad bearing "the large official-looking seal"--letters from the continent addressed to political exiles being usually the last to court attention from foreign post-offices in that way. the considerations thus presented to me in the diary, joined to certain surmises of my own that grew out of them, suggested a conclusion which i wondered i had not arrived at before. i now said to myself--what laura had once said to marian at blackwater park, what madame fosco had overheard by listening at the door--the count is a spy! laura had applied the word to him at hazard, in natural anger at his proceedings towards herself. i applied it to him with the deliberate conviction that his vocation in life was the vocation of a spy. on this assumption, the reason for his extraordinary stay in england so long after the objects of the conspiracy had been gained, became, to my mind, quite intelligible. the year of which i am now writing was the year of the famous crystal palace exhibition in hyde park. foreigners in unusually large numbers had arrived already, and were still arriving in england. men were among us by hundreds whom the ceaseless distrustfulness of their governments had followed privately, by means of appointed agents, to our shores. my surmises did not for a moment class a man of the count's abilities and social position with the ordinary rank and file of foreign spies. i suspected him of holding a position of authority, of being entrusted by the government which he secretly served with the organisation and management of agents specially employed in this country, both men and women, and i believed mrs. rubelle, who had been so opportunely found to act as nurse at blackwater park, to be, in all probability, one of the number. assuming that this idea of mine had a foundation in truth, the position of the count might prove to be more assailable than i had hitherto ventured to hope. to whom could i apply to know something more of the man's history and of the man himself than i knew now? in this emergency it naturally occurred to my mind that a countryman of his own, on whom i could rely, might be the fittest person to help me. the first man whom i thought of under these circumstances was also the only italian with whom i was intimately acquainted--my quaint little friend, professor pesca. the professor has been so long absent from these pages that he has run some risk of being forgotten altogether. it is the necessary law of such a story as mine that the persons concerned in it only appear when the course of events takes them up--they come and go, not by favour of my personal partiality, but by right of their direct connection with the circumstances to be detailed. for this reason, not pesca alone, but my mother and sister as well, have been left far in the background of the narrative. my visits to the hampstead cottage, my mother's belief in the denial of laura's identity which the conspiracy had accomplished, my vain efforts to overcome the prejudice on her part and on my sister's to which, in their jealous affection for me, they both continued to adhere, the painful necessity which that prejudice imposed on me of concealing my marriage from them till they had learnt to do justice to my wife--all these little domestic occurrences have been left unrecorded because they were not essential to the main interest of the story. it is nothing that they added to my anxieties and embittered my disappointments--the steady march of events has inexorably passed them by. for the same reason i have said nothing here of the consolation that i found in pesca's brotherly affection for me, when i saw him again after the sudden cessation of my residence at limmeridge house. i have not recorded the fidelity with which my warm-hearted little friend followed me to the place of embarkation when i sailed for central america, or the noisy transport of joy with which he received me when we next met in london. if i had felt justified in accepting the offers of service which he made to me on my return, he would have appeared again long ere this. but, though i knew that his honour and his courage were to be implicitly relied on, i was not so sure that his discretion was to be trusted, and, for that reason only, i followed the course of all my inquiries alone. it will now be sufficiently understood that pesca was not separated from all connection with me and my interests, although he has hitherto been separated from all connection with the progress of this narrative. he was as true and as ready a friend of mine still as ever he had been in his life. before i summoned pesca to my assistance it was necessary to see for myself what sort of man i had to deal with. up to this time i had never once set eyes on count fosco. three days after my return with laura and marian to london, i set forth alone for forest road, st. john's wood, between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning. it was a fine day--i had some hours to spare--and i thought it likely, if i waited a little for him, that the count might be tempted out. i had no great reason to fear the chance of his recognising me in the daytime, for the only occasion when i had been seen by him was the occasion on which he had followed me home at night. no one appeared at the windows in the front of the house. i walked down a turning which ran past the side of it, and looked over the low garden wall. one of the back windows on the lower floor was thrown up and a net was stretched across the opening. i saw nobody, but i heard, in the room, first a shrill whistling and singing of birds, then the deep ringing voice which marian's description had made familiar to me. "come out on my little finger, my pret-pret-pretties!" cried the voice. "come out and hop upstairs! one, two, three--and up! three, two, one--and down! one, two, three--twit-twit-twit-tweet!" the count was exercising his canaries as he used to exercise them in marian's time at blackwater park. i waited a little while, and the singing and the whistling ceased. "come, kiss me, my pretties!" said the deep voice. there was a responsive twittering and chirping--a low, oily laugh--a silence of a minute or so, and then i heard the opening of the house door. i turned and retraced my steps. the magnificent melody of the prayer in rossini's moses, sung in a sonorous bass voice, rose grandly through the suburban silence of the place. the front garden gate opened and closed. the count had come out. he crossed the road and walked towards the western boundary of the regent's park. i kept on my own side of the way, a little behind him, and walked in that direction also. marian had prepared me for his high stature, his monstrous corpulence, and his ostentatious mourning garments, but not for the horrible freshness and cheerfulness and vitality of the man. he carried his sixty years as if they had been fewer than forty. he sauntered along, wearing his hat a little on one side, with a light jaunty step, swinging his big stick, humming to himself, looking up from time to time at the houses and gardens on either side of him with superb, smiling patronage. if a stranger had been told that the whole neighbourhood belonged to him, that stranger would not have been surprised to hear it. he never looked back, he paid no apparent attention to me, no apparent attention to any one who passed him on his own side of the road, except now and then, when he smiled and smirked, with an easy paternal good humour, at the nursery-maids and the children whom he met. in this way he led me on, till we reached a colony of shops outside the western terraces of the park. here he stopped at a pastrycook's, went in (probably to give an order), and came out again immediately with a tart in his hand. an italian was grinding an organ before the shop, and a miserable little shrivelled monkey was sitting on the instrument. the count stopped, bit a piece for himself out of the tart, and gravely handed the rest to the monkey. "my poor little man!" he said, with grotesque tenderness, "you look hungry. in the sacred name of humanity, i offer you some lunch!" the organ-grinder piteously put in his claim to a penny from the benevolent stranger. the count shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and passed on. we reached the streets and the better class of shops between the new road and oxford street. the count stopped again and entered a small optician's shop, with an inscription in the window announcing that repairs were neatly executed inside. he came out again with an opera-glass in his hand, walked a few paces on, and stopped to look at a bill of the opera placed outside a music-seller's shop. he read the bill attentively, considered a moment, and then hailed an empty cab as it passed him. "opera box-office," he said to the man, and was driven away. i crossed the road, and looked at the bill in my turn. the performance announced was lucrezia borgia, and it was to take place that evening. the opera-glass in the count's hand, his careful reading of the bill, and his direction to the cabman, all suggested that he proposed making one of the audience. i had the means of getting an admission for myself and a friend to the pit by applying to one of the scene-painters attached to the theatre, with whom i had been well acquainted in past times. there was a chance at least that the count might be easily visible among the audience to me and to any one with me, and in this case i had the means of ascertaining whether pesca knew his countryman or not that very night. this consideration at once decided the disposal of my evening. i procured the tickets, leaving a note at the professor's lodgings on the way. at a quarter to eight i called to take him with me to the theatre. my little friend was in a state of the highest excitement, with a festive flower in his button-hole, and the largest opera-glass i ever saw hugged up under his arm. "are you ready?" i asked. "right-all-right," said pesca. we started for the theatre. v the last notes of the introduction to the opera were being played, and the seats in the pit were all filled, when pesca and i reached the theatre. there was plenty of room, however, in the passage that ran round the pit--precisely the position best calculated to answer the purpose for which i was attending the performance. i went first to the barrier separating us from the stalls, and looked for the count in that part of the theatre. he was not there. returning along the passage, on the left-hand side from the stage, and looking about me attentively, i discovered him in the pit. he occupied an excellent place, some twelve or fourteen seats from the end of a bench, within three rows of the stalls. i placed myself exactly on a line with him. pesca standing by my side. the professor was not yet aware of the purpose for which i had brought him to the theatre, and he was rather surprised that we did not move nearer to the stage. the curtain rose, and the opera began. throughout the whole of the first act we remained in our position--the count, absorbed by the orchestra and the stage, never casting so much as a chance glance at us. not a note of donizetti's delicious music was lost on him. there he sat, high above his neighbours, smiling, and nodding his great head enjoyingly from time to time. when the people near him applauded the close of an air (as an english audience in such circumstances always will applaud), without the least consideration for the orchestral movement which immediately followed it, he looked round at them with an expression of compassionate remonstrance, and held up one hand with a gesture of polite entreaty. at the more refined passages of the singing, at the more delicate phases of the music, which passed unapplauded by others, his fat hands, adorned with perfectly-fitting black kid gloves, softly patted each other, in token of the cultivated appreciation of a musical man. at such times, his oily murmur of approval, "bravo! bra-a-a-a!" hummed through the silence, like the purring of a great cat. his immediate neighbours on either side--hearty, ruddy-faced people from the country, basking amazedly in the sunshine of fashionable london--seeing and hearing him, began to follow his lead. many a burst of applause from the pit that night started from the soft, comfortable patting of the black-gloved hands. the man's voracious vanity devoured this implied tribute to his local and critical supremacy with an appearance of the highest relish. smiles rippled continuously over his fat face. he looked about him, at the pauses in the music, serenely satisfied with himself and his fellow-creatures. "yes! yes! these barbarous english people are learning something from me. here, there, and everywhere, i--fosco--am an influence that is felt, a man who sits supreme!" if ever face spoke, his face spoke then, and that was its language. the curtain fell on the first act, and the audience rose to look about them. this was the time i had waited for--the time to try if pesca knew him. he rose with the rest, and surveyed the occupants of the boxes grandly with his opera-glass. at first his back was towards us, but he turned round in time, to our side of the theatre, and looked at the boxes above us, using his glass for a few minutes--then removing it, but still continuing to look up. this was the moment i chose, when his full face was in view, for directing pesca's attention to him. "do you know that man?" i asked. "which man, my friend?" "the tall, fat man, standing there, with his face towards us." pesca raised himself on tiptoe, and looked at the count. "no," said the professor. "the big fat man is a stranger to me. is he famous? why do you point him out?" "because i have particular reasons for wishing to know something of him. he is a countryman of yours--his name is count fosco. do you know that name?" "not i, walter. neither the name nor the man is known to me." "are you quite sure you don't recognise him? look again--look carefully. i will tell you why i am so anxious about it when we leave the theatre. stop! let me help you up here, where you can see him better." i helped the little man to perch himself on the edge of the raised dais upon which the pit-seats were all placed. his small stature was no hindrance to him--here he could see over the heads of the ladies who were seated near the outermost part of the bench. a slim, light-haired man standing by us, whom i had not noticed before--a man with a scar on his left cheek--looked attentively at pesca as i helped him up, and then looked still more attentively, following the direction of pesca's eyes, at the count. our conversation might have reached his ears, and might, as it struck me, have roused his curiosity. meanwhile, pesca fixed his eyes earnestly on the broad, full, smiling face turned a little upward, exactly opposite to him. "no," he said, "i have never set my two eyes on that big fat man before in all my life." as he spoke the count looked downwards towards the boxes behind us on the pit tier. the eyes of the two italians met. the instant before i had been perfectly satisfied, from his own reiterated assertion, that pesca did not know the count. the instant afterwards i was equally certain that the count knew pesca! knew him, and--more surprising still--feared him as well! there was no mistaking the change that passed over the villain's face. the leaden hue that altered his yellow complexion in a moment, the sudden rigidity of all his features, the furtive scrutiny of his cold grey eyes, the motionless stillness of him from head to foot told their own tale. a mortal dread had mastered him body and soul--and his own recognition of pesca was the cause of it! the slim man with the scar on his cheek was still close by us. he had apparently drawn his inference from the effect produced on the count by the sight of pesca as i had drawn mine. he was a mild, gentlemanlike man, looking like a foreigner, and his interest in our proceedings was not expressed in anything approaching to an offensive manner. for my own part i was so startled by the change in the count's face, so astounded at the entirely unexpected turn which events had taken, that i knew neither what to say or do next. pesca roused me by stepping back to his former place at my side and speaking first. "how the fat man stares!" he exclaimed. "is it at me? am i famous? how can he know me when i don't know him?" i kept my eye still on the count. i saw him move for the first time when pesca moved, so as not to lose sight of the little man in the lower position in which he now stood. i was curious to see what would happen if pesca's attention under these circumstances was withdrawn from him, and i accordingly asked the professor if he recognised any of his pupils that evening among the ladies in the boxes. pesca immediately raised the large opera-glass to his eyes, and moved it slowly all round the upper part of the theatre, searching for his pupils with the most conscientious scrutiny. the moment he showed himself to be thus engaged the count turned round, slipped past the persons who occupied seats on the farther side of him from where we stood, and disappeared in the middle passage down the centre of the pit. i caught pesca by the arm, and to his inexpressible astonishment, hurried him round with me to the back of the pit to intercept the count before he could get to the door. somewhat to my surprise, the slim man hastened out before us, avoiding a stoppage caused by some people on our side of the pit leaving their places, by which pesca and myself were delayed. when we reached the lobby the count had disappeared, and the foreigner with the scar was gone too. "come home," i said; "come home, pesca to your lodgings. i must speak to you in private--i must speak directly." "my-soul-bless-my-soul!" cried the professor, in a state of the extremest bewilderment. "what on earth is the matter?" i walked on rapidly without answering. the circumstances under which the count had left the theatre suggested to me that his extraordinary anxiety to escape pesca might carry him to further extremities still. he might escape me, too, by leaving london. i doubted the future if i allowed him so much as a day's freedom to act as he pleased. and i doubted that foreign stranger, who had got the start of us, and whom i suspected of intentionally following him out. with this double distrust in my mind, i was not long in making pesca understand what i wanted. as soon as we two were alone in his room, i increased his confusion and amazement a hundredfold by telling him what my purpose was as plainly and unreservedly as i have acknowledged it here. "my friend, what can i do?" cried the professor, piteously appealing to me with both hands. "deuce-what-the-deuce! how can i help you, walter, when i don't know the man?" "he knows you--he is afraid of you--he has left the theatre to escape you. pesca! there must be a reason for this. look back into your own life before you came to england. you left italy, as you have told me yourself, for political reasons. you have never mentioned those reasons to me, and i don't inquire into them now. i only ask you to consult your own recollections, and to say if they suggest no past cause for the terror which the first sight of you produced in that man." to my unutterable surprise, these words, harmless as they appeared to me, produced the same astounding effect on pesca which the sight of pesca had produced on the count. the rosy face of my little friend whitened in an instant, and he drew back from me slowly, trembling from head to foot. "walter!" he said. "you don't know what you ask." he spoke in a whisper--he looked at me as if i had suddenly revealed to him some hidden danger to both of us. in less than one minute of time he was so altered from the easy, lively, quaint little man of all my past experience, that if i had met him in the street, changed as i saw him now, i should most certainly not have known him again. "forgive me, if i have unintentionally pained and shocked you," i replied. "remember the cruel wrong my wife has suffered at count fosco's hands. remember that the wrong can never be redressed, unless the means are in my power of forcing him to do her justice. i spoke in her interests, pesca--i ask you again to forgive me--i can say no more." i rose to go. he stopped me before i reached the door. "wait," he said. "you have shaken me from head to foot. you don't know how i left my country, and why i left my country. let me compose myself, let me think, if i can." i returned to my chair. he walked up and down the room, talking to himself incoherently in his own language. after several turns backwards and forwards, he suddenly came up to me, and laid his little hands with a strange tenderness and solemnity on my breast. "on your heart and soul, walter," he said, "is there no other way to get to that man but the chance-way through me?" "there is no other way," i answered. he left me again, opened the door of the room and looked out cautiously into the passage, closed it once more, and came back. "you won your right over me, walter," he said, "on the day when you saved my life. it was yours from that moment, when you pleased to take it. take it now. yes! i mean what i say. my next words, as true as the good god is above us, will put my life into your hands." the trembling earnestness with which he uttered this extraordinary warning, carried with it, to my mind, the conviction that he spoke the truth. "mind this!" he went on, shaking his hands at me in the vehemence of his agitation. "i hold no thread, in my own mind, between that man fosco, and the past time which i call back to me for your sake. if you find the thread, keep it to yourself--tell me nothing--on my knees i beg and pray, let me be ignorant, let me be innocent, let me be blind to all the future as i am now!" he said a few words more, hesitatingly and disconnectedly, then stopped again. i saw that the effort of expressing himself in english, on an occasion too serious to permit him the use of the quaint turns and phrases of his ordinary vocabulary, was painfully increasing the difficulty he had felt from the first in speaking to me at all. having learnt to read and understand his native language (though not to speak it), in the earlier days of our intimate companionship, i now suggested to him that he should express himself in italian, while i used english in putting any questions which might be necessary to my enlightenment. he accepted the proposal. in his smooth-flowing language, spoken with a vehement agitation which betrayed itself in the perpetual working of his features, in the wildness and the suddenness of his foreign gesticulations, but never in the raising of his voice, i now heard the words which armed me to meet the last struggle, that is left for this story to record.[ ] [ ] it is only right to mention here, that i repeat pesco's statement to me with the careful suppressions and alterations which the serious nature of the subject and my own sense of duty to my friend demand. my first and last concealments from the reader are those which caution renders absolutely necessary in this portion of the narrative. "you know nothing of my motive for leaving italy," he began, "except that it was for political reasons. if i had been driven to this country by the persecution of my government, i should not have kept those reasons a secret from you or from any one. i have concealed them because no government authority has pronounced the sentence of my exile. you have heard, walter, of the political societies that are hidden in every great city on the continent of europe? to one of those societies i belonged in italy--and belong still in england. when i came to this country, i came by the direction of my chief. i was over-zealous in my younger time--i ran the risk of compromising myself and others. for those reasons i was ordered to emigrate to england and to wait. i emigrated--i have waited--i wait still. to-morrow i may be called away--ten years hence i may be called away. it is all one to me--i am here, i support myself by teaching, and i wait. i violate no oath (you shall hear why presently) in making my confidence complete by telling you the name of the society to which i belong. all i do is to put my life in your hands. if what i say to you now is ever known by others to have passed my lips, as certainly as we two sit here, i am a dead man." he whispered the next words in my ear. i keep the secret which he thus communicated. the society to which he belonged will be sufficiently individualised for the purpose of these pages, if i call it "the brotherhood," on the few occasions when any reference to the subject will be needed in this place. "the object of the brotherhood," pesca went on, "is, briefly, the object of other political societies of the same sort--the destruction of tyranny and the assertion of the rights of the people. the principles of the brotherhood are two. so long as a man's life is useful, or even harmless only, he has the right to enjoy it. but, if his life inflicts injury on the well-being of his fellow-men, from that moment he forfeits the right, and it is not only no crime, but a positive merit, to deprive him of it. it is not for me to say in what frightful circumstances of oppression and suffering this society took its rise. it is not for you to say--you englishmen, who have conquered your freedom so long ago, that you have conveniently forgotten what blood you shed, and what extremities you proceeded to in the conquering--it is not for you to say how far the worst of all exasperations may, or may not, carry the maddened men of an enslaved nation. the iron that has entered into our souls has gone too deep for you to find it. leave the refugee alone! laugh at him, distrust him, open your eyes in wonder at that secret self which smoulders in him, sometimes under the everyday respectability and tranquillity of a man like me--sometimes under the grinding poverty, the fierce squalor, of men less lucky, less pliable, less patient than i am--but judge us not! in the time of your first charles you might have done us justice--the long luxury of your own freedom has made you incapable of doing us justice now." all the deepest feelings of his nature seemed to force themselves to the surface in those words--all his heart was poured out to me for the first time in our lives--but still his voice never rose, still his dread of the terrible revelation he was making to me never left him. "so far," he resumed, "you think the society like other societies. its object (in your english opinion) is anarchy and revolution. it takes the life of a bad king or a bad minister, as if the one and the other were dangerous wild beasts to be shot at the first opportunity. i grant you this. but the laws of the brotherhood are the laws of no other political society on the face of the earth. the members are not known to one another. there is a president in italy; there are presidents abroad. each of these has his secretary. the presidents and the secretaries know the members, but the members, among themselves, are all strangers, until their chiefs see fit, in the political necessity of the time, or in the private necessity of the society, to make them known to each other. with such a safeguard as this there is no oath among us on admittance. we are identified with the brotherhood by a secret mark, which we all bear, which lasts while our lives last. we are told to go about our ordinary business, and to report ourselves to the president, or the secretary, four times a year, in the event of our services being required. we are warned, if we betray the brotherhood, or if we injure it by serving other interests, that we die by the principles of the brotherhood--die by the hand of a stranger who may be sent from the other end of the world to strike the blow--or by the hand of our own bosom-friend, who may have been a member unknown to us through all the years of our intimacy. sometimes the death is delayed--sometimes it follows close on the treachery. it is our first business to know how to wait--our second business to know how to obey when the word is spoken. some of us may wait our lives through, and may not be wanted. some of us may be called to the work, or to the preparation for the work, the very day of our admission. i myself--the little, easy, cheerful man you know, who, of his own accord, would hardly lift up his handkerchief to strike down the fly that buzzes about his face--i, in my younger time, under provocation so dreadful that i will not tell you of it, entered the brotherhood by an impulse, as i might have killed myself by an impulse. i must remain in it now--it has got me, whatever i may think of it in my better circumstances and my cooler manhood, to my dying day. while i was still in italy i was chosen secretary, and all the members of that time, who were brought face to face with my president, were brought face to face also with me." i began to understand him--i saw the end towards which his extraordinary disclosure was now tending. he waited a moment, watching me earnestly--watching till he had evidently guessed what was passing in my mind before he resumed. "you have drawn your own conclusion already," he said. "i see it in your face. tell me nothing--keep me out of the secret of your thoughts. let me make my one last sacrifice of myself, for your sake, and then have done with this subject, never to return to it again." he signed to me not to answer him--rose--removed his coat--and rolled up the shirt-sleeve on his left arm. "i promised you that this confidence should be complete," he whispered, speaking close at my ear, with his eyes looking watchfully at the door. "whatever comes of it you shall not reproach me with having hidden anything from you which it was necessary to your interests to know. i have said that the brotherhood identifies its members by a mark that lasts for life. see the place, and the mark on it for yourself." he raised his bare arm, and showed me, high on the upper part of it and in the inner side, a brand deeply burnt in the flesh and stained of a bright blood-red colour. i abstain from describing the device which the brand represented. it will be sufficient to say that it was circular in form, and so small that it would have been completely covered by a shilling coin. "a man who has this mark, branded in this place," he said, covering his arm again, "is a member of the brotherhood. a man who has been false to the brotherhood is discovered sooner or later by the chiefs who know him--presidents or secretaries, as the case may be. and a man discovered by the chiefs is dead. no human laws can protect him. remember what you have seen and heard--draw what conclusions you like--act as you please. but, in the name of god, whatever you discover, whatever you do, tell me nothing! let me remain free from a responsibility which it horrifies me to think of--which i know, in my conscience, is not my responsibility now. for the last time i say it--on my honour as a gentleman, on my oath as a christian, if the man you pointed out at the opera knows me, he is so altered, or so disguised, that i do not know him. i am ignorant of his proceedings or his purposes in england. i never saw him, i never heard the name he goes by, to my knowledge, before to-night. i say no more. leave me a little, walter. i am overpowered by what has happened--i am shaken by what i have said. let me try to be like myself again when we meet next." he dropped into a chair, and turning away from me, hid his face in his hands. i gently opened the door so as not to disturb him, and spoke my few parting words in low tones, which he might hear or not, as he pleased. "i will keep the memory of to-night in my heart of hearts," i said. "you shall never repent the trust you have reposed in me. may i come to you to-morrow? may i come as early as nine o'clock?" "yes, walter," he replied, looking up at me kindly, and speaking in english once more, as if his one anxiety now was to get back to our former relations towards each other. "come to my little bit of breakfast before i go my ways among the pupils that i teach." "good-night, pesca." "good-night, my friend." vi my first conviction as soon as i found myself outside the house, was that no alternative was left me but to act at once on the information i had received--to make sure of the count that night, or to risk the loss, if i only delayed till the morning, of laura's last chance. i looked at my watch--it was ten o'clock. not the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which the count had left the theatre. his escape from us, that evening, was beyond all question the preliminary only to his escape from london. the mark of the brotherhood was on his arm--i felt as certain of it as if he had shown me the brand; and the betrayal of the brotherhood was on his conscience--i had seen it in his recognition of pesca. it was easy to understand why that recognition had not been mutual. a man of the count's character would never risk the terrible consequences of turning spy without looking to his personal security quite as carefully as he looked to his golden reward. the shaven face, which i had pointed out at the opera, might have been covered by a beard in pesca's time--his dark brown hair might be a wig--his name was evidently a false one. the accident of time might have helped him as well--his immense corpulence might have come with his later years. there was every reason why pesca should not have known him again--every reason also why he should have known pesca, whose singular personal appearance made a marked man of him, go where he might. i have said that i felt certain of the purpose in the count's mind when he escaped us at the theatre. how could i doubt it, when i saw, with my own eyes, that he believed himself, in spite of the change in his appearance, to have been recognised by pesca, and to be therefore in danger of his life? if i could get speech of him that night, if i could show him that i, too knew of the mortal peril in which he stood, what result would follow? plainly this. one of us must be master of the situation--one of us must inevitably be at the mercy of the other. i owed it to myself to consider the chances against me before i confronted them. i owed it to my wife to do all that lay in my power to lessen the risk. the chances against me wanted no reckoning up--they were all merged in one. if the count discovered, by my own avowal, that the direct way to his safety lay through my life, he was probably the last man in existence who would shrink from throwing me off my guard and taking that way, when he had me alone within his reach. the only means of defence against him on which i could at all rely to lessen the risk, presented themselves, after a little careful thinking, clearly enough. before i made any personal acknowledgment of my discovery in his presence, i must place the discovery itself where it would be ready for instant use against him, and safe from any attempt at suppression on his part. if i laid the mine under his feet before i approached him, and if i left instructions with a third person to fire it on the expiration of a certain time, unless directions to the contrary were previously received under my own hand, or from my own lips--in that event the count's security was absolutely dependent upon mine, and i might hold the vantage ground over him securely, even in his own house. this idea occurred to me when i was close to the new lodgings which we had taken on returning from the sea-side. i went in without disturbing any one, by the help of my key. a light was in the hall, and i stole up with it to my workroom to make my preparations, and absolutely to commit myself to an interview with the count, before either laura or marian could have the slightest suspicion of what i intended to do. a letter addressed to pesca represented the surest measure of precaution which it was now possible for me to take. i wrote as follows-- "the man whom i pointed out to you at the opera is a member of the brotherhood, and has been false to his trust. put both these assertions to the test instantly. you know the name he goes by in england. his address is no. forest road, st. john's wood. on the love you once bore me, use the power entrusted to you without mercy and without delay against that man. i have risked all and lost all--and the forfeit of my failure has been paid with my life." i signed and dated these lines, enclosed them in an envelope, and sealed it up. on the outside i wrote this direction: "keep the enclosure unopened until nine o'clock to-morrow morning. if you do not hear from me, or see me, before that time, break the seal when the clock strikes, and read the contents." i added my initials, and protected the whole by enclosing it in a second sealed envelope, addressed to pesca at his lodgings. nothing remained to be done after this but to find the means of sending my letter to its destination immediately. i should then have accomplished all that lay in my power. if anything happened to me in the count's house, i had now provided for his answering it with his life. that the means of preventing his escape, under any circumstances whatever, were at pesca's disposal, if he chose to exert them, i did not for an instant doubt. the extraordinary anxiety which he had expressed to remain unenlightened as to the count's identity--or, in other words, to be left uncertain enough about facts to justify him to his own conscience in remaining passive--betrayed plainly that the means of exercising the terrible justice of the brotherhood were ready to his hand, although, as a naturally humane man, he had shrunk from plainly saying as much in my presence. the deadly certainty with which the vengeance of foreign political societies can hunt down a traitor to the cause, hide himself where he may, had been too often exemplified, even in my superficial experience, to allow of any doubt. considering the subject only as a reader of newspapers, cases recurred to my memory, both in london and in paris, of foreigners found stabbed in the streets, whose assassins could never be traced--of bodies and parts of bodies thrown into the thames and the seine, by hands that could never be discovered--of deaths by secret violence which could only be accounted for in one way. i have disguised nothing relating to myself in these pages, and i do not disguise here that i believed i had written count fosco's death-warrant, if the fatal emergency happened which authorised pesca to open my enclosure. i left my room to go down to the ground floor of the house, and speak to the landlord about finding me a messenger. he happened to be ascending the stairs at the time, and we met on the landing. his son, a quick lad, was the messenger he proposed to me on hearing what i wanted. we had the boy upstairs, and i gave him his directions. he was to take the letter in a cab, to put it into professor pesca's own hands, and to bring me back a line of acknowledgment from that gentleman--returning in the cab, and keeping it at the door for my use. it was then nearly half-past ten. i calculated that the boy might be back in twenty minutes, and that i might drive to st. john's wood, on his return, in twenty minutes more. when the lad had departed on his errand i returned to my own room for a little while, to put certain papers in order, so that they might be easily found in case of the worst. the key of the old-fashioned bureau in which the papers were kept i sealed up, and left it on my table, with marian's name written on the outside of the little packet. this done, i went downstairs to the sitting-room, in which i expected to find laura and marian awaiting my return from the opera. i felt my hand trembling for the first time when i laid it on the lock of the door. no one was in the room but marian. she was reading, and she looked at her watch, in surprise, when i came in. "how early you are back!" she said. "you must have come away before the opera was over." "yes," i replied, "neither pesca nor i waited for the end. where is laura?" "she had one of her bad headaches this evening, and i advised her to go to bed when we had done tea." i left the room again on the pretext of wishing to see whether laura was asleep. marian's quick eyes were beginning to look inquiringly at my face--marian's quick instinct was beginning to discover that i had something weighing on my mind. when i entered the bedchamber, and softly approached the bedside by the dim flicker of the night-lamp, my wife was asleep. we had not been married quite a month yet. if my heart was heavy, if my resolution for a moment faltered again, when i looked at her face turned faithfully to my pillow in her sleep--when i saw her hand resting open on the coverlid, as if it was waiting unconsciously for mine--surely there was some excuse for me? i only allowed myself a few minutes to kneel down at the bedside, and to look close at her--so close that her breath, as it came and went, fluttered on my face. i only touched her hand and her cheek with my lips at parting. she stirred in her sleep and murmured my name, but without waking. i lingered for an instant at the door to look at her again. "god bless and keep you, my darling!" i whispered, and left her. marian was at the stairhead waiting for me. she had a folded slip of paper in her hand. "the landlord's son has brought this for you," she said. "he has got a cab at the door--he says you ordered him to keep it at your disposal." "quite right, marian. i want the cab--i am going out again." i descended the stairs as i spoke, and looked into the sitting-room to read the slip of paper by the light on the table. it contained these two sentences in pesca's handwriting-- "your letter is received. if i don't see you before the time you mention, i will break the seal when the clock strikes." i placed the paper in my pocket-book, and made for the door. marian met me on the threshold, and pushed me back into the room, where the candle-light fell full on my face. she held me by both hands, and her eyes fastened searchingly on mine. "i see!" she said, in a low eager whisper. "you are trying the last chance to-night." "yes, the last chance and the best," i whispered back. "not alone! oh, walter, for god's sake, not alone! let me go with you. don't refuse me because i'm only a woman. i must go! i will go! i'll wait outside in the cab!" it was my turn now to hold her. she tried to break away from me and get down first to the door. "if you want to help me," i said, "stop here and sleep in my wife's room to-night. only let me go away with my mind easy about laura, and i answer for everything else. come, marian, give me a kiss, and show that you have the courage to wait till i come back." i dared not allow her time to say a word more. she tried to hold me again. i unclasped her hands, and was out of the room in a moment. the boy below heard me on the stairs, and opened the hall-door. i jumped into the cab before the driver could get off the box. "forest road, st. john's wood," i called to him through the front window. "double fare if you get there in a quarter of an hour." "i'll do it, sir." i looked at my watch. eleven o'clock. not a minute to lose. the rapid motion of the cab, the sense that every instant now was bringing me nearer to the count, the conviction that i was embarked at last, without let or hindrance, on my hazardous enterprise, heated me into such a fever of excitement that i shouted to the man to go faster and faster. as we left the streets, and crossed st. john's wood road, my impatience so completely overpowered me that i stood up in the cab and stretched my head out of the window, to see the end of the journey before we reached it. just as a church clock in the distance struck the quarter past, we turned into the forest road. i stopped the driver a little away from the count's house, paid and dismissed him, and walked on to the door. as i approached the garden gate, i saw another person advancing towards it also from the direction opposite to mine. we met under the gas lamp in the road, and looked at each other. i instantly recognised the light-haired foreigner with the scar on his cheek, and i thought he recognised me. he said nothing, and instead of stopping at the house, as i did, he slowly walked on. was he in the forest road by accident? or had he followed the count home from the opera? i did not pursue those questions. after waiting a little till the foreigner had slowly passed out of sight, i rang the gate bell. it was then twenty minutes past eleven--late enough to make it quite easy for the count to get rid of me by the excuse that he was in bed. the only way of providing against this contingency was to send in my name without asking any preliminary questions, and to let him know, at the same time, that i had a serious motive for wishing to see him at that late hour. accordingly, while i was waiting, i took out my card and wrote under my name "on important business." the maid-servant answered the door while i was writing the last word in pencil, and asked me distrustfully what i "pleased to want." "be so good as to take that to your master," i replied, giving her the card. i saw, by the girl's hesitation of manner, that if i had asked for the count in the first instance she would only have followed her instructions by telling me he was not at home. she was staggered by the confidence with which i gave her the card. after staring at me, in great perturbation, she went back into the house with my message, closing the door, and leaving me to wait in the garden. in a minute or so she reappeared. "her master's compliments, and would i be so obliging as to say what my business was?" "take my compliments back," i replied, "and say that the business cannot be mentioned to any one but your master." she left me again, again returned, and this time asked me to walk in. i followed her at once. in another moment i was inside the count's house. vii there was no lamp in the hall, but by the dim light of the kitchen candle, which the girl had brought upstairs with her, i saw an elderly lady steal noiselessly out of a back room on the ground floor. she cast one viperish look at me as i entered the hall, but said nothing, and went slowly upstairs without returning my bow. my familiarity with marian's journal sufficiently assured me that the elderly lady was madame fosco. the servant led me to the room which the countess had just left. i entered it, and found myself face to face with the count. he was still in his evening dress, except his coat, which he had thrown across a chair. his shirt-sleeves were turned up at the wrists, but no higher. a carpet-bag was on one side of him, and a box on the other. books, papers, and articles of wearing apparel were scattered about the room. on a table, at one side of the door, stood the cage, so well known to me by description, which contained his white mice. the canaries and the cockatoo were probably in some other room. he was seated before the box, packing it, when i went in, and rose with some papers in his hand to receive me. his face still betrayed plain traces of the shock that had overwhelmed him at the opera. his fat cheeks hung loose, his cold grey eyes were furtively vigilant, his voice, look, and manner were all sharply suspicious alike, as he advanced a step to meet me, and requested, with distant civility, that i would take a chair. "you come here on business, sir?" he said. "i am at a loss to know what that business can possibly be." the unconcealed curiosity, with which he looked hard in my face while he spoke, convinced me that i had passed unnoticed by him at the opera. he had seen pesca first, and from that moment till he left the theatre he had evidently seen nothing else. my name would necessarily suggest to him that i had not come into his house with other than a hostile purpose towards himself, but he appeared to be utterly ignorant thus far of the real nature of my errand. "i am fortunate in finding you here to-night," i said. "you seem to be on the point of taking a journey?" "is your business connected with my journey?" "in some degree." "in what degree? do you know where i am going to?" "no. i only know why you are leaving london." he slipped by me with the quickness of thought, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. "you and i, mr. hartright, are excellently well acquainted with one another by reputation," he said. "did it, by any chance, occur to you when you came to this house that i was not the sort of man you could trifle with?" "it did occur to me," i replied. "and i have not come to trifle with you. i am here on a matter of life and death, and if that door which you have locked was open at this moment, nothing you could say or do would induce me to pass through it." i walked farther into the room, and stood opposite to him on the rug before the fireplace. he drew a chair in front of the door, and sat down on it, with his left arm resting on the table. the cage with the white mice was close to him, and the little creatures scampered out of their sleeping-place as his heavy arm shook the table, and peered at him through the gaps in the smartly painted wires. "on a matter of life and death," he repeated to himself. "those words are more serious, perhaps, than you think. what do you mean?" "what i say." the perspiration broke out thickly on his broad forehead. his left hand stole over the edge of the table. there was a drawer in it, with a lock, and the key was in the lock. his finger and thumb closed over the key, but did not turn it. "so you know why i am leaving london?" he went on. "tell me the reason, if you please." he turned the key, and unlocked the drawer as he spoke. "i can do better than that," i replied. "i can show you the reason, if you like." "how can you show it?" "you have got your coat off," i said. "roll up the shirt-sleeve on your left arm, and you will see it there." the same livid leaden change passed over his face which i had seen pass over it at the theatre. the deadly glitter in his eyes shone steady and straight into mine. he said nothing. but his left hand slowly opened the table-drawer, and softly slipped into it. the harsh grating noise of something heavy that he was moving unseen to me sounded for a moment, then ceased. the silence that followed was so intense that the faint ticking nibble of the white mice at their wires was distinctly audible where i stood. my life hung by a thread, and i knew it. at that final moment i thought with his mind, i felt with his fingers--i was as certain as if i had seen it of what he kept hidden from me in the drawer. "wait a little," i said. "you have got the door locked--you see i don't move--you see my hands are empty. wait a little. i have something more to say." "you have said enough," he replied, with a sudden composure so unnatural and so ghastly that it tried my nerves as no outbreak of violence could have tried them. "i want one moment for my own thoughts, if you please. do you guess what i am thinking about?" "perhaps i do." "i am thinking," he remarked quietly, "whether i shall add to the disorder in this room by scattering your brains about the fireplace." if i had moved at that moment, i saw in his face that he would have done it. "i advise you to read two lines of writing which i have about me," i rejoined, "before you finally decide that question." the proposal appeared to excite his curiosity. he nodded his head. i took pesca's acknowledgment of the receipt of my letter out of my pocket-book, handed it to him at arm's length, and returned to my former position in front of the fireplace. he read the lines aloud: "your letter is received. if i don't hear from you before the time you mention, i will break the seal when the clock strikes." another man in his position would have needed some explanation of those words--the count felt no such necessity. one reading of the note showed him the precaution that i had taken as plainly as if he had been present at the time when i adopted it. the expression of his face changed on the instant, and his hand came out of the drawer empty. "i don't lock up my drawer, mr. hartright," he said, "and i don't say that i may not scatter your brains about the fireplace yet. but i am a just man even to my enemy, and i will acknowledge beforehand that they are cleverer brains than i thought them. come to the point, sir! you want something of me?" "i do, and i mean to have it." "on conditions?" "on no conditions." his hand dropped into the drawer again. "bah! we are travelling in a circle," he said, "and those clever brains of yours are in danger again. your tone is deplorably imprudent, sir--moderate it on the spot! the risk of shooting you on the place where you stand is less to me than the risk of letting you out of this house, except on conditions that i dictate and approve. you have not got my lamented friend to deal with now--you are face to face with fosco! if the lives of twenty mr. hartrights were the stepping-stones to my safety, over all those stones i would go, sustained by my sublime indifference, self-balanced by my impenetrable calm. respect me, if you love your own life! i summon you to answer three questions before you open your lips again. hear them--they are necessary to this interview. answer them--they are necessary to me." he held up one finger of his right hand. "first question!" he said. "you come here possessed of information which may be true or may be false--where did you get it?" "i decline to tell you." "no matter--i shall find out. if that information is true--mind i say, with the whole force of my resolution, if--you are making your market of it here by treachery of your own or by treachery of some other man. i note that circumstance for future use in my memory, which forgets nothing, and proceed." he held up another finger. "second question! those lines you invited me to read are without signature. who wrote them?" "a man whom i have every reason to depend on, and whom you have every reason to fear." my answer reached him to some purpose. his left hand trembled audibly in the drawer. "how long do you give me," he asked, putting his third question in a quieter tone, "before the clock strikes and the seal is broken?" "time enough for you to come to my terms," i replied. "give me a plainer answer, mr. hartright. what hour is the clock to strike?" "nine, to-morrow morning." "nine, to-morrow morning? yes, yes--your trap is laid for me before i can get my passport regulated and leave london. it is not earlier, i suppose? we will see about that presently--i can keep you hostage here, and bargain with you to send for your letter before i let you go. in the meantime, be so good next as to mention your terms." "you shall hear them. they are simple, and soon stated. you know whose interests i represent in coming here?" he smiled with the most supreme composure, and carelessly waved his right hand. "i consent to hazard a guess," he said jeeringly. "a lady's interests, of course!" "my wife's interests." he looked at me with the first honest expression that had crossed his face in my presence--an expression of blank amazement. i could see that i sank in his estimation as a dangerous man from that moment. he shut up the drawer at once, folded his arms over his breast, and listened to me with a smile of satirical attention. "you are well enough aware," i went on, "of the course which my inquiries have taken for many months past, to know that any attempted denial of plain facts will be quite useless in my presence. you are guilty of an infamous conspiracy! and the gain of a fortune of ten thousand pounds was your motive for it." he said nothing. but his face became overclouded suddenly by a lowering anxiety. "keep your gain," i said. (his face lightened again immediately, and his eyes opened on me in wider and wider astonishment.) "i am not here to disgrace myself by bargaining for money which has passed through your hands, and which has been the price of a vile crime. "gently, mr. hartright. your moral clap-traps have an excellent effect in england--keep them for yourself and your own countrymen, if you please. the ten thousand pounds was a legacy left to my excellent wife by the late mr. fairlie. place the affair on those grounds, and i will discuss it if you like. to a man of my sentiments, however, the subject is deplorably sordid. i prefer to pass it over. i invite you to resume the discussion of your terms. what do you demand?" "in the first place, i demand a full confession of the conspiracy, written and signed in my presence by yourself." he raised his finger again. "one!" he said, checking me off with the steady attention of a practical man. "in the second place, i demand a plain proof, which does not depend on your personal asseveration, of the date at which my wife left blackwater park and travelled to london." "so! so! you can lay your finger, i see, on the weak place," he remarked composedly. "any more?" "at present, no more." "good! you have mentioned your terms, now listen to mine. the responsibility to myself of admitting what you are pleased to call the 'conspiracy' is less, perhaps, upon the whole, than the responsibility of laying you dead on that hearthrug. let us say that i meet your proposal--on my own conditions. the statement you demand of me shall be written, and the plain proof shall be produced. you call a letter from my late lamented friend informing me of the day and hour of his wife's arrival in london, written, signed, and dated by himself, a proof, i suppose? i can give you this. i can also send you to the man of whom i hired the carriage to fetch my visitor from the railway, on the day when she arrived--his order-book may help you to your date, even if his coachman who drove me proves to be of no use. these things i can do, and will do, on conditions. i recite them. first condition! madame fosco and i leave this house when and how we please, without interference of any kind on your part. second condition! you wait here, in company with me, to see my agent, who is coming at seven o'clock in the morning to regulate my affairs. you give my agent a written order to the man who has got your sealed letter to resign his possession of it. you wait here till my agent places that letter unopened in my hands, and you then allow me one clear half-hour to leave the house--after which you resume your own freedom of action and go where you please. third condition! you give me the satisfaction of a gentleman for your intrusion into my private affairs, and for the language you have allowed yourself to use to me at this conference. the time and place, abroad, to be fixed in a letter from my hand when i am safe on the continent, and that letter to contain a strip of paper measuring accurately the length of my sword. those are my terms. inform me if you accept them--yes or no." the extraordinary mixture of prompt decision, far-sighted cunning, and mountebank bravado in this speech, staggered me for a moment--and only for a moment. the one question to consider was, whether i was justified or not in possessing myself of the means of establishing laura's identity at the cost of allowing the scoundrel who had robbed her of it to escape me with impunity. i knew that the motive of securing the just recognition of my wife in the birthplace from which she had been driven out as an impostor, and of publicly erasing the lie that still profaned her mother's tombstone, was far purer, in its freedom from all taint of evil passion, than the vindictive motive which had mingled itself with my purpose from the first. and yet i cannot honestly say that my own moral convictions were strong enough to decide the struggle in me by themselves. they were helped by my remembrance of sir percival's death. how awfully, at the last moment, had the working of the retribution there been snatched from my feeble hands! what right had i to decide, in my poor mortal ignorance of the future, that this man, too, must escape with impunity because he escaped me? i thought of these things--perhaps with the superstition inherent in my nature, perhaps with a sense worthier of me than superstition. it was hard, when i had fastened my hold on him at last, to loosen it again of my own accord--but i forced myself to make the sacrifice. in plainer words, i determined to be guided by the one higher motive of which i was certain, the motive of serving the cause of laura and the cause of truth. "i accept your conditions," i said. "with one reservation on my part." "what reservation may that be?" he asked. "it refers to the sealed letter," i answered. "i require you to destroy it unopened in my presence as soon as it is placed in your hands." my object in making this stipulation was simply to prevent him from carrying away written evidence of the nature of my communication with pesca. the fact of my communication he would necessarily discover, when i gave the address to his agent in the morning. but he could make no use of it on his own unsupported testimony--even if he really ventured to try the experiment--which need excite in me the slightest apprehension on pesca's account. "i grant your reservation," he replied, after considering the question gravely for a minute or two. "it is not worth dispute--the letter shall be destroyed when it comes into my hands." he rose, as he spoke, from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite to me up to this time. with one effort he appeared to free his mind from the whole pressure on it of the interview between us thus far. "ouf!" he cried, stretching his arms luxuriously, "the skirmish was hot while it lasted. take a seat, mr. hartright. we meet as mortal enemies hereafter--let us, like gallant gentlemen, exchange polite attentions in the meantime. permit me to take the liberty of calling for my wife." he unlocked and opened the door. "eleanor!" he called out in his deep voice. the lady of the viperish face came in "madame fosco--mr. hartright," said the count, introducing us with easy dignity. "my angel," he went on, addressing his wife, "will your labours of packing up allow you time to make me some nice strong coffee? i have writing business to transact with mr. hartright--and i require the full possession of my intelligence to do justice to myself." madame fosco bowed her head twice--once sternly to me, once submissively to her husband, and glided out of the room. the count walked to a writing-table near the window, opened his desk, and took from it several quires of paper and a bundle of quill pens. he scattered the pens about the table, so that they might lie ready in all directions to be taken up when wanted, and then cut the paper into a heap of narrow slips, of the form used by professional writers for the press. "i shall make this a remarkable document," he said, looking at me over his shoulder. "habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. one of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. immense privilege! i possess it. do you?" he marched backwards and forwards in the room, until the coffee appeared, humming to himself, and marking the places at which obstacles occurred in the arrangement of his ideas, by striking his forehead from time to time with the palm of his hand. the enormous audacity with which he seized on the situation in which i placed him, and made it the pedestal on which his vanity mounted for the one cherished purpose of self-display, mastered my astonishment by main force. sincerely as i loathed the man, the prodigious strength of his character, even in its most trivial aspects, impressed me in spite of myself. the coffee was brought in by madame fosco. he kissed her hand in grateful acknowledgment, and escorted her to the door; returned, poured out a cup of coffee for himself, and took it to the writing-table. "may i offer you some coffee, mr. hartright?" he said, before he sat down. i declined. "what! you think i shall poison you?" he said gaily. "the english intellect is sound, so far as it goes," he continued, seating himself at the table; "but it has one grave defect--it is always cautious in the wrong place." he dipped his pen in the ink, placed the first slip of paper before him with a thump of his hand on the desk, cleared his throat, and began. he wrote with great noise and rapidity, in so large and bold a hand, and with such wide spaces between the lines, that he reached the bottom of the slip in not more than two minutes certainly from the time when he started at the top. each slip as he finished it was paged, and tossed over his shoulder out of his way on the floor. when his first pen was worn out, that went over his shoulder too, and he pounced on a second from the supply scattered about the table. slip after slip, by dozens, by fifties, by hundreds, flew over his shoulders on either side of him till he had snowed himself up in paper all round his chair. hour after hour passed--and there i sat watching, there he sat writing. he never stopped, except to sip his coffee, and when that was exhausted, to smack his forehead from time to time. one o'clock struck, two, three, four--and still the slips flew about all round him; still the untiring pen scraped its way ceaselessly from top to bottom of the page, still the white chaos of paper rose higher and higher all round his chair. at four o'clock i heard a sudden splutter of the pen, indicative of the flourish with which he signed his name. "bravo!" he cried, springing to his feet with the activity of a young man, and looking me straight in the face with a smile of superb triumph. "done, mr. hartright!" he announced with a self-renovating thump of his fist on his broad breast. "done, to my own profound satisfaction--to your profound astonishment, when you read what i have written. the subject is exhausted: the man--fosco--is not. i proceed to the arrangement of my slips--to the revision of my slips--to the reading of my slips--addressed emphatically to your private ear. four o'clock has just struck. good! arrangement, revision, reading, from four to five. short snooze of restoration for myself from five to six. final preparations from six to seven. affair of agent and sealed letter from seven to eight. at eight, en route. behold the programme!" he sat down cross-legged on the floor among his papers, strung them together with a bodkin and a piece of string--revised them, wrote all the titles and honours by which he was personally distinguished at the head of the first page, and then read the manuscript to me with loud theatrical emphasis and profuse theatrical gesticulation. the reader will have an opportunity, ere long, of forming his own opinion of the document. it will be sufficient to mention here that it answered my purpose. he next wrote me the address of the person from whom he had hired the fly, and handed me sir percival's letter. it was dated from hampshire on the th of july, and it announced the journey of "lady glyde" to london on the th. thus, on the very day (the th) when the doctor's certificate declared that she had died in st. john's wood, she was alive, by sir percival's own showing, at blackwater--and, on the day after, she was to take a journey! when the proof of that journey was obtained from the flyman, the evidence would be complete. "a quarter-past five," said the count, looking at his watch. "time for my restorative snooze. i personally resemble napoleon the great, as you may have remarked, mr. hartright--i also resemble that immortal man in my power of commanding sleep at will. excuse me one moment. i will summon madame fosco, to keep you from feeling dull." knowing as well as he did, that he was summoning madame fosco to ensure my not leaving the house while he was asleep, i made no reply, and occupied myself in tying up the papers which he had placed in my possession. the lady came in, cool, pale, and venomous as ever. "amuse mr. hartright, my angel," said the count. he placed a chair for her, kissed her hand for the second time, withdrew to a sofa, and, in three minutes, was as peacefully and happily asleep as the most virtuous man in existence. madame fosco took a book from the table, sat down, and looked at me, with the steady vindictive malice of a woman who never forgot and never forgave. "i have been listening to your conversation with my husband," she said. "if i had been in his place--i would have laid you dead on the hearthrug." with those words she opened her book, and never looked at me or spoke to me from that time till the time when her husband woke. he opened his eyes and rose from the sofa, accurately to an hour from the time when he had gone to sleep. "i feel infinitely refreshed," he remarked. "eleanor, my good wife, are you all ready upstairs? that is well. my little packing here can be completed in ten minutes--my travelling-dress assumed in ten minutes more. what remains before the agent comes?" he looked about the room, and noticed the cage with his white mice in it. "ah!" he cried piteously, "a last laceration of my sympathies still remains. my innocent pets! my little cherished children! what am i to do with them? for the present we are settled nowhere; for the present we travel incessantly--the less baggage we carry the better for ourselves. my cockatoo, my canaries, and my little mice--who will cherish them when their good papa is gone?" he walked about the room deep in thought. he had not been at all troubled about writing his confession, but he was visibly perplexed and distressed about the far more important question of the disposal of his pets. after long consideration he suddenly sat down again at the writing-table. "an idea!" he exclaimed. "i will offer my canaries and my cockatoo to this vast metropolis--my agent shall present them in my name to the zoological gardens of london. the document that describes them shall be drawn out on the spot." he began to write, repeating the words as they flowed from his pen. "number one. cockatoo of transcendent plumage: attraction, of himself, to all visitors of taste. number two. canaries of unrivalled vivacity and intelligence: worthy of the garden of eden, worthy also of the garden in the regent's park. homage to british zoology. offered by fosco." the pen spluttered again, and the flourish was attached to his signature. "count! you have not included the mice," said madame fosco he left the table, took her hand, and placed it on his heart. "all human resolution, eleanor," he said solemnly, "has its limits. my limits are inscribed on that document. i cannot part with my white mice. bear with me, my angel, and remove them to their travelling cage upstairs." "admirable tenderness!" said madame fosco, admiring her husband, with a last viperish look in my direction. she took up the cage carefully, and left the room. the count looked at his watch. in spite of his resolute assumption of composure, he was getting anxious for the agent's arrival. the candles had long since been extinguished, and the sunlight of the new morning poured into the room. it was not till five minutes past seven that the gate bell rang, and the agent made his appearance. he was a foreigner with a dark beard. "mr. hartright--monsieur rubelle," said the count, introducing us. he took the agent (a foreign spy, in every line of his face, if ever there was one yet) into a corner of the room, whispered some directions to him, and then left us together. "monsieur rubelle," as soon as we were alone, suggested with great politeness that i should favour him with his instructions. i wrote two lines to pesca, authorising him to deliver my sealed letter "to the bearer," directed the note, and handed it to monsieur rubelle. the agent waited with me till his employer returned, equipped in travelling costume. the count examined the address of my letter before he dismissed the agent. "i thought so!" he said, turning on me with a dark look, and altering again in his manner from that moment. he completed his packing, and then sat consulting a travelling map, making entries in his pocket-book, and looking every now and then impatiently at his watch. not another word, addressed to myself, passed his lips. the near approach of the hour for his departure, and the proof he had seen of the communication established between pesca and myself, had plainly recalled his whole attention to the measures that were necessary for securing his escape. a little before eight o'clock, monsieur rubelle came back with my unopened letter in his hand. the count looked carefully at the superscription and the seal, lit a candle, and burnt the letter. "i perform my promise," he said, "but this matter, mr. hartright, shall not end here." the agent had kept at the door the cab in which he had returned. he and the maid-servant now busied themselves in removing the luggage. madame fosco came downstairs, thickly veiled, with the travelling cage of the white mice in her hand. she neither spoke to me nor looked towards me. her husband escorted her to the cab. "follow me as far as the passage," he whispered in my ear; "i may want to speak to you at the last moment." i went out to the door, the agent standing below me in the front garden. the count came back alone, and drew me a few steps inside the passage. "remember the third condition!" he whispered. "you shall hear from me, mr. hartright--i may claim from you the satisfaction of a gentleman sooner than you think for." he caught my hand before i was aware of him, and wrung it hard--then turned to the door, stopped, and came back to me again. "one word more," he said confidentially. "when i last saw miss halcombe, she looked thin and ill. i am anxious about that admirable woman. take care of her, sir! with my hand on my heart, i solemnly implore you, take care of miss halcombe!" those were the last words he said to me before he squeezed his huge body into the cab and drove off. the agent and i waited at the door a few moments looking after him. while we were standing together, a second cab appeared from a turning a little way down the road. it followed the direction previously taken by the count's cab, and as it passed the house and the open garden gate, a person inside looked at us out of the window. the stranger at the opera again!--the foreigner with a scar on his left cheek. "you wait here with me, sir, for half an hour more!" said monsieur rubelle. "i do." we returned to the sitting-room. i was in no humour to speak to the agent, or to allow him to speak to me. i took out the papers which the count had placed in my hands, and read the terrible story of the conspiracy told by the man who had planned and perpetrated it. the story continued by isidor, ottavio, baldassare fosco (count of the holy roman empire, knight grand cross of the order of the brazen crown, perpetual arch-master of the rosicrucian masons of mesopotamia; attached (in honorary capacities) to societies musical, societies medical, societies philosophical, and societies general benevolent, throughout europe; etc. etc. etc.) the count's narrative in the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty i arrived in england, charged with a delicate political mission from abroad. confidential persons were semi-officially connected with me, whose exertions i was authorised to direct, monsieur and madame rubelle being among the number. some weeks of spare time were at my disposal, before i entered on my functions by establishing myself in the suburbs of london. curiosity may stop here to ask for some explanation of those functions on my part. i entirely sympathise with the request. i also regret that diplomatic reserve forbids me to comply with it. i arranged to pass the preliminary period of repose, to which i have just referred, in the superb mansion of my late lamented friend, sir percival glyde. he arrived from the continent with his wife. i arrived from the continent with mine. england is the land of domestic happiness--how appropriately we entered it under these domestic circumstances! the bond of friendship which united percival and myself was strengthened, on this occasion, by a touching similarity in the pecuniary position on his side and on mine. we both wanted money. immense necessity! universal want! is there a civilised human being who does not feel for us? how insensible must that man be! or how rich! i enter into no sordid particulars, in discussing this part of the subject. my mind recoils from them. with a roman austerity, i show my empty purse and percival's to the shrinking public gaze. let us allow the deplorable fact to assert itself, once for all, in that manner, and pass on. we were received at the mansion by the magnificent creature who is inscribed on my heart as "marian," who is known in the colder atmosphere of society as "miss halcombe." just heaven! with what inconceivable rapidity i learnt to adore that woman. at sixty, i worshipped her with the volcanic ardour of eighteen. all the gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly at her feet. my wife--poor angel!--my wife, who adores me, got nothing but the shillings and the pennies. such is the world, such man, such love. what are we (i ask) but puppets in a show-box? oh, omnipotent destiny, pull our strings gently! dance us mercifully off our miserable little stage! the preceding lines, rightly understood, express an entire system of philosophy. it is mine. i resume. the domestic position at the commencement of our residence at blackwater park has been drawn with amazing accuracy, with profound mental insight, by the hand of marian herself. (pass me the intoxicating familiarity of mentioning this sublime creature by her christian name.) accurate knowledge of the contents of her journal--to which i obtained access by clandestine means, unspeakably precious to me in the remembrance--warns my eager pen from topics which this essentially exhaustive woman has already made her own. the interests--interests, breathless and immense!--with which i am here concerned, begin with the deplorable calamity of marian's illness. the situation at this period was emphatically a serious one. large sums of money, due at a certain time, were wanted by percival (i say nothing of the modicum equally necessary to myself), and the one source to look to for supplying them was the fortune of his wife, of which not one farthing was at his disposal until her death. bad so far, and worse still farther on. my lamented friend had private troubles of his own, into which the delicacy of my disinterested attachment to him forbade me from inquiring too curiously. i knew nothing but that a woman, named anne catherick, was hidden in the neighbourhood, that she was in communication with lady glyde, and that the disclosure of a secret, which would be the certain ruin of percival, might be the result. he had told me himself that he was a lost man, unless his wife was silenced, and unless anne catherick was found. if he was a lost man, what would become of our pecuniary interests? courageous as i am by nature, i absolutely trembled at the idea! the whole force of my intelligence was now directed to the finding of anne catherick. our money affairs, important as they were, admitted of delay--but the necessity of discovering the woman admitted of none. i only knew her by description, as presenting an extraordinary personal resemblance to lady glyde. the statement of this curious fact--intended merely to assist me in identifying the person of whom we were in search--when coupled with the additional information that anne catherick had escaped from a mad-house, started the first immense conception in my mind, which subsequently led to such amazing results. that conception involved nothing less than the complete transformation of two separate identities. lady glyde and anne catherick were to change names, places, and destinies, the one with the other--the prodigious consequences contemplated by the change being the gain of thirty thousand pounds, and the eternal preservation of sir percival's secret. my instincts (which seldom err) suggested to me, on reviewing the circumstances, that our invisible anne would, sooner or later, return to the boat-house at the blackwater lake. there i posted myself, previously mentioning to mrs. michelson, the housekeeper, that i might be found when wanted, immersed in study, in that solitary place. it is my rule never to make unnecessary mysteries, and never to set people suspecting me for want of a little seasonable candour on my part. mrs. michelson believed in me from first to last. this ladylike person (widow of a protestant priest) overflowed with faith. touched by such superfluity of simple confidence in a woman of her mature years, i opened the ample reservoirs of my nature and absorbed it all. i was rewarded for posting myself sentinel at the lake by the appearance--not of anne catherick herself, but of the person in charge of her. this individual also overflowed with simple faith, which i absorbed in myself, as in the case already mentioned. i leave her to describe the circumstances (if she has not done so already) under which she introduced me to the object of her maternal care. when i first saw anne catherick she was asleep. i was electrified by the likeness between this unhappy woman and lady glyde. the details of the grand scheme which had suggested themselves in outline only, up to that period, occurred to me, in all their masterly combination, at the sight of the sleeping face. at the same time, my heart, always accessible to tender influences, dissolved in tears at the spectacle of suffering before me. i instantly set myself to impart relief. in other words, i provided the necessary stimulant for strengthening anne catherick to perform the journey to london. the best years of my life have been passed in the ardent study of medical and chemical science. chemistry especially has always had irresistible attractions for me from the enormous, the illimitable power which the knowledge of it confers. chemists--i assert it emphatically--might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of humanity. let me explain this before i go further. mind, they say, rules the world. but what rules the mind? the body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the most omnipotent of all potentates--the chemist. give me--fosco--chemistry; and when shakespeare has conceived hamlet, and sits down to execute the conception--with a few grains of powder dropped into his daily food, i will reduce his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen pours out the most abject drivel that has ever degraded paper. under similar circumstances, revive me the illustrious newton. i guarantee that when he sees the apple fall he shall eat it, instead of discovering the principle of gravitation. nero's dinner shall transform nero into the mildest of men before he has done digesting it, and the morning draught of alexander the great shall make alexander run for his life at the first sight of the enemy the same afternoon. on my sacred word of honour it is lucky for society that modern chemists are, by incomprehensible good fortune, the most harmless of mankind. the mass are worthy fathers of families, who keep shops. the few are philosophers besotted with admiration for the sound of their own lecturing voices, visionaries who waste their lives on fantastic impossibilities, or quacks whose ambition soars no higher than our corns. thus society escapes, and the illimitable power of chemistry remains the slave of the most superficial and the most insignificant ends. why this outburst? why this withering eloquence? because my conduct has been misrepresented, because my motives have been misunderstood. it has been assumed that i used my vast chemical resources against anne catherick, and that i would have used them if i could against the magnificent marian herself. odious insinuations both! all my interests were concerned (as will be seen presently) in the preservation of anne catherick's life. all my anxieties were concentrated on marian's rescue from the hands of the licensed imbecile who attended her, and who found my advice confirmed from first to last by the physician from london. on two occasions only--both equally harmless to the individual on whom i practised--did i summon to myself the assistance of chemical knowledge. on the first of the two, after following marian to the inn at blackwater (studying, behind a convenient waggon which hid me from her, the poetry of motion, as embodied in her walk), i availed myself of the services of my invaluable wife, to copy one and to intercept the other of two letters which my adored enemy had entrusted to a discarded maid. in this case, the letters being in the bosom of the girl's dress, madame fosco could only open them, read them, perform her instructions, seal them, and put them back again by scientific assistance--which assistance i rendered in a half-ounce bottle. the second occasion, when the same means were employed, was the occasion (to which i shall soon refer) of lady glyde's arrival in london. never at any other time was i indebted to my art as distinguished from myself. to all other emergencies and complications my natural capacity for grappling, single-handed, with circumstances, was invariably equal. i affirm the all-pervading intelligence of that capacity. at the expense of the chemist i vindicate the man. respect this outburst of generous indignation. it has inexpressibly relieved me. en route! let us proceed. having suggested to mrs. clement (or clements, i am not sure which) that the best method of keeping anne out of percival's reach was to remove her to london--having found that my proposal was eagerly received, and having appointed a day to meet the travellers at the station and to see them leave it, i was at liberty to return to the house and to confront the difficulties which still remained to be met. my first proceeding was to avail myself of the sublime devotion of my wife. i had arranged with mrs. clements that she should communicate her london address, in anne's interests, to lady glyde. but this was not enough. designing persons in my absence might shake the simple confidence of mrs. clements, and she might not write after all. who could i find capable of travelling to london by the train she travelled by, and of privately seeing her home? i asked myself this question. the conjugal part of me immediately answered--madame fosco. after deciding on my wife's mission to london, i arranged that the journey should serve a double purpose. a nurse for the suffering marian, equally devoted to the patient and to myself, was a necessity of my position. one of the most eminently confidential and capable women in existence was by good fortune at my disposal. i refer to that respectable matron, madame rubelle, to whom i addressed a letter, at her residence in london, by the hands of my wife. on the appointed day mrs. clements and anne catherick met me at the station. i politely saw them off, i politely saw madame fosco off by the same train. the last thing at night my wife returned to blackwater, having followed her instructions with the most unimpeachable accuracy. she was accompanied by madame rubelle, and she brought me the london address of mrs. clements. after-events proved this last precaution to have been unnecessary. mrs. clements punctually informed lady glyde of her place of abode. with a wary eye on future emergencies, i kept the letter. the same day i had a brief interview with the doctor, at which i protested, in the sacred interests of humanity, against his treatment of marian's case. he was insolent, as all ignorant people are. i showed no resentment, i deferred quarrelling with him till it was necessary to quarrel to some purpose. my next proceeding was to leave blackwater myself. i had my london residence to take in anticipation of coming events. i had also a little business of the domestic sort to transact with mr. frederick fairlie. i found the house i wanted in st. john's wood. i found mr. fairlie at limmeridge, cumberland. my own private familiarity with the nature of marian's correspondence had previously informed me that she had written to mr. fairlie, proposing, as a relief to lady glyde's matrimonial embarrassments, to take her on a visit to her uncle in cumberland. this letter i had wisely allowed to reach its destination, feeling at the time that it could do no harm, and might do good. i now presented myself before mr. fairlie to support marian's own proposal--with certain modifications which, happily for the success of my plans, were rendered really inevitable by her illness. it was necessary that lady glyde should leave blackwater alone, by her uncle's invitation, and that she should rest a night on the journey at her aunt's house (the house i had in st. john's wood) by her uncle's express advice. to achieve these results, and to secure a note of invitation which could be shown to lady glyde, were the objects of my visit to mr. fairlie. when i have mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in mind and body, and that i let loose the whole force of my character on him, i have said enough. i came, saw, and conquered fairlie. on my return to blackwater park (with the letter of invitation) i found that the doctor's imbecile treatment of marian's case had led to the most alarming results. the fever had turned to typhus. lady glyde, on the day of my return, tried to force herself into the room to nurse her sister. she and i had no affinities of sympathy--she had committed the unpardonable outrage on my sensibilities of calling me a spy--she was a stumbling-block in my way and in percival's--but, for all that, my magnanimity forbade me to put her in danger of infection with my own hand. at the same time i offered no hindrance to her putting herself in danger. if she had succeeded in doing so, the intricate knot which i was slowly and patiently operating on might perhaps have been cut by circumstances. as it was, the doctor interfered and she was kept out of the room. i had myself previously recommended sending for advice to london. this course had been now taken. the physician, on his arrival, confirmed my view of the case. the crisis was serious. but we had hope of our charming patient on the fifth day from the appearance of the typhus. i was only once absent from blackwater at this time--when i went to london by the morning train to make the final arrangements at my house in st. john's wood, to assure myself by private inquiry that mrs. clements had not moved, and to settle one or two little preliminary matters with the husband of madame rubelle. i returned at night. five days afterwards the physician pronounced our interesting marian to be out of all danger, and to be in need of nothing but careful nursing. this was the time i had waited for. now that medical attendance was no longer indispensable, i played the first move in the game by asserting myself against the doctor. he was one among many witnesses in my way whom it was necessary to remove. a lively altercation between us (in which percival, previously instructed by me, refused to interfere) served the purpose in view. i descended on the miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of indignation, and swept him from the house. the servants were the next encumbrances to get rid of. again i instructed percival (whose moral courage required perpetual stimulants), and mrs. michelson was amazed, one day, by hearing from her master that the establishment was to be broken up. we cleared the house of all the servants but one, who was kept for domestic purposes, and whose lumpish stupidity we could trust to make no embarrassing discoveries. when they were gone, nothing remained but to relieve ourselves of mrs. michelson--a result which was easily achieved by sending this amiable lady to find lodgings for her mistress at the sea-side. the circumstances were now exactly what they were required to be. lady glyde was confined to her room by nervous illness, and the lumpish housemaid (i forget her name) was shut up there at night in attendance on her mistress. marian, though fast recovering, still kept her bed, with mrs. rubelle for nurse. no other living creatures but my wife, myself, and percival were in the house. with all the chances thus in our favour i confronted the next emergency, and played the second move in the game. the object of the second move was to induce lady glyde to leave blackwater unaccompanied by her sister. unless we could persuade her that marian had gone on to cumberland first, there was no chance of removing her, of her own free will, from the house. to produce this necessary operation in her mind, we concealed our interesting invalid in one of the uninhabited bedrooms at blackwater. at the dead of night madame fosco, madame rubelle, and myself (percival not being cool enough to be trusted) accomplished the concealment. the scene was picturesque, mysterious, dramatic in the highest degree. by my directions the bed had been made, in the morning, on a strong movable framework of wood. we had only to lift the framework gently at the head and foot, and to transport our patient where we pleased, without disturbing herself or her bed. no chemical assistance was needed or used in this case. our interesting marian lay in the deep repose of convalescence. we placed the candles and opened the doors beforehand. i, in right of my great personal strength, took the head of the framework--my wife and madame rubelle took the foot. i bore my share of that inestimably precious burden with a manly tenderness, with a fatherly care. where is the modern rembrandt who could depict our midnight procession? alas for the arts! alas for this most pictorial of subjects! the modern rembrandt is nowhere to be found. the next morning my wife and i started for london, leaving marian secluded, in the uninhabited middle of the house, under care of madame rubelle, who kindly consented to imprison herself with her patient for two or three days. before taking our departure i gave percival mr. fairlie's letter of invitation to his niece (instructing her to sleep on the journey to cumberland at her aunt's house), with directions to show it to lady glyde on hearing from me. i also obtained from him the address of the asylum in which anne catherick had been confined, and a letter to the proprietor, announcing to that gentleman the return of his runaway patient to medical care. i had arranged, at my last visit to the metropolis, to have our modest domestic establishment ready to receive us when we arrived in london by the early train. in consequence of this wise precaution, we were enabled that same day to play the third move in the game--the getting possession of anne catherick. dates are of importance here. i combine in myself the opposite characteristics of a man of sentiment and a man of business. i have all the dates at my fingers' ends. on wednesday, the th of july , i sent my wife in a cab to clear mrs. clements out of the way, in the first place. a supposed message from lady glyde in london was sufficient to obtain this result. mrs. clements was taken away in the cab, and was left in the cab, while my wife (on pretence of purchasing something at a shop) gave her the slip, and returned to receive her expected visitor at our house in st. john's wood. it is hardly necessary to add that the visitor had been described to the servants as "lady glyde." in the meanwhile i had followed in another cab, with a note for anne catherick, merely mentioning that lady glyde intended to keep mrs. clements to spend the day with her, and that she was to join them under care of the good gentleman waiting outside, who had already saved her from discovery in hampshire by sir percival. the "good gentleman" sent in this note by a street boy, and paused for results a door or two farther on. at the moment when anne appeared at the house door and closed it this excellent man had the cab door open ready for her, absorbed her into the vehicle, and drove off. (pass me, here, one exclamation in parenthesis. how interesting this is!) on the way to forest road my companion showed no fear. i can be paternal--no man more so--when i please, and i was intensely paternal on this occasion. what titles i had to her confidence! i had compounded the medicine which had done her good--i had warned her of her danger from sir percival. perhaps i trusted too implicitly to these titles--perhaps i underrated the keenness of the lower instincts in persons of weak intellect--it is certain that i neglected to prepare her sufficiently for a disappointment on entering my house. when i took her into the drawing-room--when she saw no one present but madame fosco, who was a stranger to her--she exhibited the most violent agitation; if she had scented danger in the air, as a dog scents the presence of some creature unseen, her alarm could not have displayed itself more suddenly and more causelessly. i interposed in vain. the fear from which she was suffering i might have soothed, but the serious heart-disease, under which she laboured, was beyond the reach of all moral palliatives. to my unspeakable horror she was seized with convulsions--a shock to the system, in her condition, which might have laid her dead at any moment at our feet. the nearest doctor was sent for, and was told that "lady glyde" required his immediate services. to my infinite relief, he was a capable man. i represented my visitor to him as a person of weak intellect, and subject to delusions, and i arranged that no nurse but my wife should watch in the sick-room. the unhappy woman was too ill, however, to cause any anxiety about what she might say. the one dread which now oppressed me was the dread that the false lady glyde might die before the true lady glyde arrived in london. i had written a note in the morning to madame rubelle, telling her to join me at her husband's house on the evening of friday the th, with another note to percival, warning him to show his wife her uncle's letter of invitation, to assert that marian had gone on before her, and to despatch her to town by the midday train, on the th, also. on reflection i had felt the necessity, in anne catherick's state of health, of precipitating events, and of having lady glyde at my disposal earlier than i had originally contemplated. what fresh directions, in the terrible uncertainty of my position, could i now issue? i could do nothing but trust to chance and the doctor. my emotions expressed themselves in pathetic apostrophes, which i was just self-possessed enough to couple, in the hearing of other people, with the name of "lady glyde." in all other respects fosco, on that memorable day, was fosco shrouded in total eclipse. she passed a bad night, she awoke worn out, but later in the day she revived amazingly. my elastic spirits revived with her. i could receive no answers from percival and madame rubelle till the morning of the next day, the th. in anticipation of their following my directions, which, accident apart, i knew they would do, i went to secure a fly to fetch lady glyde from the railway, directing it to be at my house on the th, at two o'clock. after seeing the order entered in the book, i went on to arrange matters with monsieur rubelle. i also procured the services of two gentlemen who could furnish me with the necessary certificates of lunacy. one of them i knew personally--the other was known to monsieur rubelle. both were men whose vigorous minds soared superior to narrow scruples--both were labouring under temporary embarrassments--both believed in me. it was past five o'clock in the afternoon before i returned from the performance of these duties. when i got back anne catherick was dead. dead on the th, and lady glyde was not to arrive in london till the th! i was stunned. meditate on that. fosco stunned! it was too late to retrace our steps. before my return the doctor had officiously undertaken to save me all trouble by registering the death, on the date when it happened, with his own hand. my grand scheme, unassailable hitherto, had its weak place now--no efforts on my part could alter the fatal event of the th. i turned manfully to the future. percival's interests and mine being still at stake, nothing was left but to play the game through to the end. i recalled my impenetrable calm--and played it. on the morning of the th percival's letter reached me, announcing his wife's arrival by the midday train. madame rubelle also wrote to say she would follow in the evening. i started in the fly, leaving the false lady glyde dead in the house, to receive the true lady glyde on her arrival by the railway at three o'clock. hidden under the seat of the carriage, i carried with me all the clothes anne catherick had worn on coming into my house--they were destined to assist the resurrection of the woman who was dead in the person of the woman who was living. what a situation! i suggest it to the rising romance writers of england. i offer it, as totally new, to the worn-out dramatists of france. lady glyde was at the station. there was great crowding and confusion, and more delay than i liked (in case any of her friends had happened to be on the spot), in reclaiming her luggage. her first questions, as we drove off, implored me to tell her news of her sister. i invented news of the most pacifying kind, assuring her that she was about to see her sister at my house. my house, on this occasion only, was in the neighbourhood of leicester square, and was in the occupation of monsieur rubelle, who received us in the hall. i took my visitor upstairs into a back room, the two medical gentlemen being there in waiting on the floor beneath to see the patient, and to give me their certificates. after quieting lady glyde by the necessary assurances about her sister, i introduced my friends separately to her presence. they performed the formalities of the occasion briefly, intelligently, conscientiously. i entered the room again as soon as they had left it, and at once precipitated events by a reference of the alarming kind to "miss halcombe's" state of health. results followed as i had anticipated. lady glyde became frightened, and turned faint. for the second time, and the last, i called science to my assistance. a medicated glass of water and a medicated bottle of smelling-salts relieved her of all further embarrassment and alarm. additional applications later in the evening procured her the inestimable blessing of a good night's rest. madame rubelle arrived in time to preside at lady glyde's toilet. her own clothes were taken away from her at night, and anne catherick's were put on her in the morning, with the strictest regard to propriety, by the matronly hands of the good rubelle. throughout the day i kept our patient in a state of partially-suspended consciousness, until the dexterous assistance of my medical friends enabled me to procure the necessary order rather earlier than i had ventured to hope. that evening (the evening of the th) madame rubelle and i took our revived "anne catherick" to the asylum. she was received with great surprise, but without suspicion, thanks to the order and certificates, to percival's letter, to the likeness, to the clothes, and to the patient's own confused mental condition at the time. i returned at once to assist madame fosco in the preparations for the burial of the false "lady glyde," having the clothes and luggage of the true "lady glyde" in my possession. they were afterwards sent to cumberland by the conveyance which was used for the funeral. i attended the funeral, with becoming dignity, attired in the deepest mourning. my narrative of these remarkable events, written under equally remarkable circumstances, closes here. the minor precautions which i observed in communicating with limmeridge house are already known, so is the magnificent success of my enterprise, so are the solid pecuniary results which followed it. i have to assert, with the whole force of my conviction, that the one weak place in my scheme would never have been found out if the one weak place in my heart had not been discovered first. nothing but my fatal admiration for marian restrained me from stepping in to my own rescue when she effected her sister's escape. i ran the risk, and trusted in the complete destruction of lady glyde's identity. if either marian or mr. hartright attempted to assert that identity, they would publicly expose themselves to the imputation of sustaining a rank deception, they would be distrusted and discredited accordingly, and they would therefore be powerless to place my interests or percival's secret in jeopardy. i committed one error in trusting myself to such a blindfold calculation of chances as this. i committed another when percival had paid the penalty of his own obstinacy and violence, by granting lady glyde a second reprieve from the mad-house, and allowing mr. hartright a second chance of escaping me. in brief, fosco, at this serious crisis, was untrue to himself. deplorable and uncharacteristic fault! behold the cause, in my heart--behold, in the image of marian halcombe, the first and last weakness of fosco's life! at the ripe age of sixty, i make this unparalleled confession. youths! i invoke your sympathy. maidens! i claim your tears. a word more, and the attention of the reader (concentrated breathlessly on myself) shall be released. my own mental insight informs me that three inevitable questions will be asked here by persons of inquiring minds. they shall be stated--they shall be answered. first question. what is the secret of madame fosco's unhesitating devotion of herself to the fulfilment of my boldest wishes, to the furtherance of my deepest plans? i might answer this by simply referring to my own character, and by asking, in my turn, where, in the history of the world, has a man of my order ever been found without a woman in the background self-immolated on the altar of his life? but i remember that i am writing in england, i remember that i was married in england, and i ask if a woman's marriage obligations in this country provide for her private opinion of her husband's principles? no! they charge her unreservedly to love, honour, and obey him. that is exactly what my wife has done. i stand here on a supreme moral elevation, and i loftily assert her accurate performance of her conjugal duties. silence, calumny! your sympathy, wives of england, for madame fosco! second question. if anne catherick had not died when she did, what should i have done? i should, in that case, have assisted worn-out nature in finding permanent repose. i should have opened the doors of the prison of life, and have extended to the captive (incurably afflicted in mind and body both) a happy release. third question. on a calm revision of all the circumstances--is my conduct worthy of any serious blame? most emphatically, no! have i not carefully avoided exposing myself to the odium of committing unnecessary crime? with my vast resources in chemistry, i might have taken lady glyde's life. at immense personal sacrifice i followed the dictates of my own ingenuity, my own humanity, my own caution, and took her identity instead. judge me by what i might have done. how comparatively innocent! how indirectly virtuous i appear in what i really did! i announced on beginning it that this narrative would be a remarkable document. it has entirely answered my expectations. receive these fervid lines--my last legacy to the country i leave for ever. they are worthy of the occasion, and worthy of fosco. the story concluded by walter hartright i when i closed the last leaf of the count's manuscript the half-hour during which i had engaged to remain at forest road had expired. monsieur rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. i rose immediately, and left the agent in possession of the empty house. i never saw him again--i never heard more of him or of his wife. out of the dark byways of villainy and deceit they had crawled across our path--into the same byways they crawled back secretly and were lost. in a quarter of an hour after leaving forest road i was at home again. but few words sufficed to tell laura and marian how my desperate venture had ended, and what the next event in our lives was likely to be. i left all details to be described later in the day, and hastened back to st. john's wood, to see the person of whom count fosco had ordered the fly, when he went to meet laura at the station. the address in my possession led me to some "livery stables," about a quarter of a mile distant from forest road. the proprietor proved to be a civil and respectable man. when i explained that an important family matter obliged me to ask him to refer to his books for the purpose of ascertaining a date with which the record of his business transactions might supply me, he offered no objection to granting my request. the book was produced, and there, under the date of "july th, ," the order was entered in these words-- "brougham to count fosco, forest road. two o'clock. (john owen)." i found on inquiry that the name of "john owen," attached to the entry, referred to the man who had been employed to drive the fly. he was then at work in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me at my request. "do you remember driving a gentleman, in the month of july last, from number five forest road to the waterloo bridge station?" i asked. "well, sir," said the man, "i can't exactly say i do." "perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? can you call to mind driving a foreigner last summer--a tall gentleman and remarkably fat?" the man's face brightened directly. "i remember him, sir! the fattest gentleman as ever i see, and the heaviest customer as ever i drove. yes, yes--i call him to mind, sir! we did go to the station, and it was from forest road. there was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window. the gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady's luggage, and he gave me a handsome present for looking sharp and getting the boxes." getting the boxes! i recollected immediately that laura's own account of herself on her arrival in london described her luggage as being collected for her by some person whom count fosco brought with him to the station. this was the man. "did you see the lady?" i asked. "what did she look like? was she young or old?" "well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of people pushing about, i can't rightly say what the lady looked like. i can't call nothing to mind about her that i know of excepting her name." "you remember her name?" "yes, sir. her name was lady glyde." "how do you come to remember that, when you have forgotten what she looked like?" the man smiled, and shifted his feet in some little embarrassment. "why, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "i hadn't been long married at that time, and my wife's name, before she changed it for mine, was the same as the lady's--meaning the name of glyde, sir. the lady mentioned it herself. 'is your name on your boxes, ma'am?' says i. 'yes,' says she, 'my name is on my luggage--it is lady glyde.' 'come!' i says to myself, 'i've a bad head for gentlefolks' names in general--but this one comes like an old friend, at any rate.' i can't say nothing about the time, sir, it might be nigh on a year ago, or it mightn't. but i can swear to the stout gentleman, and swear to the lady's name." there was no need that he should remember the time--the date was positively established by his master's order-book. i felt at once that the means were now in my power of striking down the whole conspiracy at a blow with the irresistible weapon of plain fact. without a moment's hesitation, i took the proprietor of the livery stables aside and told him what the real importance was of the evidence of his order-book and the evidence of his driver. an arrangement to compensate him for the temporary loss of the man's services was easily made, and a copy of the entry in the book was taken by myself, and certified as true by the master's own signature. i left the livery stables, having settled that john owen was to hold himself at my disposal for the next three days, or for a longer period if necessity required it. i now had in my possession all the papers that i wanted--the district registrar's own copy of the certificate of death, and sir percival's dated letter to the count, being safe in my pocket-book. with this written evidence about me, and with the coachman's answers fresh in my memory, i next turned my steps, for the first time since the beginning of all my inquiries, in the direction of mr. kyrle's office. one of my objects in paying him this second visit was, necessarily, to tell him what i had done. the other was to warn him of my resolution to take my wife to limmeridge the next morning, and to have her publicly received and recognised in her uncle's house. i left it to mr. kyrle to decide under these circumstances, and in mr. gilmore's absence, whether he was or was not bound, as the family solicitor, to be present on that occasion in the family interests. i will say nothing of mr. kyrle's amazement, or of the terms in which he expressed his opinion of my conduct from the first stage of the investigation to the last. it is only necessary to mention that he at once decided on accompanying us to cumberland. we started the next morning by the early train. laura, marian, mr. kyrle, and myself in one carriage, and john owen, with a clerk from mr. kyrle's office, occupying places in another. on reaching the limmeridge station we went first to the farmhouse at todd's corner. it was my firm determination that laura should not enter her uncle's house till she appeared there publicly recognised as his niece. i left marian to settle the question of accommodation with mrs. todd, as soon as the good woman had recovered from the bewilderment of hearing what our errand was in cumberland, and i arranged with her husband that john owen was to be committed to the ready hospitality of the farm-servants. these preliminaries completed, mr. kyrle and i set forth together for limmeridge house. i cannot write at any length of our interview with mr. fairlie, for i cannot recall it to mind without feelings of impatience and contempt, which make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly repulsive to me. i prefer to record simply that i carried my point. mr. fairlie attempted to treat us on his customary plan. we passed without notice his polite insolence at the outset of the interview. we heard without sympathy the protestations with which he tried next to persuade us that the disclosure of the conspiracy had overwhelmed him. he absolutely whined and whimpered at last like a fretful child. "how was he to know that his niece was alive when he was told that she was dead? he would welcome dear laura with pleasure, if we would only allow him time to recover. did we think he looked as if he wanted hurrying into his grave? no. then, why hurry him?" he reiterated these remonstrances at every available opportunity, until i checked them once for all, by placing him firmly between two inevitable alternatives. i gave him his choice between doing his niece justice on my terms, or facing the consequence of a public assertion of her existence in a court of law. mr. kyrle, to whom he turned for help, told him plainly that he must decide the question then and there. characteristically choosing the alternative which promised soonest to release him from all personal anxiety, he announced with a sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong enough to bear any more bullying, and that we might do as we pleased. mr. kyrle and i at once went downstairs, and agreed upon a form of letter which was to be sent round to the tenants who had attended the false funeral, summoning them, in mr. fairlie's name, to assemble in limmeridge house on the next day but one. an order referring to the same date was also written, directing a statuary in carlisle to send a man to limmeridge churchyard for the purpose of erasing an inscription--mr. kyrle, who had arranged to sleep in the house, undertaking that mr. fairlie should hear these letters read to him, and should sign them with his own hand. i occupied the interval day at the farm in writing a plain narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of the practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion of laura's death. this i submitted to mr. kyrle before i read it the next day to the assembled tenants. we also arranged the form in which the evidence should be presented at the close of the reading. after these matters were settled, mr. kyrle endeavoured to turn the conversation next to laura's affairs. knowing, and desiring to know nothing of those affairs, and doubting whether he would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to my wife's life-interest in the legacy left to madame fosco, i begged mr. kyrle to excuse me if i abstained from discussing the subject. it was connected, as i could truly tell him, with those sorrows and troubles of the past which we never referred to among ourselves, and which we instinctively shrank from discussing with others. my last labour, as the evening approached, was to obtain "the narrative of the tombstone," by taking a copy of the false inscription on the grave before it was erased. the day came--the day when laura once more entered the familiar breakfast-room at limmeridge house. all the persons assembled rose from their seats as marian and i led her in. a perceptible shock of surprise, an audible murmur of interest ran through them, at the sight of her face. mr. fairlie was present (by my express stipulation), with mr. kyrle by his side. his valet stood behind him with a smelling-bottle ready in one hand, and a white handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-cologne, in the other. i opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to mr. fairlie to say whether i appeared there with his authority and under his express sanction. he extended an arm, on either side, to mr. kyrle and to his valet--was by them assisted to stand on his legs, and then expressed himself in these terms: "allow me to present mr. hartright. i am as great an invalid as ever, and he is so very obliging as to speak for me. the subject is dreadfully embarrassing. please hear him, and don't make a noise!" with those words he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief. the disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after i had offered my preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the plainest words. i was there present (i informed my hearers) to declare, first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter of the late mr. philip fairlie; secondly, to prove by positive facts, that the funeral which they had attended in limmeridge churchyard was the funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them a plain account of how it had all happened. without further preface, i at once read the narrative of the conspiracy, describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the pecuniary motive for it, in order to avoid complicating my statement by unnecessary reference to sir percival's secret. this done, i reminded my audience of the date on the inscription in the churchyard (the th), and confirmed its correctness by producing the certificate of death. i then read them sir percival's letter of the th, announcing his wife's intended journey from hampshire to london on the th. i next showed that she had taken that journey, by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly, and i proved that she had performed it on the appointed day, by the order-book at the livery stables. marian then added her own statement of the meeting between laura and herself at the mad-house, and of her sister's escape. after which i closed the proceedings by informing the persons present of sir percival's death and of my marriage. mr. kyrle rose when i resumed my seat, and declared, as the legal adviser of the family, that my case was proved by the plainest evidence he had ever heard in his life. as he spoke those words, i put my arm round laura, and raised her so that she was plainly visible to every one in the room. "are you all of the same opinion?" i asked, advancing towards them a few steps, and pointing to my wife. the effect of the question was electrical. far down at the lower end of the room one of the oldest tenants on the estate started to his feet, and led the rest with him in an instant. i see the man now, with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair, mounted on the window-seat, waving his heavy riding-whip over his head, and leading the cheers. "there she is, alive and hearty--god bless her! gi' it tongue, lads! gi' it tongue!" the shout that answered him, reiterated again and again, was the sweetest music i ever heard. the labourers in the village and the boys from the school, assembled on the lawn, caught up the cheering and echoed it back on us. the farmers' wives clustered round laura, and struggled which should be first to shake hands with her, and to implore her, with the tears pouring over their own cheeks, to bear up bravely and not to cry. she was so completely overwhelmed, that i was obliged to take her from them, and carry her to the door. there i gave her into marian's care--marian, who had never failed us yet, whose courageous self-control did not fail us now. left by myself at the door, i invited all the persons present (after thanking them in laura's name and mine) to follow me to the churchyard, and see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own eyes. they all left the house, and all joined the throng of villagers collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting for us. in a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the steel sounded on the marble. not a voice was heard--not a soul moved, till those three words, "laura, lady glyde," had vanished from sight. then there was a great heave of relief among the crowd, as if they felt that the last fetters of the conspiracy had been struck off laura herself, and the assembly slowly withdrew. it was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased. one line only was afterwards engraved in its place: "anne catherick, july th, ." i returned to limmeridge house early enough in the evening to take leave of mr. kyrle. he and his clerk, and the driver of the fly, went back to london by the night train. on their departure an insolent message was delivered to me from mr. fairlie--who had been carried from the room in a shattered condition, when the first outbreak of cheering answered my appeal to the tenantry. the message conveyed to us "mr. fairlie's best congratulations," and requested to know whether "we contemplated stopping in the house." i sent back word that the only object for which we had entered his doors was accomplished--that i contemplated stopping in no man's house but my own--and that mr. fairlie need not entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing from us again. we went back to our friends at the farm to rest that night, and the next morning--escorted to the station, with the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and by all the farmers in the neighbourhood--we returned to london. as our view of the cumberland hills faded in the distance, i thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. it was strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of assistance had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act for myself. if we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? the gain (on mr. kyrle's own showing) would have been more than doubtful--the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened, certain. the law would never have obtained me my interview with mrs. catherick. the law would never have made pesca the means of forcing a confession from the count. ii two more events remain to be added to the chain before it reaches fairly from the outset of the story to the close. while our new sense of freedom from the long oppression of the past was still strange to us, i was sent for by the friend who had given me my first employment in wood engraving, to receive from him a fresh testimony of his regard for my welfare. he had been commissioned by his employers to go to paris, and to examine for them a fresh discovery in the practical application of his art, the merits of which they were anxious to ascertain. his own engagements had not allowed him leisure time to undertake the errand, and he had most kindly suggested that it should be transferred to me. i could have no hesitation in thankfully accepting the offer, for if i acquitted myself of my commission as i hoped i should, the result would be a permanent engagement on the illustrated newspaper, to which i was now only occasionally attached. i received my instructions and packed up for the journey the next day. on leaving laura once more (under what changed circumstances!) in her sister's care, a serious consideration recurred to me, which had more than once crossed my wife's mind, as well as my own, already--i mean the consideration of marian's future. had we any right to let our selfish affection accept the devotion of all that generous life? was it not our duty, our best expression of gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to think only of her? i tried to say this when we were alone for a moment, before i went away. she took my hand, and silenced me at the first words. "after all that we three have suffered together," she said "there can be no parting between us till the last parting of all. my heart and my happiness, walter, are with laura and you. wait a little till there are children's voices at your fireside. i will teach them to speak for me in their language, and the first lesson they say to their father and mother shall be--we can't spare our aunt!" my journey to paris was not undertaken alone. at the eleventh hour pesca decided that he would accompany me. he had not recovered his customary cheerfulness since the night at the opera, and he determined to try what a week's holiday would do to raise his spirits. i performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew out the necessary report, on the fourth day from our arrival in paris. the fifth day i arranged to devote to sight-seeing and amusements in pesca's company. our hotel had been too full to accommodate us both on the same floor. my room was on the second story, and pesca's was above me, on the third. on the morning of the fifth day i went upstairs to see if the professor was ready to go out. just before i reached the landing i saw his door opened from the inside--a long, delicate, nervous hand (not my friend's hand certainly) held it ajar. at the same time i heard pesca's voice saying eagerly, in low tones, and in his own language--"i remember the name, but i don't know the man. you saw at the opera he was so changed that i could not recognise him. i will forward the report--i can do no more." "no more need be done," answered the second voice. the door opened wide, and the light-haired man with the scar on his cheek--the man i had seen following count fosco's cab a week before--came out. he bowed as i drew aside to let him pass--his face was fearfully pale--and he held fast by the banisters as he descended the stairs. i pushed open the door and entered pesca's room. he was crouched up, in the strangest manner, in a corner of the sofa. he seemed to shrink from me when i approached him. "am i disturbing you?" i asked. "i did not know you had a friend with you till i saw him come out." "no friend," said pesca eagerly. "i see him to-day for the first time and the last." "i am afraid he has brought you bad news?" "horrible news, walter! let us go back to london--i don't want to stop here--i am sorry i ever came. the misfortunes of my youth are very hard upon me," he said, turning his face to the wall, "very hard upon me in my later time. i try to forget them--and they will not forget me!" "we can't return, i am afraid, before the afternoon," i replied. "would you like to come out with me in the meantime?" "no, my friend, i will wait here. but let us go back to-day--pray let us go back." i left him with the assurance that he should leave paris that afternoon. we had arranged the evening before to ascend the cathedral of notre dame, with victor hugo's noble romance for our guide. there was nothing in the french capital that i was more anxious to see, and i departed by myself for the church. approaching notre dame by the river-side, i passed on my way the terrible dead-house of paris--the morgue. a great crowd clamoured and heaved round the door. there was evidently something inside which excited the popular curiosity, and fed the popular appetite for horror. i should have walked on to the church if the conversation of two men and a woman on the outskirts of the crowd had not caught my ear. they had just come out from seeing the sight in the morgue, and the account they were giving of the dead body to their neighbours described it as the corpse of a man--a man of immense size, with a strange mark on his left arm. the moment those words reached me i stopped and took my place with the crowd going in. some dim foreshadowing of the truth had crossed my mind when i heard pesca's voice through the open door, and when i saw the stranger's face as he passed me on the stairs of the hotel. now the truth itself was revealed to me--revealed in the chance words that had just reached my ears. other vengeance than mine had followed that fated man from the theatre to his own door--from his own door to his refuge in paris. other vengeance than mine had called him to the day of reckoning, and had exacted from him the penalty of his life. the moment when i had pointed him out to pesca at the theatre in the hearing of that stranger by our side, who was looking for him too--was the moment that sealed his doom. i remembered the struggle in my own heart, when he and i stood face to face--the struggle before i could let him escape me--and shuddered as i recalled it. slowly, inch by inch, i pressed in with the crowd, moving nearer and nearer to the great glass screen that parts the dead from the living at the morgue--nearer and nearer, till i was close behind the front row of spectators, and could look in. there he lay, unowned, unknown, exposed to the flippant curiosity of a french mob! there was the dreadful end of that long life of degraded ability and heartless crime! hushed in the sublime repose of death, the broad, firm, massive face and head fronted us so grandly that the chattering frenchwomen about me lifted their hands in admiration, and cried in shrill chorus, "ah, what a handsome man!" the wound that had killed him had been struck with a knife or dagger exactly over his heart. no other traces of violence appeared about the body except on the left arm, and there, exactly in the place where i had seen the brand on pesca's arm, were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter t, which entirely obliterated the mark of the brotherhood. his clothes, hung above him, showed that he had been himself conscious of his danger--they were clothes that had disguised him as a french artisan. for a few moments, but not for longer, i forced myself to see these things through the glass screen. i can write of them at no greater length, for i saw no more. the few facts in connection with his death which i subsequently ascertained (partly from pesca and partly from other sources), may be stated here before the subject is dismissed from these pages. his body was taken out of the seine in the disguise which i have described, nothing being found on him which revealed his name, his rank, or his place of abode. the hand that struck him was never traced, and the circumstances under which he was killed were never discovered. i leave others to draw their own conclusions in reference to the secret of the assassination as i have drawn mine. when i have intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a member of the brotherhood (admitted in italy after pesca's departure from his native country), and when i have further added that the two cuts, in the form of a t, on the left arm of the dead man, signified the italian word "traditore," and showed that justice had been done by the brotherhood on a traitor, i have contributed all that i know towards elucidating the mystery of count fosco's death. the body was identified the day after i had seen it by means of an anonymous letter addressed to his wife. he was buried by madame fosco in the cemetery of pere la chaise. fresh funeral wreaths continue to this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze railings round the tomb by the countess's own hand. she lives in the strictest retirement at versailles. not long since she published a biography of her deceased husband. the work throws no light whatever on the name that was really his own or on the secret history of his life--it is almost entirely devoted to the praise of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his rare abilities, and the enumeration of the honours conferred on him. the circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed, and are summed up on the last page in this sentence--"his life was one long assertion of the rights of the aristocracy and the sacred principles of order, and he died a martyr to his cause." iii the summer and autumn passed after my return from paris, and brought no changes with them which need be noticed here. we lived so simply and quietly that the income which i was now steadily earning sufficed for all our wants. in the february of the new year our first child was born--a son. my mother and sister and mrs. vesey were our guests at the little christening party, and mrs. clements was present to assist my wife on the same occasion. marian was our boy's godmother, and pesca and mr. gilmore (the latter acting by proxy) were his godfathers. i may add here that when mr. gilmore returned to us a year later he assisted the design of these pages, at my request, by writing the narrative which appears early in the story under his name, and which, though first in order of precedence, was thus, in order of time, the last that i received. the only event in our lives which now remains to be recorded, occurred when our little walter was six months old. at that time i was sent to ireland to make sketches for certain forthcoming illustrations in the newspaper to which i was attached. i was away for nearly a fortnight, corresponding regularly with my wife and marian, except during the last three days of my absence, when my movements were too uncertain to enable me to receive letters. i performed the latter part of my journey back at night, and when i reached home in the morning, to my utter astonishment there was no one to receive me. laura and marian and the child had left the house on the day before my return. a note from my wife, which was given to me by the servant, only increased my surprise, by informing me that they had gone to limmeridge house. marian had prohibited any attempt at written explanations--i was entreated to follow them the moment i came back--complete enlightenment awaited me on my arrival in cumberland--and i was forbidden to feel the slightest anxiety in the meantime. there the note ended. it was still early enough to catch the morning train. i reached limmeridge house the same afternoon. my wife and marian were both upstairs. they had established themselves (by way of completing my amazement) in the little room which had been once assigned to me for a studio, when i was employed on mr. fairlie's drawings. on the very chair which i used to occupy when i was at work marian was sitting now, with the child industriously sucking his coral upon her lap--while laura was standing by the well-remembered drawing-table which i had so often used, with the little album that i had filled for her in past times open under her hand. "what in the name of heaven has brought you here?" i asked. "does mr. fairlie know----?" marian suspended the question on my lips by telling me that mr. fairlie was dead. he had been struck by paralysis, and had never rallied after the shock. mr. kyrle had informed them of his death, and had advised them to proceed immediately to limmeridge house. some dim perception of a great change dawned on my mind. laura spoke before i had quite realised it. she stole close to me to enjoy the surprise which was still expressed in my face. "my darling walter," she said, "must we really account for our boldness in coming here? i am afraid, love, i can only explain it by breaking through our rule, and referring to the past." "there is not the least necessity for doing anything of the kind," said marian. "we can be just as explicit, and much more interesting, by referring to the future." she rose and held up the child kicking and crowing in her arms. "do you know who this is, walter?" she asked, with bright tears of happiness gathering in her eyes. "even my bewilderment has its limits," i replied. "i think i can still answer for knowing my own child." "child!" she exclaimed, with all her easy gaiety of old times. "do you talk in that familiar manner of one of the landed gentry of england? are you aware, when i present this illustrious baby to your notice, in whose presence you stand? evidently not! let me make two eminent personages known to one another: mr. walter hartright--the heir of limmeridge." so she spoke. in writing those last words, i have written all. the pen falters in my hand. the long, happy labour of many months is over. marian was the good angel of our lives--let marian end our story. lady audley's secret by mary elizabeth braddon chapter i. lucy. it lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the court you had no business there at all. at the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand�and which jumped straight from one hour to the next�and was therefore always in extremes. through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of audley court. a smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups of rhododendrons, which grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county. to the right there were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall, in some places thicker than it was high, and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy, yellow stonecrop, and dark moss. to the left there was a broad graveled walk, down which, years ago, when the place had been a convent, the quiet nuns had walked hand in hand; a wall bordered with espaliers, and shadowed on one side by goodly oaks, which shut out the flat landscape, and circled in the house and gardens with a darkening shelter. the house faced the arch, and occupied three sides of a quadrangle. it was very old, and very irregular and rambling. the windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday. great piles of chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables, and seemed as if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have fallen but for the straggling ivy which, crawling up the walls and trailing even over the roof, wound itself about them and supported them. the principal door was squeezed into a corner of a turret at one angle of the building, as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors, and wished to keep itself a secret�a noble door for all that�old oak, and studded with great square-headed iron nails, and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound, and the visitor rung a clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy, lest the noise of the knocking should never penetrate the stronghold. a glorious old place. a place that visitors fell in raptures with; feeling a yearning wish to have done with life, and to stay there forever, staring into the cool fish-ponds and counting the bubbles as the roach and carp rose to the surface of the water. a spot in which peace seemed to have taken up her abode, setting her soothing hand on every tree and flower, on the still ponds and quiet alleys, the shady corners of the old-fashioned rooms, the deep window-seats behind the painted glass, the low meadows and the stately avenues�ay, even upon the stagnant well, which, cool and sheltered as all else in the old place, hid itself away in a shrubbery behind the gardens, with an idle handle that was never turned and a lazy rope so rotten that the pail had broken away from it, and had fallen into the water. a noble place; inside as well as out, a noble place�a house in which you incontinently lost yourself if ever you were so rash as to attempt to penetrate its mysteries alone; a house in which no one room had any sympathy with another, every chamber running off at a tangent into an inner chamber, and through that down some narrow staircase leading to a door which, in its turn, led back into that very part of the house from which you thought yourself the furthest; a house that could never have been planned by any mortal architect, but must have been the handiwork of that good old builder, time, who, adding a room one year, and knocking down a room another year, toppling down a chimney coeval with the plantagenets, and setting up one in the style of the tudors; shaking down a bit of saxon wall, allowing a norman arch to stand here; throwing in a row of high narrow windows in the reign of queen anne, and joining on a dining-room after the fashion of the time of hanoverian george i, to a refectory that had been standing since the conquest, had contrived, in some eleven centuries, to run up such a mansion as was not elsewhere to be met with throughout the county of essex. of course, in such a house there were secret chambers; the little daughter of the present owner, sir michael audley, had fallen by accident upon the discovery of one. a board had rattled under her feet in the great nursery where she played, and on attention being drawn to it, it was found to be loose, and so removed, revealed a ladder, leading to a hiding-place between the floor of the nursery and the ceiling of the room below�a hiding-place so small that he who had hid there must have crouched on his hands and knees or lain at full length, and yet large enough to contain a quaint old carved oak chest, half filled with priests' vestments, which had been hidden away, no doubt, in those cruel days when the life of a man was in danger if he was discovered to have harbored a roman catholic priest, or to have mass said in his house. the broad outer moat was dry and grass-grown, and the laden trees of the orchard hung over it with gnarled, straggling branches that drew fantastical shadows upon the green slope. within this moat there was, as i have said, the fish-pond�a sheet of water that extended the whole length of the garden and bordering which there was an avenue called the lime-tree walk; an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky, so screened from observation by the thick shelter of the over-arching trees that it seemed a chosen place for secret meetings or for stolen interviews; a place in which a conspiracy might have been planned, or a lover's vow registered with equal safety; and yet it was scarcely twenty paces from the house. at the end of this dark arcade there was the shrubbery, where, half buried among the tangled branches and the neglected weeds, stood the rusty wheel of that old well of which i have spoken. it had been of good service in its time, no doubt; and busy nuns have perhaps drawn the cool water with their own fair hands; but it had fallen into disuse now, and scarcely any one at audley court knew whether the spring had dried up or not. but sheltered as was the solitude of this lime-tree walk, i doubt very much if it was ever put to any romantic uses. often in the cool of the evening sir michael audley would stroll up and down smoking his cigar, with his dogs at his heels, and his pretty young wife dawdling by his side; but in about ten minutes the baronet and his companion would grow tired of the rustling limes and the still water, hidden under the spreading leaves of the water-lilies, and the long green vista with the broken well at the end, and would stroll back to the drawing-room, where my lady played dreamy melodies by beethoven and mendelssohn till her husband fell asleep in his easy-chair. sir michael audley was fifty-six years of age, and he had married a second wife three months after his fifty-fifth birthday. he was a big man, tall and stout, with a deep, sonorous voice, handsome black eyes, and a white beard�a white beard which made him look venerable against his will, for he was as active as a boy, and one of the hardest riders in the country. for seventeen years he had been a widower with an only child, a daughter, alicia audley, now eighteen, and by no means too well pleased at having a step-mother brought home to the court; for miss alicia had reigned supreme in her father's house since her earliest childhood, and had carried the keys, and jingled them in the pockets of her silk aprons, and lost them in the shrubbery, and dropped them into the pond, and given all manner of trouble about them from the hour in which she entered her teens, and had, on that account, deluded herself into the sincere belief, that for the whole of that period, she had been keeping the house. but miss alicia's day was over; and now, when she asked anything of the housekeeper, the housekeeper would tell her that she would speak to my lady, or she would consult my lady, and if my lady pleased it should be done. so the baronet's daughter, who was an excellent horsewoman and a very clever artist, spent most of her time out of doors, riding about the green lanes, and sketching the cottage children, and the plow-boys, and the cattle, and all manner of animal life that came in her way. she set her face with a sulky determination against any intimacy between herself and the baronet's young wife; and amiable as that lady was, she found it quite impossible to overcome miss alicia's prejudices and dislike; or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a cruel injury by marrying sir michael audley. the truth was that lady audley had, in becoming the wife of sir michael, made one of those apparently advantageous matches which are apt to draw upon a woman the envy and hatred of her sex. she had come into the neighborhood as a governess in the family of a surgeon in the village near audley court. no one knew anything of her, except that she came in answer to an advertisement which mr. dawson, the surgeon, had inserted in the times. she came from london; and the only reference she gave was to a lady at a school at brompton, where she had once been a teacher. but this reference was so satisfactory that none other was needed, and miss lucy graham was received by the surgeon as the instructress of his daughters. her accomplishments were so brilliant and numerous, that it seemed strange that she should have answered an advertisement offering such very moderate terms of remuneration as those named by mr. dawson; but miss graham seemed perfectly well satisfied with her situation, and she taught the girls to play sonatas by beethoven, and to paint from nature after creswick, and walked through a dull, out-of-the-way village to the humble little church, three times every sunday, as contentedly as if she had no higher aspiration in the world than to do so all the rest of her life. people who observed this, accounted for it by saying that it was a part of her amiable and gentle nature always to be light-hearted, happy and contented under any circumstances. wherever she went she seemed to take joy and brightness with her. in the cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam. she would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis; and when she tripped away, leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave no scope to her benevolence), the old woman would burst out into senile raptures with her grace, beauty, and her kindliness, such as she never bestowed upon the vicar's wife, who half fed and clothed her. for you see, miss lucy graham was blessed with that magic power of fascination, by which a woman can charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile. every one loved, admired, and praised her. the boy who opened the five-barred gate that stood in her pathway, ran home to his mother to tell of her pretty looks, and the sweet voice in which she thanked him for the little service. the verger at the church, who ushered her into the surgeon's pew; the vicar, who saw the soft blue eyes uplifted to his face as he preached his simple sermon; the porter from the railway station, who brought her sometimes a letter or a parcel, and who never looked for reward from her; her employer; his visitors; her pupils; the servants; everybody, high and low, united in declaring that lucy graham was the sweetest girl that ever lived. perhaps it was the rumor of this which penetrated into the quiet chamber of audley court; or, perhaps, it was the sight of her pretty face, looking over the surgeon's high pew every sunday morning; however it was, it was certain that sir michael audley suddenly experienced a strong desire to be better acquainted with mr. dawson's governess. he had only to hint his wish to the worthy doctor for a little party to be got up, to which the vicar and his wife, and the baronet and his daughter, were invited. that one quiet evening sealed sir michael's fate. he could no more resist the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes; the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its wealth of showering flaxen curls; the low music of that gentle voice; the perfect harmony which pervaded every charm, and made all doubly charming in this woman; than he could resist his destiny! destiny! why, she was his destiny! he had never loved before. what had been his marriage with alicia's mother but a dull, jog-trot bargain made to keep some estate in the family that would have been just as well out of it? what had been his love for his first wife but a poor, pitiful, smoldering spark, too dull to be extinguished, too feeble to burn? but this was love�this fever, this longing, this restless, uncertain, miserable hesitation; these cruel fears that his age was an insurmountable barrier to his happiness; this sick hatred of his white beard; this frenzied wish to be young again, with glistening raven hair, and a slim waist, such as he had twenty years before; these, wakeful nights and melancholy days, so gloriously brightened if he chanced to catch a glimpse of her sweet face behind the window curtains, as he drove past the surgeon's house; all these signs gave token of the truth, and told only too plainly that, at the sober age of fifty-five, sir michael audley had fallen ill of the terrible fever called love. i do not think that, throughout his courtship, the baronet once calculated upon his wealth or his position as reasons for his success. if he ever remembered these things, he dismissed the thought of them with a shudder. it pained him too much to believe for a moment that any one so lovely and innocent could value herself against a splendid house or a good old title. no; his hope was that, as her life had been most likely one of toil and dependence, and as she was very young nobody exactly knew her age, but she looked little more than twenty, she might never have formed any attachment, and that he, being the first to woo her, might, by tender attentions, by generous watchfulness, by a love which should recall to her the father she had lost, and by a protecting care that should make him necessary to her, win her young heart, and obtain from her fresh and earliest love, the promise of her hand. it was a very romantic day-dream, no doubt; but, for all that, it seemed in a very fair way to be realized. lucy graham appeared by no means to dislike the baronet's attentions. there was nothing whatever in her manner that betrayed the shallow artifices employed by a woman who wishes to captivate a rich man. she was so accustomed to admiration from every one, high and low, that sir michael's conduct made very little impression upon her. again, he had been so many years a widower that people had given up the idea of his ever marrying again. at last, however, mrs. dawson spoke to the governess on the subject. the surgeon's wife was sitting in the school-room busy at work, while lucy was putting the finishing touches on some water-color sketches done by her pupils. "do you know, my dear miss graham," said mrs. dawson, "i think you ought to consider yourself a remarkably lucky girl?" the governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude, and stared wonderingly at her employer, shaking back a shower of curls. they were the most wonderful curls in the world�soft and feathery, always floating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head when the sunlight shone through them. "what do you mean, my dear mrs. dawson?" she asked, dipping her camel's-hair brush into the wet aquamarine upon the palette, and poising it carefully before putting in the delicate streak of purple which was to brighten the horizon in her pupil's sketch. "why, i mean, my dear, that it only rests with yourself to become lady audley, and the mistress of audley court." lucy graham dropped the brush upon the picture, and flushed scarlet to the roots of her fair hair; and then grew pale again, far paler than mrs. dawson had ever seen her before. "my dear, don't agitate yourself," said the surgeon's wife, soothingly; "you know that nobody asks you to marry sir michael unless you wish. of course it would be a magnificent match; he has a splendid income, and is one of the most generous of men. your position would be very high, and you would be enabled to do a great deal of good; but, as i said before, you must be entirely guided by your own feelings. only one thing i must say, and that is that if sir michael's attentions are not agreeable to you, it is really scarcely honorable to encourage him." "his attentions�encourage him!" muttered lucy, as if the words bewildered her. "pray, pray don't talk to me, mrs. dawson. i had no idea of this. it is the last thing that would have occurred to me." she leaned her elbows on the drawing-board before her, and clasping her hands over her face, seemed for some minutes to be thinking deeply. she wore a narrow black ribbon round her neck, with a locket, or a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress. once or twice, while she sat silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and forward between her fingers. "i think some people are born to be unlucky, mrs. dawson," she said, by-and-by; "it would be a great deal too much good fortune for me to become lady audley." she said this with so much bitterness in her tone, that the surgeon's wife looked up at her with surprise. "you unlucky, my dear!" she exclaimed. "i think you are the last person who ought to talk like that�you, such a bright, happy creature, that it does every one good to see you. i'm sure i don't know what we shall do if sir michael robs us of you." after this conversation they often spoke upon the subject, and lucy never again showed any emotion whatever when the baronet's admiration for her was canvassed. it was a tacitly understood thing in the surgeon's family that whenever sir michael proposed, the governess would quietly accept him; and, indeed, the simple dawsons would have thought it something more than madness in a penniless girl to reject such an offer. so, one misty august evening, sir michael, sitting opposite to lucy graham, at a window in the surgeon's little drawing-room, took an opportunity while the family happened by some accident to be absent from the room, of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart. he made the governess, in a few but solemn words, an offer of his hand. there was something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to her�half in deprecation, knowing that he could hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young girl, and praying rather that she would reject him, even though she broke his heart by doing so, than that she should accept his offer if she did not love him. "i scarcely think there is a greater sin, lucy," he said, solemnly, "than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love. you are so precious to me, my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this, and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, i would not have you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine. if my happiness could be achieved by such an act, which it could not�which it never could," he repeated, earnestly�"nothing but misery can result from a marriage dictated by any motive but truth and love." lucy graham was not looking at sir michael, but straight out into the misty twilight and dim landscape far away beyond the little garden. the baronet tried to see her face, but her profile was turned to him, and he could not discover the expression of her eyes. if he could have done so, he would have seen a yearning gaze which seemed as if it would have pierced the far obscurity and looked away�away into another world. "lucy, you heard me?" "yes," she said, gravely; not coldly, or in any way as if she were offended at his words. "and your answer?" she did not remove her gaze from the darkening country side, but for some moments was quite silent; then turning to him, with a sudden passion in her manner, that lighted up her face with a new and wonderful beauty which the baronet perceived even in the growing twilight, she fell on her knees at his feet. "no, lucy; no, no!" he cried, vehemently, "not here, not here!" "yes, here, here," she said, the strange passion which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and piercing�not loud, but preternaturally distinct; "here and nowhere else. how good you are�how noble and how generous! love you! why, there are women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in goodness who might love you dearly; but you ask too much of me! remember what my life has been; only remember that! from my very babyhood i have never seen anything but poverty. my father was a gentleman: clever, accomplished, handsome�but poor�and what a pitiful wretch poverty made of him! my mother�but do not let me speak of her. poverty�poverty, trials, vexations, humiliations, deprivations. you cannot tell; you, who are among those for whom life is so smooth and easy, you can never guess what is endured by such as we. do not ask too much of me, then. i cannot be disinterested; i cannot be blind to the advantages of such an alliance. i cannot, i cannot!" beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence, there is an undefined something in her manner which fills the baronet with a vague alarm. she is still on the ground at his feet, crouching rather than kneeling, her thin white dress clinging about her, her pale hair streaming over her shoulders, her great blue eyes glittering in the dusk, and her hands clutching at the black ribbon about her throat, as if it had been strangling her. "don't ask too much of me," she kept repeating; "i have been selfish from my babyhood." "lucy�lucy, speak plainly. do you dislike me?" "dislike you? no�no!" "but is there any one else whom you love?" she laughed aloud at his question. "i do not love any one in the world," she answered. he was glad of her reply; and yet that and the strange laugh jarred upon his feelings. he was silent for some moments, and then said, with a kind of effort: "well, lucy, i will not ask too much of you. i dare say i am a romantic old fool; but if you do not dislike me, and if you do not love any one else, i see no reason why we should not make a very happy couple. is it a bargain, lucy?" "yes." the baronet lifted her in his arms and kissed her once upon the forehead, then quietly bidding her good-night, he walked straight out of the house. he walked straight out of the house, this foolish old man, because there was some strong emotion at work in his breast�neither joy nor triumph, but something almost akin to disappointment�some stifled and unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at his heart, as if he had carried a corpse in his bosom. he carried the corpse of that hope which had died at the sound of lucy's words. all the doubts and fears and timid aspirations were ended now. he must be contented, like other men of his age, to be married for his fortune and his position. lucy graham went slowly up the stairs to her little room at the top of the house. she placed her dim candle on the chest of drawers, and seated herself on the edge of the white bed, still and white as the draperies hanging around her. "no more dependence, no more drudgery, no more humiliations," she said; "every trace of the old life melted away�every clew to identity buried and forgotten�except these, except these." she had never taken her left hand from the black ribbon at her throat. she drew it from her bosom, as she spoke, and looked at the object attached to it. it was neither a locket, a miniature, nor a cross; it was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of paper�the paper partly written, partly printed, yellow with age, and crumpled with much folding. chapter ii. on board the argus. he threw the end of his cigar into the water, and leaning his elbows upon the bulwarks, stared meditatively at the waves. "how wearisome they are," he said; "blue and green, and opal; opal, and blue, and green; all very well in their way, of course, but three months of them are rather too much, especially�" he did not attempt to finish his sentence; his thoughts seemed to wander in the very midst of it, and carry him a thousand miles or so away. "poor little girl, how pleased she'll be!" he muttered, opening his cigar-case, lazily surveying its contents; "how pleased and how surprised? poor little girl. after three years and a half, too; she will be surprised." he was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with dark face bronzed by exposure to the sun; he had handsome brown eyes, with a lazy smile in them that sparkled through the black lashes, and a bushy beard and mustache that covered the whole lower part of his face. he was tall and powerfully built; he wore a loose gray suit and a felt hat, thrown carelessly upon his black hair. his name was george talboys, and he was aft-cabin passenger on board the good ship argus, laden with australian wool and sailing from sydney to liverpool. there were very few passengers in the aft-cabin of the argus. an elderly wool-stapler returning to his native country with his wife and daughters, after having made a fortune in the colonies; a governess of three-and-thirty years of age, going home to marry a man to whom she had been engaged fifteen years; the sentimental daughter of a wealthy australian wine-merchant, invoiced to england to finish her education, and george talboys, were the only first-class passengers on board. this george talboys was the life and soul of the vessel; nobody knew who or what he was, or where he came from, but everybody liked him. he sat at the bottom of the dinner-table, and assisted the captain in doing the honors of the friendly meal. he opened the champagne bottles, and took wine with every one present; he told funny stories, and led the life himself with such a joyous peal that the man must have been a churl who could not have laughed for pure sympathy. he was a capital hand at speculation and vingt-et-un, and all the merry games, which kept the little circle round the cabin-lamp so deep in innocent amusement, that a hurricane might have howled overhead without their hearing it; but he freely owned that he had no talent for whist, and that he didn't know a knight from a castle upon the chess-board. indeed, mr. talboys was by no means too learned a gentleman. the pale governess had tried to talk to him about fashionable literature, but george had only pulled his beard and stared very hard at her, saying occasionally, "ah, yes, by jove!" and "to be sure, ah!" the sentimental young lady, going home to finish her education, had tried him with shelby and byron, and he had fairly laughed in her face, as if poetry were a joke. the woolstapler sounded him on politics, but he did not seem very deeply versed in them; so they let him go his own way, smoke his cigars and talk to the sailors, lounge over the bulwarks and stare at the water, and make himself agreeable to everybody in his own fashion. but when the argus came to be within about a fortnight's sail of england everybody noticed a change in george talboys. he grew restless and fidgety; sometimes so merry that the cabin rung with his laughter; sometimes moody and thoughtful. favorite as he was among the sailors, they were tired at last of answering his perpetual questions about the probable time of touching land. would it be in ten days, in eleven, in twelve, in thirteen? was the wind favorable? how many knots an hour was the vessel doing? then a sudden passion would seize him, and he would stamp upon the deck, crying out that she was a rickety old craft, and that her owners were swindlers to advertise her as the fast-sailing argus. she was not fit for passenger traffic; she was not fit to carry impatient living creatures, with hearts and souls; she was fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of stupid wool, that might rot on the sea and be none the worse for it. the sun was drooping down behind the waves as george talboys lighted his cigar upon this august evening. only ten days more, the sailors had told him that afternoon, and they would see the english coast. "i will go ashore in the first boat that hails us," he cried; "i will go ashore in a cockle-shell. by jove, if it comes to that, i will swim to land." his friends in the aft-cabin, with the exception of the pale governess, laughed at his impatience; she sighed as she watched the young man, chafing at the slow hours, pushing away his untasted wine, flinging himself restlessly about upon the cabin sofa, rushing up and down the companion ladder, and staring at the waves. as the red rim of the sun dropped into the water, the governess ascended the cabin stairs for a stroll on deck, while the passengers sat over their wine below. she stopped when she came up to george, and, standing by his side, watched the fading crimson in the western sky. the lady was very quiet and reserved, seldom sharing in the after-cabin amusements, never laughing, and speaking very little; but she and george talboys had been excellent friends throughout the passage. "does my cigar annoy you, miss morley?" he said, taking it out of his mouth. "not at all; pray do not leave off smoking. i only came up to look at the sunset. what a lovely evening!" "yes, yes, i dare say," he answered, impatiently; "yet so long, so long! ten more interminable days and ten more weary nights before we land." "yes," said miss morley, sighing. "do you wish the time shorter?" "do i?" cried george. "indeed i do. don't you?" "scarcely." "but is there no one you love in england? is there no one you love looking out for your arrival?" "i hope so," she said gravely. they were silent for some time, he smoking his cigar with a furious impatience, as if he could hasten the course of the vessel by his own restlessness; she looking out at the waning light with melancholy blue eyes�eyes that seemed to have faded with poring over closely-printed books and difficult needlework; eyes that had faded a little, perhaps, by reason of tears secretly shed in the lonely night. "see!" said george, suddenly, pointing in another direction from that toward which miss morley was looking, "there's the new moon!" she looked up at the pale crescent, her own face almost as pale and wan. "this is the first time we have seen it." "we must wish!" said george. "i know what i wish." "what?" "that we may get home quickly." "my wish is that we may find no disappointment when we get there," said the governess, sadly. "disappointment!" he started as if he had been struck, and asked what she meant by talking of disappointment. "i mean this," she said, speaking rapidly, and with a restless motion of her thin hands; "i mean that as the end of the voyage draws near, hope sinks in my heart; and a sick fear comes over me that at the last all may not be well. the person i go to meet may be changed in his feelings toward me; or he may retain all the old feeling until the moment of seeing me, and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face, for i was called a pretty girl, mr. talboys, when i sailed for sydney, fifteen years ago; or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen years' savings. again, he may be dead. he may have been well, perhaps, up to within a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the mersey. i think of all these things, mr. talboys, and act the scenes over in my mind, and feel the anguish of them twenty times a day. twenty times a day," she repeated; "why i do it a thousand times a day." george talboys had stood motionless, with his cigar in his hand, listening to her so intently that, as she said the last words, his hold relaxed, and the cigar dropped in the water. "i wonder," she continued, more to herself than to him, "i wonder, looking back, to think how hopeful i was when the vessel sailed; i never thought then of disappointment, but i pictured the joy of meeting, imagining the very words that would be said, the very tones, the very looks; but for this last month of the voyage, day by day, and hour by hour my heart sinks and my hopeful fancies fade away, and i dread the end as much as if i knew that i was going to england to attend a funeral." the young man suddenly changed his attitude, and turned his face full upon his companion, with a look of alarm. she saw in the pale light that the color had faded from his cheek. "what a fool!" he cried, striking his clenched fist upon the side of the vessel, "what a fool i am to be frightened at this? why do you come and say these things to me? why do you come and terrify me out of my senses, when i am going straight home to the woman i love; to a girl whose heart is as true as the light of heaven; and in whom i no more expect to find any change than i do to see another sun rise in to-morrow's sky? why do you come and try to put such fancies in my head when i am going home to my darling wife?" "your wife," she said; "that is different. there is no reason that my terrors should terrify you. i am going to england to rejoin a man to whom i was engaged to be married fifteen years ago. he was too poor to marry then, and when i was offered a situation as governess in a rich australian family, i persuaded him to let me accept it, so that i might leave him free and unfettered to win his way in the world, while i saved a little money to help us when we began life together. i never meant to stay away so long, but things have gone badly with him in england. that is my story, and you can understand my fears. they need not influence you. mine is an exceptional case." "so is mine," said george, impatiently. "i tell you that mine is an exceptional case: although i swear to you that until this moment, i have never known a fear as to the result of my voyage home. but you are right; your terrors have nothing to do with me. you have been away fifteen years; all kinds of things may happen in fifteen years. now it is only three years and a half this very month since i left england. what can have happened in such a short time as that?" miss morley looked at him with a mournful smile, but did not speak. his feverish ardor, the freshness and impatience of his nature were so strange and new to her, that she looked at him half in admiration, half in pity. "my pretty little wife! my gentle, innocent, loving little wife! do you know, miss morley," he said, with all his old hopefulness of manner, "that i left my little girl asleep, with her baby in her arms, and with nothing but a few blotted lines to tell her why her faithful husband had deserted her?" "deserted her!" exclaimed the governess. "yes. i was an ensign in a cavalry regiment when i first met my little darling. we were quartered at a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father, a half-pay naval officer; a regular old humbug, as poor as job, and with an eye for nothing but the main chance. i saw through all his shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty daughter. i saw all the pitiable, contemptible, palpable traps he set for us big dragoons to walk into. i saw through his shabby-genteel dinners and public-house port; his fine talk of the grandeur of his family; his sham pride and independence, and the sham tears of his bleared old eyes when he talked of his only child. he was a drunken old hypocrite, and he was ready to sell my poor, little girl to the highest bidder. luckily for me, i happened just then to be the highest bidder; for my father, is a rich man, miss morley, and as it was love at first sight on both sides, my darling and i made a match of it. no sooner, however, did my father hear that i had married a penniless little girl, the daughter of a tipsy old half-pay lieutenant, than he wrote me a furious letter, telling me he would never again hold any communication with me, and that my yearly allowance would stop from my wedding-day. "as there was no remaining in such a regiment as mine, with nothing but my pay to live on, and my pretty little wife to keep, i sold out, thinking that before the money was exhausted, i should be sure to drop into something. i took my darling to italy, and we lived there in splendid style as long as my two thousand pounds lasted; but when that began to dwindle down to a couple of hundred or so, we came back to england, and as my darling had a fancy for being near that tiresome old father of hers, we settled at the watering-place where he lived. well, as soon as the old man heard that i had a couple of hundred pounds left, he expressed a wonderful degree of affection for us, and insisted on our boarding in his house. we consented, still to please my darling, who had just then a peculiar right to have every whim and fancy of her innocent heart indulged. we did board with him, and finally he fleeced us; but when i spoke of it to my little wife, she only shrugged her shoulders, and said she did not like to be unkind to her 'poor papa.' so poor papa made away with our little stock of money in no time; and as i felt that it was now becoming necessary to look about for something, i ran up to london, and tried to get a situation as a clerk in a merchant's office, or as accountant, or book-keeper, or something of that kind. but i suppose there was the stamp of a heavy dragoon about me, for do what i would i couldn't get anybody to believe in my capacity; and tired out, and down-hearted, i returned to my darling, to find her nursing a son and heir to his father's poverty. poor little girl, she was very low-spirited; and when i told her that my london expedition had failed, she fairly broke down, and burst in to a storm of sobs and lamentations, telling me that i ought not to have married her if i could give her nothing but poverty and misery; and that i had done her a cruel wrong in making her my wife. by heaven! miss morley, her tears and reproaches drove me almost mad; and i flew into a rage with her, myself, her father, the world, and everybody in it, and then ran out of the house. i walked about the streets all that day, half out of my mind, and with a strong inclination to throw myself into the sea, so as to leave my poor girl free to make a better match. 'if i drown myself, her father must support her,' i thought; 'the old hypocrite could never refuse her a shelter; but while i live she has no claim on him.' i went down to a rickety old wooden pier, meaning to wait there till it was dark, and then drop quietly over the end of it into the water; but while i sat there smoking my pipe, and staring vacantly at the sea-gulls, two men came down, and one of them began to talk of the australian gold-diggings, and the great things that were to be done there. it appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two, and he was trying to persuade his companion to join him in the expedition. "i listened to these men for upward of an hour, following them up and down the pier, with my pipe in my mouth, and hearing all their talk. after this i fell into conversation with them myself, and ascertained that there was a vessel going to leave liverpool in three days, by which vessel one of the men was going out. this man gave me all the information i required, and told me, moreover, that a stalwart young fellow, such as i was, could hardly fail to do well in the diggings. the thought flashed upon me so suddenly, that i grew hot and red in the face, and trembled in every limb with excitement. this was better than the water, at any rate. suppose i stole away from my darling, leaving her safe under her father's roof, and went and made a fortune in the new world, and came back in a twelvemonth to throw it into her lap; for i was so sanguine in those days that i counted on making my fortune in a year or so. i thanked the man for his information, and late at night strolled homeward. it was bitter winter weather, but i had been too full of passion to feel cold, and i walked through the quiet streets, with the snow drifting in my face, and a desperate hopefulness in my heart. the old man was sitting drinking brandy-and-water in the little dining-room; and my wife was up-stairs, sleeping peacefully, with the baby on her breast. i sat down and wrote a few brief lines, which told her that i never had loved her better than now, when i seemed to desert her; that i was going to try my fortune in the new world, and that if i succeeded i should come back to bring her plenty and happiness; but that if i failed i should never look upon her face again. i divided the remainder of our money�something over forty pounds�into two equal portions, leaving one for her, and putting the other in my pocket. i knelt down and prayed for my wife and child, with my head upon the white counterpane that covered them. i wasn't much of a praying man at ordinary times, but god knows that was a heartfelt prayer. i kissed her once, and the baby once, and then crept out of the room. the dining-room door was open, and the old man was nodding over his paper. he looked up as he heard my step in the passage, and asked me where i was going. 'to have a smoke in the street,' i answered; and as this was a common habit of mine he believed me. three nights after i was out at sea, bound for melbourne�a steerage passenger, with a digger's tools for my baggage, and about seven shillings in my pocket." "and you succeeded?" asked miss morley. "not till i had long despaired of success; not until poverty and i had become such old companions and bed-fellows, that looking back at my past life, i wondered whether that dashing, reckless, extravagant, luxurious, champagne-drinking dragoon could have really been the same man who sat on the damp ground gnawing a moldy crust in the wilds of the new world. i clung to the memory of my darling, and the trust that i had in her love and truth was the one keystone that kept the fabric of my past life together�the one star that lit the thick black darkness of the future. i was hail-fellow-well-met with bad men; i was in the center of riot, drunkenness, and debauchery; but the purifying influence of my love kept me safe from all. thin and gaunt, the half-starved shadow of what i once had been, i saw myself one day in a broken bit of looking-glass, and was frightened by my own face. but i toiled on through all; through disappointment and despair, rheumatism, fever, starvation; at the very gates of death, i toiled on steadily to the end; and in the end i conquered." he was so brave in his energy and determination, in his proud triumph of success, and in the knowledge of the difficulties he had vanquished, that the pale governess could only look at him in wondering admiration. "how brave you were!" she said. "brave!" he cried, with a joyous peal of laughter; "wasn't i working for my darling? through all the dreary time of that probation, her pretty white hand seemed beckoning me onward to a happy future! why, i have seen her under my wretched canvas tent sitting by my side, with her boy in her arms, as plainly as i had ever seen her in the one happy year of our wedded life. at last, one dreary foggy morning, just three months ago, with a drizzling rain wetting me to the skin, up to my neck in clay and mire, half-starved, enfeebled by fever, stiff with rheumatism, a monster nugget turned up under my spade, and i was in one minute the richest man in australia. i fell down on the wet clay, with my lump of gold in the bosom of my shirt, and, for the first time in my life, cried like a child. i traveled post-haste to sydney, realized my price, which was worth upward of £ , , and a fortnight afterward took my passage for england in this vessel; and in ten days�in ten days i shall see my darling." "but in all that time did you never write to your wife?" "never, till the night before i left sydney. i could not write when everything looked so black. i could not write and tell her that i was fighting hard with despair and death. i waited for better fortune, and when that came i wrote telling her that i should be in england almost as soon as my letter, and giving her an address at a coffee-house in london where she could write to me, telling me where to find her, though she is hardly likely to have left her father's house." he fell into a reverie after this, and puffed meditatively at his cigar. his companion did not disturb him. the last ray of summer daylight had died out, and the pale light of the crescent moon only remained. presently george talboys flung away his cigar, and turning to the governess, cried abruptly, "miss morley, if, when i get to england, i hear that anything has happened to my wife, i shall fall down dead." "my dear mr. talboys, why do you think of these things? god is very good to us; he will not afflict us beyond our power of endurance. i see all things, perhaps, in a melancholy light; for the long monotony of my life has given me too much time to think over my troubles." "and my life has been all action, privation, toil, alternate hope and despair; i have had no time to think upon the chances of anything happening to my darling. what a blind, reckless fool i have been! three years and a half and not one line�one word from her, or from any mortal creature who knows her. heaven above! what may not have happened?" in the agitation of his mind he began to walk rapidly up and down the lonely deck, the governess following, and trying to soothe him. "i swear to you, miss morley," he said, "that till you spoke to me to-night, i never felt one shadow of fear, and now i have that sick, sinking dread at my heart which you talked of an hour ago. let me alone, please, to get over it my own way." she drew silently away from him, and seated herself by the side of the vessel, looking over into the water. george talboys walked backward and forward for some time, with his head bent upon his breast, looking neither to the right nor the left, but in about a quarter of an hour he returned to the spot where the governess was seated. "i have been praying," he said�"praying for my darling." he spoke in a voice little above a whisper, and she saw his face ineffably calm in the moonlight. chapter iii. hidden relics. the same august sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of audley court. a fierce and crimson sunset. the mullioned windows and twinkling lattices are all ablaze with the red glory; the fading light flickers upon the leaves of the limes in the long avenue, and changes the still fish-pond into a sheet of burnished copper; even into those dim recesses of brier and brushwood, amidst which the old well is hidden, the crimson brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with blood. the lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. it was almost oppressive, this twilight stillness. the very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile of building�so deathlike was the tranquillity of all around. as the clock over the archway struck eight, a door at the back of the house was softly opened, and a girl came out into the gardens. but even the presence of a human being scarcely broke the silence; for the girl crept slowly over the thick grass, and gliding into the avenue by the side of the fish-pond, disappeared in the rich shelter of the limes. she was not, perhaps, positively a pretty girl; but her appearance was of that order which is commonly called interesting. interesting, it may be, because in the pale face and the light gray eyes, the small features and compressed lips, there was something which hinted at a power of repression and self-control not common in a woman of nineteen or twenty. she might have been pretty, i think, but for the one fault in her small oval face. this fault was an absence of color. not one tinge of crimson flushed the waxen whiteness of her cheeks; not one shadow of brown redeemed the pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes; not one glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of her hair. even her dress was spoiled by this same deficiency. the pale lavender muslin faded into a sickly gray, and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted into the same neutral hue. her figure was slim and fragile, and in spite of her humble dress, she had something of the grace and carriage of a gentlewoman, but she was only a simple country girl, called phoebe marks, who had been nursemaid in mr. dawson's family, and whom lady audley had chosen for her maid after her marriage with sir michael. of course, this was a wonderful piece of good fortune for phoebe, who found her wages trebled and her work lightened in the well-ordered household at the court; and who was therefore quite as much the object of envy among her particular friends as my lady herself to higher circles. a man, who was sitting on the broken wood-work of the well, started as the lady's-maid came out of the dim shade of the limes and stood before him among the weeds and brushwood. i have said before that this was a neglected spot; it lay in the midst of a low shrubbery, hidden away from the rest of the gardens, and only visible from the garret windows at the back of the west wing. "why, phoebe," said the man, shutting a clasp-knife with which he had been stripping the bark from a blackthorn stake, "you came upon me so still and sudden, that i thought you was an evil spirit. i've come across through the fields, and come in here at the gate agen the moat, and i was taking a rest before i came up to the house to ask if you was come back." "i can see the well from my bedroom window, luke," phoebe answered, pointing to an open lattice in one of the gables. "i saw you sitting here, and came down to have a chat; it's better talking out here than in the house, where there's always somebody listening." the man was a big, broad-shouldered, stupid-looking clod-hopper of about twenty-three years of age. his dark red hair grew low upon his forehead, and his bushy brows met over a pair of greenish gray eyes; his nose was large and well-shaped, but the mouth was coarse in form and animal in expression. rosy-cheeked, red-haired, and bull-necked, he was not unlike one of the stout oxen grazing in the meadows round about the court. the girl seated herself lightly upon the wood-work at his side, and put one of her hands, which had grown white in her new and easy service, about his thick neck. "are you glad to see me, luke?" she asked. "of course i'm glad, lass," he answered, boorishly, opening his knife again, and scraping away at the hedge-stake. they were first cousins, and had been play fellows in childhood, and sweethearts in early youth. "you don't seem much as if you were glad," said the girl; "you might look at me, luke, and tell me if you think my journey has improved me." "it ain't put any color into your cheeks, my girl," he said, glancing up at her from under his lowering eyebrows; "you're every bit as white as you was when you went away." "but they say traveling makes people genteel, luke. i've been on the continent with my lady, through all manner of curious places; and you know, when i was a child, squire horton's daughters taught me to speak a little french, and i found it so nice to be able to talk to the people abroad." "genteel!" cried luke marks, with a hoarse laugh; "who wants you to be genteel, i wonder? not me, for one; when you're my wife you won't have overmuch time for gentility, my girl. french, too! dang me, phoebe, i suppose when we've saved money enough between us to buy a bit of a farm, you'll be parleyvooing to the cows?" she bit her lip as her lover spoke, and looked away. he went on cutting and chopping at a rude handle he was fashioning to the stake, whistling softly to himself all the while, and not once looking at his cousin. for some time they were silent, but by-and-by she said, with her face still turned away from her companion: "what a fine thing it is for miss graham that was, to travel with her maid and her courier, and her chariot and four, and a husband that thinks there isn't one spot upon all the earth that's good enough for her to set her foot upon!" "ay, it is a fine thing, phoebe, to have lots of money," answered luke, "and i hope you'll be warned by that, my lass, to save up your wages agin we get married." "why, what was she in mr. dawson's house only three months ago?" continued the girl, as if she had not heard her cousin's speech. "what was she but a servant like me? taking wages and working for them as hard, or harder, than i did. you should have seen her shabby clothes, luke�worn and patched, and darned and turned and twisted, yet always looking nice upon her, somehow. she gives me more as lady's-maid here than ever she got from mr. dawson then. why, i've seen her come out of the parlor with a few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand, that master had just given her for her quarter's salary; and now look at her!" "never you mind her," said luke; "take care of yourself, phoebe; that's all you've got to do. what should you say to a public-house for you and me, by-and-by, my girl? there's a deal of money to be made out of a public-house." the girl still sat with her face averted from her lover, her hands hanging listlessly in her lap, and her pale gray eyes fixed upon the last low streak of crimson dying out behind the trunks of the trees. "you should see the inside of the house, luke," she said; "it's a tumbledown looking place enough outside; but you should see my lady's rooms�all pictures and gilding, and great looking-glasses that stretch from the ceiling to the floor. painted ceilings, too, that cost hundreds of pounds, the housekeeper told her, and all done for her." "she's a lucky one," muttered luke, with lazy indifference. "you should have seen her while we were abroad, with a crowd of gentlemen hanging about her; sir michael not jealous of them, only proud to see her so much admired. you should have heard her laugh and talk with them; throwing all their compliments and fine speeches back at them, as it were, as if they had been pelting her with roses. she set everybody mad about her, wherever she went. her singing, her playing, her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile, and sunshiny ringlets! she was always the talk of a place, as long as we stayed in it." "is she at home to-night?" "no; she has gone out with sir michael to a dinner party at the beeches. they've seven or eight miles to drive, and they won't be back till after eleven." "then i'll tell you what, phoebe, if the inside of the house is so mighty fine, i should like to have a look at it." "you shall, then. mrs. barton, the housekeeper, knows you by sight, and she can't object to my showing you some of the best rooms." it was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly to the house. the door by which they entered led into the servants' hall, on one side of which was the housekeeper's room. phoebe marks stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin through some of the rooms, and having received permission to do so, lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to luke to follow her into the other part of the house. the long, black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight�the light carried by phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad passages through which the girl led her cousin. luke looked suspiciously over his shoulder now and then, half-frightened by the creaking of his own hob-nailed boots. "it's a mortal dull place, phoebe," he said, as they emerged from a passage into the principal hall, which was not yet lighted; "i've heard tell of a murder that was done here in old times." "there are murders enough in these times, as to that, luke," answered the girl, ascending the staircase, followed by the young man. she led the way through a great drawing-room, rich in satin and ormolu, buhl and inlaid cabinets, bronzes, cameos, statuettes, and trinkets, that glistened in the dusky light; then through a morning room, hung with proof engravings of valuable pictures; through this into an ante-chamber, where she stopped, holding the light above her head. the young man stared about him, open-mouthed and open-eyed. "it's a rare fine place," he said, "and must have cost a heap of money." "look at the pictures on the walls," said phoebe, glancing at the panels of the octagonal chamber, which were hung with claudes and poussins, wouvermans and cuyps. "i've heard that those alone are worth a fortune. this is the entrance to my lady's apartments, miss graham that was." she lifted a heavy green cloth curtain which hung across a doorway, and led the astonished countryman into a fairy-like boudoir, and thence to a dressing-room, in which the open doors of a wardrobe and a heap of dresses flung about a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its occupants had left it. "i've got all these things to put away before my lady comes home, luke; you might sit down here while i do it, i shan't be long." her cousin looked around in gawky embarrassment, bewildered by the splendor of the room; and after some deliberation selected the most substantial of the chairs, on the extreme edge of which he carefully seated himself. "i wish i could show you the jewels, luke," said the girl; "but i can't, for she always keeps the keys herself; that's the case on the dressing-table there." "what, that?" cried luke, staring at the massive walnut-wood and brass inlaid casket. "why, that's big enough to hold every bit of clothes i've got!" "and it's as full as it can be of diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds," answered phoebe, busy as she spoke in folding the rustling silk dresses, and laying them one by one upon the shelves of the wardrobe. as she was shaking out the flounces of the last, a jingling sound caught her ear, and she put her hand into the pocket. "i declare!" she exclaimed, "my lady has left her keys in her pocket for once in a way; i can show you the jewelry, if you like, luke." "well, i may as well have a look at it, my girl," he said, rising from his chair and holding the light while his cousin unlocked the casket. he uttered a cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white satin cushions. he wanted to handle the delicate jewels; to pull them about, and find out their mercantile value. perhaps a pang of longing and envy shot through his heart as he thought how he would have liked to have taken one of them. "why, one of those diamond things would set us up in life, phoebe, he said, turning a bracelet over and over in his big red hands. "put it down, luke! put it down directly!" cried the girl, with a look of terror; "how can you speak about such things?" he laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant sigh, and then continued his examination of the casket. "what's this?" he asked presently, pointing to a brass knob in the frame-work of the box. he pushed it as he spoke, and a secret drawer, lined with purple velvet, flew out of the casket. "look ye here!" cried luke, pleased at his discovery. phoebe marks threw down the dress she had been folding, and went over to the toilette table. "why, i never saw this before," she said; "i wonder what there is in it?" there was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby's little worsted shoe rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby's head. phoebe's eyes dilated as she examined the little packet. "so this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer," she muttered. "it's queer rubbish to keep in such a place," said luke, carelessly. the girl's thin lip curved into a curious smile. "you will bear me witness where i found this," she said, putting the little parcel into her pocket. "why, phoebe, you're not going to be such a fool as to take that," cried the young man. "i'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to take," she answered; "you shall have the public house, luke." chapter iv. in the first page of "the times." robert audley was supposed to be a barrister. as a barrister was his name inscribed in the law-list; as a barrister he had chambers in figtree court, temple; as a barrister he had eaten the allotted number of dinners, which form the sublime ordeal through which the forensic aspirant wades on to fame and fortune. if these things can make a man a barrister, robert audley decidedly was one. but he had never either had a brief, or tried to get a brief, or even wished to have a brief in all those five years, during which his name had been painted upon one of the doors in figtree court. he was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the only son of a younger brother of sir michael audley. his father had left him £ a year, which his friends had advised him to increase by being called to the bar; and as he found it, after due consideration, more trouble to oppose the wishes of these friends than to eat so many dinners, and to take a set of chambers in the temple, he adopted the latter course, and unblushingly called himself a barrister. sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and he had exhausted himself with the exertion of smoking his german pipe, and reading french novels, he would stroll into the temple gardens, and lying in some shady spot, pale and cool, with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, would tell grave benchers that he had knocked himself up with over work. the sly old benchers laughed at the pleasant fiction; but they all agreed that robert audley was a good fellow; a generous-hearted fellow; rather a curious fellow, too, with a fund of sly wit and quiet humor, under his listless, dawdling, indifferent, irresolute manner. a man who would never get on in the world; but who would not hurt a worm. indeed, his chambers were converted into a perfect dog-kennel, by his habit of bringing home stray and benighted curs, who were attracted by his looks in the street, and followed him with abject fondness. robert always spent the hunting season at audley court; not that he was distinguished as a nimrod, for he would quietly trot to covert upon a mild-tempered, stout-limbed bay hack, and keep at a very respectful distance from the hard riders; his horse knowing quite as well as he did, that nothing was further from his thoughts than any desire to be in at the death. the young man was a great favorite with his uncle, and by no means despised by his pretty, gipsy-faced, light-hearted, hoydenish cousin, miss alicia audley. it might have seemed to other men, that the partiality of a young lady who was sole heiress to a very fine estate, was rather well worth cultivating, but it did not so occur to robert audley. alicia was a very nice girl, he said, a jolly girl, with no nonsense about her�a girl of a thousand; but this was the highest point to which enthusiasm could carry him. the idea of turning his cousin's girlish liking for him to some good account never entered his idle brain. i doubt if he even had any correct notion of the amount of his uncle's fortune, and i am certain that he never for one moment calculated upon the chances of any part of that fortune ultimately coming to himself. so that when, one fine spring morning, about three months before the time of which i am writing, the postman brought him the wedding cards of sir michael and lady audley, together with a very indignant letter from his cousin, setting forth how her father had just married a wax-dollish young person, no older than alicia herself, with flaxen ringlets, and a perpetual giggle; for i am sorry to say that miss audley's animus caused her thus to describe that pretty musical laugh which had been so much admired in the late miss lucy graham�when, i say, these documents reached robert audley�they elicited neither vexation nor astonishment in the lymphatic nature of that gentleman. he read alicia's angry crossed and recrossed letter without so much as removing the amber mouth-piece of his german pipe from his mustached lips. when he had finished the perusal of the epistle, which he read with his dark eyebrows elevated to the center of his forehead (his only manner of expressing surprise, by the way) he deliberately threw that and the wedding cards into the waste-paper basket, and putting down his pipe, prepared himself for the exertion of thinking out the subject. "i always said the old buffer would marry," he muttered, after about half an hour's revery. alicia and my lady, the stepmother, will go at it hammer and tongs. i hope they won't quarrel in the hunting season, or say unpleasant things to each other at the dinner-table; rows always upset a man's digestion. at about twelve o'clock on the morning following that night upon which the events recorded in my last chapter had taken place, the baronet's nephew strolled out of the temple, blackfriarsward, on his way to the city. he had in an evil hour obliged some necessitous friend by putting the ancient name of audley across a bill of accommodation, which bill not having been provided for by the drawer, robert was called upon to pay. for this purpose he sauntered up ludgate hill, with his blue necktie fluttering in the hot august air, and thence to a refreshingly cool banking-house in a shady court out of st. paul's churchyard, where he made arrangements for selling out a couple of hundred pounds' worth of consols. he had transacted this business, and was loitering at the corner of the court, waiting for a chance hansom to convey him back to the temple, when he was almost knocked down by a man of about his own age, who dashed headlong into the narrow opening. "be so good as to look where you're going, my friend!" robert remonstrated, mildly, to the impetuous passenger; "you might give a man warning before you throw him down and trample upon him." the stranger stopped suddenly, looked very hard at the speaker, and then gasped for breath. "bob!" he cried, in a tone expressive of the most intense astonishment; "i only touched british ground after dark last night, and to think that i should meet you this morning." "i've seen you somewhere before, my bearded friend," said mr. audley, calmly scrutinizing the animated face of the other, "but i'll be hanged if i can remember when or where." "what!" exclaimed the stranger, reproachfully. "you don't mean to say that you've forgotten george talboys?" "no i have not!" said robert, with an emphasis by no means usual to him; and then hooking his arm into that of his friend, he led him into the shady court, saying, with his old indifference, "and now, george tell us all about it." george talboys did tell him all about it. he told that very story which he had related ten days before to the pale governess on board the argus; and then, hot and breathless, he said that he had twenty thousand pounds or so in his pocket, and that he wanted to bank it at messrs. ��, who had been his bankers many years before. "if you'll believe me, i've only just left their counting-house," said robert. "i'll go back with you, and we'll settle that matter in five minutes." they did contrive to settle it in about a quarter of an hour; and then robert audley was for starting off immediately for the crown and scepter, at greenwich, or the castle, at richmond, where they could have a bit of dinner, and talk over those good old times when they were together at eton. but george told his friend that before he went anywhere, before he shaved or broke his fast, or in any way refreshed himself after a night journey from liverpool by express train, he must call at a certain coffee-house in bridge street, westminster, where he expected to find a letter from his wife. as they dashed through ludgate hill, fleet street, and the strand, in a fast hansom, george talboys poured into his friend's ear all those wild hopes and dreams which had usurped such a dominion over his sanguine nature. "i shall take a villa on the banks of the thames, bob," he said, "for the little wife and myself; and we'll have a yacht, bob, old boy, and you shall lie on the deck and smoke, while my pretty one plays her guitar and sings songs to us. she's for all the world like one of those what's-its-names, who got poor old ulysses into trouble," added the young man, whose classic lore was not very great. the waiters at the westminster coffee-house stared at the hollow-eyed, unshaven stranger, with his clothes of colonial cut, and his boisterous, excited manner; but he had been an old frequenter of the place in his military days, and when they heard who he was they flew to do his bidding. he did not want much�only a bottle of soda-water, and to know if there was a letter at the bar directed to george talboys. the waiter brought the soda-water before the young men had seated themselves in a shady box near the disused fire-place. no; there was no letter for that name. the waiter said it with consummate indifference, while he mechanically dusted the little mahogany table. george's face blanched to a deadly whiteness. "talboys," he said; "perhaps you didn't hear the name distinctly�t, a, l, b, o, y, s. go and look again, there must be a letter." the waiter shrugged his shoulders as he left the room, and returned in three minutes to say that there was no name at all resembling talboys in the letter rack. there was brown, and sanderson, and pinchbeck; only three letters altogether. the young man drank his soda-water in silence, and then, leaning his elbows on the table, covered his face with his hands. there was something in his manner which told robert audley that his disappointment, trifling as it may appear, was in reality a very bitter one. he seated himself opposite to his friend, but did not attempt to address him. by-and-by george looked up, and mechanically taking a greasy times newspaper of the day before from a heap of journals on the table, stared vacantly at the first page. i cannot tell how long he sat blankly staring at one paragraph among the list of deaths, before his dazed brain took in its full meaning; but after considerable pause he pushed the newspaper over to robert audley, and with a face that had changed from its dark bronze to a sickly, chalky grayish white, and with an awful calmness in his manner, he pointed with his finger to a line which ran thus: "on the th inst., at ventnor, isle of wight, helen talboys, aged ." chapter v. the headstone at ventnor. yes, there it was in black and white�"helen talboys, aged ." when george told the governess on board the argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead, he spoke in perfect good faith; and yet, here were the worst tidings that could come to him, and he sat rigid, white and helpless, staring stupidly at the shocked face of his friend. the suddenness of the blow had stunned him. in this strange and bewildered state of mind he began to wonder what had happened, and why it was that one line in the times newspaper could have so horrible an effect upon him. then by degrees even this vague consciousness of his misfortune faded slowly out of his mind, succeeded by a painful consciousness of external things. the hot august sunshine, the dusty window-panes and shabby-painted blinds, a file of fly-blown play-bills fastened to the wall, the black and empty fire-places, a bald-headed old man nodding over the morning advertizer, the slip-shod waiter folding a tumbled table-cloth, and robert audley's handsome face looking at him full of compassionate alarm�he knew that all these things took gigantic proportions, and then, one by one, melted into dark blots and swam before his eyes, he knew that there was a great noise, as of half a dozen furious steam-engines tearing and grinding in his ears, and he knew nothing more�except that somebody or something fell heavily to the ground. he opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a cool and shaded room, the silence only broken by the rumbling of wheels at a distance. he looked about him wonderingly, but half indifferently. his old friend, robert audley, was seated by his side smoking. george was lying on a low iron bedstead opposite to an open window, in which there was a stand of flowers and two or three birds in cages. "you don't mind the pipe, do you, george?" his friend asked, quietly. "no." he lay for some time looking at the flowers and the birds; one canary was singing a shrill hymn to the setting sun. "do the birds annoy you, george? shall i take them out of the room?" "no; i like to hear them sing." robert audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid the precious meerschaum tenderly upon the mantelpiece, and going into the next room, returned presently with a cup of strong tea. "take this, george," he said, as he placed the cup on a little table close to george's pillow; "it will do your head good." the young man did not answer, but looked slowly round the room, and then at his friend's grave face. "bob," he said, "where are we?" "in my chambers, dear boy, in the temple. you have no lodgings of your own, so you may as well stay with me while you're in town." george passed his hand once or twice across his forehead, and then, in a hesitating manner, said, quietly: "that newspaper this morning, bob; what was it?" "never mind just now, old boy; drink some tea." "yes, yes," cried george, impatiently, raising himself upon the bed, and staring about him with hollow eyes. "i remember all about it. helen! my helen! my wife, my darling, my only love! dead, dead!" "george," said robert audley, laying his hand gently upon the young man's arm, "you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the paper may not be your wife. there may have been some other helen talboys." "no, no!" he cried; "the age corresponds with hers, and talboys is such an uncommon name." "it may be a misprint for talbot." "no, no, no; my wife is dead!" he shook off robert's restraining hand, and rising from the bed, walked straight to the door. "where are you going?" exclaimed his friend. "to ventnor, to see her grave." "not to-night, george, not to-night. i will go with you myself by the first train to-morrow." robert led him back to the bed, and gently forced him to lie down again. he then gave him an opiate, which had been left for him by the medical man whom they had called in at the coffee-house in bridge street, when george fainted. so george talboys fell into a heavy slumber, and dreamed that he went to ventnor, to find his wife alive and happy, but wrinkled, old, and gray, and to find his son grown into a young man. early the next morning he was seated opposite to robert audley in the first-class carriage of an express, whirling through the pretty open country toward portsmouth. they landed at ventnor under the burning heat of the midday sun. as the two young men came from the steamer, the people on the pier stared at george's white face and untrimmed beard. "what are we to do, george?" robert audley asked. "we have no clew to finding the people you want to see." the young man looked at him with a pitiful, bewildered expression. the big dragoon was as helpless as a baby; and robert audley, the most vacillating and unenergetic of men, found himself called upon to act for another. he rose superior to himself, and equal to the occasion. "had we not better ask at one of the hotels about a mrs. talboys, george?" he said. "her father's name was maldon," george muttered; "he could never have sent her here to die alone." they said nothing more; but robert walked straight to a hotel where he inquired for a mr. maldon. yes, they told him, there was a gentleman of that name stopping at ventnor, a captain maldon; his daughter was lately dead. the waiter would go and inquire for the address. the hotel was a busy place at this season; people hurrying in and out, and a great bustle of grooms and waiters about the halls. george talboys leaned against the doorpost, with much the same look in his face, as that which had frightened his friend in the westminister coffee-house. the worst was confirmed now. his wife, captain maldon's daughter was dead. the waiter returned in about five minutes to say that captain maldon was lodging at lansdowne cottage, no. . they easily found the house, a shabby, low-windowed cottage, looking toward the water. was captain maldon at home? no, the landlady said; he had gone out on the beach with his little grandson. would the gentleman walk in and sit down a bit? george mechanically followed his friend into the little front parlor�dusty, shabbily furnished, and disorderly, with a child's broken toys scattered on the floor, and the scent of stale tobacco hanging about the muslin window-curtains. "look!" said george, pointing to a picture over the mantelpiece. it was his own portrait, painted in the old dragooning days. a pretty good likeness, representing him in uniform, with his charger in the background. perhaps the most animated of men would have been scarcely so wise a comforter as robert audley. he did not utter a word to the stricken widower, but quietly seated himself with his back to george, looking out of the open window. for some time the young man wandered restlessly about the room, looking at and sometimes touching the nick-nacks lying here and there. her workbox, with an unfinished piece of work; her album full of extracts from byron and moore, written in his own scrawling hand; some books which he had given her, and a bunch of withered flowers in a vase they had bought in italy. "her portrait used to hang by the side of mine," he muttered; "i wonder what they have done with it." by-and-by he said, after about an hour's silence: "i should like to see the woman of the house; i should like to ask her about�" he broke down, and buried his face in his hands. robert summoned the landlady. she was a good-natured garrulous creature, accustomed to sickness and death, for many of her lodgers came to her to die. she told all the particulars of mrs. talboys' last hours; how she had come to ventnor only ten days before her death, in the last stage of decline; and how, day by day, she had gradually, but surely, sunk under the fatal malady. was the gentleman any relative? she asked of robert audley, as george sobbed aloud. "yes, he is the lady's husband." "what!" the woman cried; "him as deserted her so cruel, and left her with her pretty boy upon her poor old father's hands, which captain maldon has told me often, with the tears in his poor eyes?" "i did not desert her," george cried out; and then he told the history of his three years' struggle. "did she speak of me?" he asked; "did she speak of me�at�at the last?" "no, she went off as quiet as a lamb. she said very little from the first; but the last day she knew nobody, not even her little boy, nor her poor old father, who took on awful. once she went off wild-like, talking about her mother, and about the cruel shame it was to leave her to die in a strange place, till it was quite pitiful to hear her." "her mother died when she was quite a child," said george. "to think that she should remember her and speak of her, but never once of me." the woman took him into the little bedroom in which his wife had died. he knelt down by the bed and kissed the pillow tenderly, the landlady crying as he did so. while he was kneeling, praying, perhaps, with his face buried in this humble, snow-white pillow, the woman took something from a drawer. she gave it to him when he rose from his knees; it was a long tress of hair wrapped in silver paper. "i cut this off when she lay in her coffin," she said, "poor dear?" he pressed the soft lock to his lips. "yes," he murmured; "this is the dear hair that i have kissed so often when her head lay upon my shoulder. but it always had a rippling wave in it then, and now it seems smooth and straight." "it changes in illness," said the landlady. "if you'd like to see where they have laid her, mr. talboys, my little boy shall show you the way to the churchyard." so george talboys and his faithful friend walked to the quiet spot, where, beneath a mound of earth, to which the patches of fresh turf hardly adhered, lay that wife of whose welcoming smile george had dreamed so often in the far antipodes. robert left the young man by the side of this newly-made grave, and returning in about a quarter of an hour, found that he had not once stirred. he looked up presently, and said that if there was a stone-mason's anywhere near he should like to give an order. they very easily found the stonemason, and sitting down amidst the fragmentary litter of the man's yard, george talboys wrote in pencil this brief inscription for the headstone of his dead wife's grave: sacred to the memory of helen, the beloved wife of george talboys, "who departed this life august th, �, aged , deeply regretted by her sorrowing husband. chapter vi. anywhere, anywhere out of the world. when they returned to lansdowne cottage they found the old man had not yet come in, so they walked down to the beach to look for him. after a brief search they found him, sitting upon a heap of pebbles, reading a newspaper and eating filberts. the little boy was at some distance from his grandfather, digging in the sand with a wooden spade. the crape round the old man's shabby hat, and the child's poor little black frock, went to george's heart. go where he would he met fresh confirmation of this great grief of his life. his wife was dead. "mr. maldon," he said, as he approached his father-in-law. the old man looked up, and, dropping his newspaper, rose from the pebbles with a ceremonious bow. his faded light hair was tinged with gray; he had a pinched hook nose; watery blue eyes, and an irresolute-looking mouth; he wore his shabby dress with an affectation of foppish gentility; an eye-glass dangled over his closely buttoned-up waistcoat, and he carried a cane in his ungloved hand. "great heaven!" cried george, "don't you know me?" mr. maldon started and colored violently, with something of a frightened look, as he recognized his son-in-law. "my dear boy," he said, "i did not; for the first moment i did not. that beard makes such a difference. you find the beard makes a great difference, do you not, sir?" he said, appealing to robert. "great heavens!" exclaimed george talboys, "is this the way you welcome me? i come to england to find my wife dead within a week of my touching land, and you begin to chatter to me about my beard�you, her father!" "true! true!" muttered the old man, wiping his bloodshot eyes; "a sad shock, a sad shock, my dear george. if you'd only been here a week earlier." "if i had," cried george, in an outburst of grief and passion, "i scarcely think that i would have let her die. i would have disputed for her with death. i would! i would! oh god! why did not the argus go down with every soul on board her before i came to see this day?" he began to walk up and down the beach, his father-in-law looking helplessly at him, rubbing his feeble eyes with a handkerchief. "i've a strong notion that that old man didn't treat his daughter too well," thought robert, as he watched the half-pay lieutenant. "he seems, for some reason or other, to be half afraid of george." while the agitated young man walked up and down in a fever of regret and despair, the child ran to his grandfather, and clung about the tails of his coat. "come home, grandpa, come home," he said. "i'm tired." george talboys turned at the sound of the babyish voice, and looked long and earnestly at the boy. he had his father's brown eyes and dark hair. "my darling! my darling!" said george, taking the child in his arms, "i am your father, come across the sea to find you. will you love me?" the little fellow pushed him away. "i don't know you," he said. "i love grandpa and mrs. monks at southampton." "georgey has a temper of his own, sir," said the old man. "he has been spoiled." they walked slowly back to the cottage, and once more george talboys told the history of that desertion which had seemed so cruel. he told, too, of the twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day before. he had not the heart to ask any questions about the past, and his father-in-law only told him that a few months after his departure they had gone from the place where george left them to live at southampton, where helen got a few pupils for the piano, and where they managed pretty well till her health failed, and she fell into the decline of which she died. like most sad stories it was a very brief one. "the boy seems fond of you, mr. maldon," said george, after a pause. "yes, yes," answered the old man, smoothing the child's curling hair; "yes. georgey is very fond of his grandfather." "then he had better stop with you. the interest of my money will be about six hundred a year. you can draw a hundred of that for georgey's education, leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age. my friend here will be trustee, and if he will undertake the charge, i will appoint him guardian to the boy, allowing him for the present to remain under your care." "but why not take care of him yourself, george?" asked robert audley. "because i shall sail in the very next vessel that leaves liverpool for australia. i shall be better in the diggings or the backwoods than ever i could be here. i'm broken for a civilized life from this hour, bob." the old man's weak eyes sparkled as george declared this determination. "my poor boy, i think you're right," he said, "i really think you're right. the change, the wild life, the�the�" he hesitated and broke down as robert looked earnestly at him. "you're in a great hurry to get rid of your son-in-law, i think, mr. maldon," he said, gravely. "get rid of him, dear boy! oh, no, no! but for his own sake, my dear sir, for his own sake, you know." "i think for his own sake he'd much better stay in england and look after his son," said robert. "but i tell you i can't," cried george; "every inch of this accursed ground is hateful to me�i want to run out of it as i would out of a graveyard. i'll go back to town to-night, get that business about the money settled early to-morrow morning, and start for liverpool without a moment's delay. i shall be better when i've put half the world between me and her grave." "before he left the house he stole out to the landlady, and asked some more questions about his dead wife. "were they poor?" he asked, "were they pinched for money while she was ill?" "oh, no!" the woman answered; "though the captain dresses shabby, he has always plenty of sovereigns in his purse. the poor lady wanted for nothing." george was relieved at this, though it puzzled him to know where the drunken half-pay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all the expenses of his daughter's illness. but he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen him to be able to think much of anything, so he asked no further questions, but walked with his father-in-law and robert audley down to the boat by which they were to cross to portsmouth. the old man bade robert a very ceremonious adieu. "you did not introduce me to your friend, by-the-bye, my dear boy," he said. george stared at him, muttered something indistinct, and ran down the ladder to the boat before mr. maldon could repeat his request. the steamer sped away through the sunset, and the outline of the island melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore. "to think," said george, "that two nights ago, at this time, i was steaming into liverpool, full of the hope of clasping her to my heart, and to-night i am going away from her grave!" the document which appointed robert audley as guardian to little george talboys was drawn up in a solicitor's office the next morning. "it's a great responsibility," exclaimed robert; "i, guardian to anybody or anything! i, who never in my life could take care of myself!" "i trust in your noble heart, bob," said george. "i know you will take care of my poor orphan boy, and see that he is well used by his grandfather. i shall only draw enough from georgey's fortune to take me back to sydney, and then begin my old work again." but it seemed as if george was destined to be himself the guardian of his son; for when he reached liverpool, he found that a vessel had just sailed, and that there would not be another for a month; so he returned to london, and once more threw himself upon robert audley's hospitality. the barrister received him with open arms; he gave him the room with the birds and flowers, and had a bed put up in his dressing-room for himself. grief is so selfish that george did not know the sacrifices his friend made for his comfort. he only knew that for him the sun was darkened, and the business of life done. he sat all day long smoking cigars, and staring at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to pass that he might be far out at sea. but just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel, robert audley came in one day, full of a great scheme. a friend of his, another of those barristers whose last thought is of a brief, was going to st. petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted robert to accompany him. robert would only go on condition that george went too. for a long time the young man resisted; but when he found that robert was, in a quiet way, thoroughly determined upon not going without him, he gave in, and consented to join the party. what did it matter? he said. one place was the same to him as another; anywhere out of england; what did he care where? this was not a very cheerful way of looking at things, but robert audley was quite satisfied with having won his consent. the three young men started under very favorable circumstances, carrying letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the russian capital. before leaving england, robert wrote to his cousin alicia, telling her of his intended departure with his old friend george talboys, whom he had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had just lost his wife. alicia's reply came by return post, and ran thus: "my dear robert�how cruel of you to run away to that horrid st. petersburg before the hunting season! i have heard that people lose their noses in that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long one, i should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets in. what sort of person is this mr. talboys? if he is very agreeable you may bring him to the court as soon as you return from your travels. lady audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables. you are not to consider the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest that can be obtained. papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife, and she and i cannot get on together at all; not that she is disagreeable to me, for, as far as that goes, she makes herself agreeable to every one; but she is so irretrievably childish and silly. "believe me to be, my dear robert. "your affectionate cousin, "alicia audley." chapter vii. after a year. the first year of george talboys' widowhood passed away, the deep band of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day of another august faded out, he sat smoking cigars in the quiet chambers of figtree court, much as he had done the year before, when the horror of his grief was new to him, and every object in life, however trifling or however important, seemed saturated with his one great sorrow. but the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth, and hard as it may be to have to tell it, he did not look much the worse for it. heaven knows what wasted agonies of remorse and self-reproach may not have racked george's honest heart, as he lay awake at nights thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit of a fortune, which she never lived to share. once, while they were abroad, robert audley ventured to congratulate him upon his recovered spirits. he burst into a bitter laugh. "do you know, bob," he said, "that when some of our fellows were wounded in india, they came home, bringing bullets inside them. they did not talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well, perhaps, as you or i; but every change in the weather, however slight, every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battle-field. i've had my wound, bob; i carry the bullet still, and i shall carry it into my coffin." the travelers returned from st. petersburg in the spring, and george again took up his quarters at his old friend's chambers, only leaving them now and then to run down to southampton and take a look at his little boy. he always went loaded with toys and sweetmeats to give to the child; but, for all this, georgey would not become very familiar with his papa, and the young man's heart sickened as he began to fancy that even his child was lost to him. "what can i do?" he thought. "if i take him away from his grandfather, i shall break his heart; if i let him remain, he will grow up a stranger to me, and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for his own father. but then, what could an ignorant, heavy dragoon like me do with such a child? what could i teach him, except to smoke cigars and idle around all day with his hands in his pockets?" so the anniversary of that th of august, upon which george had seen the advertisement of his wife's death in the times newspaper, came round for the first time, and the young man put off his black clothes and the shabby crape from his hat, and laid his mournful garments in a trunk in which he kept a packet of his wife's letters, her portrait, and that lock of hair which had been cut from her head after death. robert audley had never seen either the letters, the portrait, or the long tress of silky hair; nor, indeed, had george ever mentioned the name of his dead wife after that one day at ventnor, on which he learned the full particulars of her decease. "i shall write to my cousin alicia to-day, george," the young barrister said, upon this very th of august. "do you know that the day after to-morrow is the st of september? i shall write and tell her that we will both run down to the court for a week's shooting." "no, no, bob; go by yourself; they don't want me, and i'd rather�" "bury yourself in figtree court, with no company but my dogs and canaries! no, george, you shall do nothing of the kind." "but i don't care for shooting." "and do you suppose i care for it?" cried robert, with charming naivete. "why, man, i don't know a partridge from a pigeon, and it might be the st of april, instead of the st of september, for aught i care. i never hurt a bird in my life, but i have hurt my own shoulder with the weight of my gun. i only go down to essex for the change of air, the good dinners, and the sight of my uncle's honest, handsome face. besides, this time i've another inducement, as i want to see this fair-haired paragon�my new aunt. you'll go with me, george?" "yes, if you really wish it." the quiet form his grief had taken after its first brief violence, left him as submissive as a child to the will of his friend; ready to go anywhere or do anything; never enjoying himself, or originating any enjoyment, but joining in the pleasures of others with a hopeless, uncomplaining, unobtrusive resignation peculiar to his simple nature. but the return of post brought a letter from alicia audley, to say that the two young men could not be received at the court. "there are seventeen spare bed-rooms," wrote the young lady, in an indignant running hand, "but for all that, my dear robert, you can't come; for my lady has taken it into her silly head that she is too ill to entertain visitors (there is no more the matter with her than there is with me), and she cannot have gentlemen (great, rough men, she says) in the house. please apologize to your friend mr. talboys, and tell him that papa expects to see you both in the hunting season." "my lady's airs and graces shan't keep us out of essex for all that," said robert, as he twisted the letter into a pipe-light for his big meerschaum. "i'll tell you what we'll do, george: there's a glorious inn at audley, and plenty of fishing in the neighborhood; we'll go there and have a week's sport. fishing is much better than shooting; you've only to lie on a bank and stare at your line; i don't find that you often catch anything, but it's very pleasant." he held the twisted letter to the feeble spark of fire glimmering in the grate, as he spoke, and then changing his mind, deliberately unfolded it, and smoothed the crumpled paper with his hand. "poor little alicia!" he said, thoughtfully; "it's rather hard to treat her letter so cavalierly�i'll keep it;" upon which mr. robert audley put the note back into its envelope, and afterward thrust it into a pigeon-hole in his office desk, marked important. heaven knows what wonderful documents there were in this particular pigeon-hole, but i do not think it likely to have contained anything of great judicial value. if any one could at that moment have told the young barrister that so simple a thing as his cousin's brief letter would one day come to be a link in that terrible chain of evidence afterward to be slowly forged in the only criminal case in which he was ever to be concerned, perhaps mr. robert audley would have lifted his eyebrows a little higher than usual. so the two young men left london the next day, with one portmanteau and a rod and tackle between them, and reached the straggling, old-fashioned, fast-decaying village of audley, in time to order a good dinner at the sun inn. audley court was about three-quarters of a mile from the village, lying, as i have said, deep down in the hollow, shut in by luxuriant timber. you could only reach it by a cross-road bordered by trees, and as trimly kept as the avenues in a gentleman's park. it was a lonely place enough, even in all its rustic beauty, for so bright a creature as the late miss lucy graham, but the generous baronet had transformed the interior of the gray old mansion into a little palace for his young wife, and lady audley seemed as happy as a child surrounded by new and costly toys. in her better fortunes, as in her old days of dependence, wherever she went she seemed to take sunshine and gladness with her. in spite of miss alicia's undisguised contempt for her step-mother's childishness and frivolity, lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet's daughter. that very childishness had a charm which few could resist. the innocence and candor of an infant beamed in lady audley's fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes. the rosy lips, the delicate nose, the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness. she owned to twenty years of age, but it was hard to believe her more than seventeen. her fragile figure, which she loved to dress in heavy velvets, and stiff, rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out for a masquerade, was as girlish as if she had just left the nursery. all her amusements were childish. she hated reading, or study of any kind, and loved society. rather than be alone, she would admit phoebe marks into her confidence, and loll on one of the sofas in her luxurious dressing-room, discussing a new costume for some coming dinner-party; or sit chattering to the girl with her jewel-box beside her, upon the satin cushions, and sir michael's presents spread out in her lap, while she counted and admired her treasures. she had appeared at several public balls at chelmsford and colchester, and was immediately established as the belle of the county. pleased with her high position and her handsome house; with every caprice gratified, every whim indulged; admired and caressed wherever she went; fond of her generous husband; rich in a noble allowance of pin-money; with no poor relations to worry her with claims upon her purse or patronage; it would have been hard to find in the county of essex a more fortunate creature than lucy, lady audley. the two young men loitered over the dinner-table in the private sitting-room at the sun inn. the windows were thrown wide open, and the fresh country air blew in upon them as they dined. the weather was lovely; the foliage of the woods touched here and there with faint gleams of the earliest tints of autumn; the yellow corn still standing in some of the fields, in others just falling under the shining sickle; while in the narrow lanes you met great wagons drawn by broad-chested cart-horses, carrying home the rich golden store. to any one who has been, during the hot summer months, pent up in london, there is in the first taste of rustic life a kind of sensuous rapture scarcely to be described. george talboys felt this, and in this he experienced the nearest approach to enjoyment that he had ever known since his wife's death. the clock struck five as they finished dinner. "put on your hat, george," said robert audley; "they don't dine at the court till seven; we shall have time to stroll down and see the old place and its inhabitants." the landlord, who had come into the room with a bottle of wine, looked up as the young man spoke. "i beg your pardon, mr. audley," he said, "but if you want to see your uncle, you'll lose your time by going to the court just now. sir michael and my lady and miss alicia have all gone to the races up at chorley, and they won't be back till nigh upon eight o'clock, most likely. they must pass by here to go home." under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the court, so the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old church, and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled the time until after seven o'clock. at about a quarter past that hour they returned to the inn, and seating themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and looked out at the peaceful prospect. we hear every day of murders committed in the country. brutal and treacherous murders; slow, protracted agonies from poisons administered by some kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows, inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak, whose every shadow promised�peace. in the county of which i write, i have been shown a meadow in which, on a quiet summer sunday evening, a young farmer murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him; and yet, even now, with the stain of that foul deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is�peace. no species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about seven dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm which still, in spite of all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful yearning, and associate with�peace. it was dusk when gigs and chaises, dog-carts and clumsy farmers' phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the windows of the sun inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post. it was sir michael audley's barouche which came to so sudden a stop before the little inn. the harness of one of the leaders had become out of order, and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right. "why, it's my uncle," cried robert audley, as the carriage stopped. "i'll run down and speak to him." george lit another cigar, and, sheltered by the window-curtains, looked out at the little party. alicia sat with her back to the horses, and he could perceive, even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette; but lady audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the inn, and he could see nothing of the fair-haired paragon of whom he had heard so much. "why, robert," exclaimed sir michael, as his nephew emerged from the inn, "this is a surprise!" "i have not come to intrude upon you at the court, my dear uncle," said the young man, as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion. "essex is my native county, you know, and about this time of year i generally have a touch of homesickness; so george and i have come down to the inn for two or three day's fishing." "george�george who?" "george talboys." "what, has he come?" cried alicia. "i'm so glad; for i'm dying to see this handsome young widower." "are you, alicia?" said her cousin, "then egad, i'll run and fetch him, and introduce you to him at once." now, so complete was the dominion which lady audley had, in her own childish, unthinking way, obtained over her devoted husband, that it was very rarely that the baronet's eyes were long removed from his wife's pretty face. when robert, therefore, was about to re-enter the inn, it needed but the faintest elevation of lucy's eyebrows, with a charming expression of weariness and terror, to make her husband aware that she did not want to be bored by an introduction to mr. george talboys. "never mind to-night, bob," he said. "my wife is a little tired after our long day's pleasure. bring your friend to dinner to-morrow, and then he and alicia can make each other's acquaintance. come round and speak to lady audley, and then we'll drive home." my lady was so terribly fatigued that she could only smile sweetly, and hold out a tiny gloved hand to her nephew by marriage. "you will come and dine with us to-morrow, and bring your interesting friend?" she said, in a low and tired voice. she had been the chief attraction of the race-course, and was wearied out by the exertion of fascinating half the county. "it's a wonder she didn't treat you to her never-ending laugh," whispered alicia, as she leaned over the carriage-door to bid robert good-night; "but i dare say she reserves that for your delectation to-morrow. i suppose you are fascinated as well as everybody else?" added the young lady, rather snappishly. "she is a lovely creature, certainly," murmured robert, with placid admiration. "oh, of course! now, she is the first woman of whom i ever heard you say a civil word, robert audley. i'm sorry to find you can only admire wax dolls." poor alicia had had many skirmishes with her cousin upon that particular temperament of his, which, while it enabled him to go through life with perfect content and tacit enjoyment, entirely precluded his feeling one spark of enthusiasm upon any subject whatever. "as to his ever falling in love," thought the young lady sometimes, "the idea is preposterous. if all the divinities on earth were ranged before him, waiting for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief, he would only lift his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead, and tell them to scramble for it." but, for once in his life, robert was almost enthusiastic. "she's the prettiest little creature you ever saw in your life, george," he cried, when the carriage had driven off and he returned to his friend. "such blue eyes, such ringlets, such a ravishing smile, such a fairy-like bonnet�all of a-tremble with heart's-ease and dewy spangles, shining out of a cloud of gauze. george talboys, i feel like the hero of a french novel: i am falling in love with my aunt." the widower only sighed and puffed his cigar fiercely out of the open window. perhaps he was thinking of that far-away time�little better than five years ago, in fact; but such an age gone by to him�when he first met the woman for whom he had worn crape round his hat three days before. they returned, all those old unforgotten feelings; they came back, with the scene of their birth-place. again he lounged with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby watering-place, listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat. again he heard the old operatic airs, and again she came tripping toward him, leaning on her old father's arm, and pretending (with such a charming, delicious, serio-comic pretense) to be listening to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed cavalry officers. again the old fancy came back that she was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly uses, and that to approach her was to walk in a higher atmosphere and to breathe a purer air. and since this she had been his wife, and the mother of his child. she lay in the little churchyard at ventnor, and only a year ago he had given the order for her tombstone. a few slow, silent tears dropped upon his waistcoat as he thought of these things in the quiet and darkening room. lady audley was so exhausted when she reached home, that she excused herself from the dinner-table, and retired at once to her dressing-room, attended by her maid, phoebe marks. she was a little capricious in her conduct to this maid�sometimes very confidential, sometimes rather reserved; but she was a liberal mistress, and the girl had every reason to be satisfied with her situation. this evening, in spite of her fatigue, she was in extremely high spirits, and gave an animated account of the races, and the company present at them. "i am tired to death, though, phoebe," she said, by-and-by. "i am afraid i must look a perfect fright, after a day in the hot sun." there were lighted candles on each side of the glass before which lady audley was standing unfastening her dress. she looked full at her maid as she spoke, her blue eyes clear and bright, and the rosy childish lips puckered into an arch smile. "you are a little pale, my lady," answered the girl, "but you look as pretty as ever." "that's right, phoebe," she said, flinging herself into a chair, and throwing back her curls at the maid, who stood, brush in hand, ready to arrange the luxuriant hair for the night. "do you know, phoebe, i have heard some people say that you and i are alike?" "i have heard them say so, too, my lady," said the girl, quietly "but they must be very stupid to say it, for your ladyship is a beauty, and i am a poor, plain creature." "not at all, phoebe," said the little lady, superbly; "you are like me, and your features are very nice; it is only color that you want. my hair is pale yellow shot with gold, and yours is drab; my eyebrows and eyelashes are dark brown, and yours are almost�i scarcely like to say it, but they're almost white, my dear phoebe. your complexion is sallow, and mine is pink and rosy. why, with a bottle of hair-dye, such as we see advertised in the papers, and a pot of rouge, you'd be as good-looking as i, any day, phoebe." she prattled on in this way for a long time, talking of a hundred different subjects, and ridiculing the people she had met at the races, for her maid's amusement. her step-daughter came into the dressing-room to bid her good-night, and found the maid and mistress laughing aloud over one of the day's adventures. alicia, who was never familiar with her servants, withdrew in disgust at my lady's frivolity. "go on brushing my hair, phoebe," lady audley said, every time the girl was about to complete her task, "i quite enjoy a chat with you." at last, just as she had dismissed her maid, she suddenly called her back. "phoebe marks," she said, "i want you to do me a favor." "yes, my lady." "i want you to go to london by the first train to-morrow morning to execute a little commission for me. you may take a day's holiday afterward, as i know you have friends in town; and i shall give you a five-pound note if you do what i want, and keep your own counsel about it." "yes, my lady." "see that that door is securely shut, and come and sit on this stool at my feet." the girl obeyed. lady audley smoothed her maid's neutral-tinted hair with her plump, white, and bejeweled hand as she reflected for a few moments. "and now listen, phoebe. what i want you to do is very simple." it was so simple that it was told in five minutes, and then lady audley retired into her bed-room, and curled herself up cozily under the eider-down quilt. she was a chilly creature, and loved to bury herself in soft wrappings of satin and fur. "kiss me, phoebe," she said, as the girl arranged the curtains. "i hear sir michael's step in the anteroom; you will meet him as you go out, and you may as well tell him that you are going up by the first train to-morrow morning to get my dress from madam frederick for the dinner at morton abbey." it was late the next morning when lady audley went down to breakfast�past ten o'clock. while she was sipping her coffee a servant brought her a sealed packet, and a book for her to sign. "a telegraphic message!" she cried; for the convenient word telegram had not yet been invented. "what can be the matter?" she looked up at her husband with wide-open, terrified eyes, and seemed half afraid to break the seal. the envelope was addressed to miss lucy graham, at mr. dawson's, and had been sent on from the village. "read it, my darling," he said, "and do not be alarmed; it may be nothing of any importance." it came from a mrs. vincent, the schoolmistress with whom she had lived before entering mr. dawson's family. the lady was dangerously ill, and implored her old pupil to go and see her. "poor soul! she always meant to leave me her money," said lucy, with a mournful smile. "she has never heard of the change in my fortunes. dear sir michael, i must go to her." "to be sure you must, dearest. if she was kind to my poor girl in her adversity, she has a claim upon her prosperity that shall never be forgotten. put on your bonnet, lucy; we shall be in time to catch the express." "you will go with me?" "of course, my darling. do you suppose i would let you go alone?" "i was sure you would go with me," she said, thoughtfully. "does your friend send any address?" "no; but she always lived at crescent villa, west brompton; and no doubt she lives there still." there was only time for lady audley to hurry on her bonnet and shawl before she heard the carriage drive round to the door, and sir michael calling to her at the foot of the staircase. her suite of rooms, as i have said, opened one out of another, and terminated in an octagon antechamber hung with oil-paintings. even in her haste she paused deliberately at the door of this room, double-locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket. this door once locked cut off all access to my lady's apartments. chapter viii. before the storm. so the dinner at audley court was postponed, and miss alicia had to wait still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower, mr. george talboys. i am afraid, if the real truth is to be told, there was, perhaps, something of affectation in the anxiety this young lady expressed to make george's acquaintance; but if poor alicia for a moment calculated upon arousing any latent spark of jealousy lurking in her cousin's breast by this exhibition of interest, she was not so well acquainted with robert audley's disposition as she might have been. indolent, handsome, and indifferent, the young barrister took life as altogether too absurd a mistake for any one event in its foolish course to be for a moment considered seriously by a sensible man. his pretty, gipsy-faced cousin might have been over head and ears in love with him; and she might have told him so, in some charming, roundabout, womanly fashion, a hundred times a day for all the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year; but unless she had waited for some privileged th of february, and walked straight up to him, saying, "robert, please will you marry me?" i very much doubt if he would ever have discovered the state of her feelings. again, had he been in love with her himself, i fancy that the tender passion would, with him, have been so vague and feeble a sentiment that he might have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of some uneasy sensation which might be love or indigestion, and with, beyond this, no knowledge whatever of his state. so it was not the least use, my poor alicia, to ride about the lanes around audley during those three days which the two young men spent in essex; it was wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and plume, and to be always, by the most singular of chances, meeting robert and his friend. the black curls (nothing like lady audley's feathery ringlets, but heavy clustering locks, that clung about your slender brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be retrousse, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came suddenly upon your apathetic cousin�all this coquettish espiegle, brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of robert audley, and you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room at the court, instead of working your pretty mare to death under the hot september sun. now fishing, except to the devoted disciple of izaak walton, is not the most lively of occupations; therefore, it is scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered that on the day after lady audley's departure, the two young men (one of whom was disabled by that heart wound which he bore so quietly, from really taking pleasure in anything, and the other of whom looked upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble) began to grow weary of the shade of the willows overhanging the winding streams about audley. "figtree court is not gay in the long vacation," said robert, reflectively: "but i think, upon the whole, it's better than this; at any rate, it's near a tobacconist's," he added, puffing resignedly at an execrable cigar procured from the landlord of the sun inn. george talboys, who had only consented to the essex expedition in passive submission to his friend, was by no means inclined to object to their immediate return to london. "i shall be glad to get back, bob," he said, "for i want to take a run down to southampton; i haven't seen the little one for upward of a month." he always spoke of his son as "the little one;" always spoke of him mournfully rather than hopefully. he accounted for this by saying that he had a fancy that the child would never learn to love him; and worse even than this fancy, a dim presentiment that he would not live to see his little georgey reach manhood. "i'm not a romantic man, bob," he would say sometimes, "and i never read a line of poetry in my life that was any more to me than so many words and so much jingle; but a feeling has come over me, since my wife's death, that i am like a man standing upon a long, low shore, with hideous cliffs frowning down upon him from behind, and the rising tide crawling slowly but surely about his feet. it seems to grow nearer and nearer every day, that black, pitiless tide; not rushing upon me with a great noise and a mighty impetus, but crawling, creeping, stealing, gliding toward me, ready to close in above my head when i am least prepared for the end." robert audley stared at his friend in silent amazement; and, after a pause of profound deliberation, said solemnly, "george talboys, i could understand this if you had been eating heavy suppers. cold pork, now, especially if underdone, might produce this sort of thing. you want change of air, my dear boy; you want the refreshing breezes of figtree court, and the soothing air of fleet street. or, stay," he added, suddenly, "i have it! you've been smoking our friend the landlord's cigars; that accounts for everything." they met alicia audley on her mare about half an hour after they had come to the determination of leaving essex early the next morning. the young lady was very much surprised and disappointed at hearing her cousin's determination, and for that very reason pretended to take the matter with supreme indifference. "you are very soon tired of audley, robert," she said, carelessly; "but of course you have no friends here, except your relations at the court; while in london, no doubt, you have the most delightful society and�" "i get good tobacco," murmured robert, interrupting his cousin. "audley is the dearest old place, but when a man has to smoke dried cabbage leaves, you know, alicia�" "then you are really going to-morrow morning?" "positively�by the express train that leaves at . ." "then lady audley will lose an introduction to mr. talboys, and mr. talboys will lose the chance of seeing the prettiest woman in essex." "really�" stammered george. "the prettiest woman in essex would have a poor chance of getting much admiration out of my friend, george talboys," said robert. "his heart is at southampton, where he has a curly-headed little urchin, about as high as his knee, who calls him 'the big gentleman,' and asks him for sugar-plums." "i am going to write to my step-mother by to-night's post," said alicia. "she asked me particularly in her letter how long you were going to stop, and whether there was any chance of her being back in time to receive you." miss audley took a letter from the pocket of her riding-jacket as she spoke�a pretty, fairy-like note, written on shining paper of a peculiar creamy hue. "she says in her postcript, 'be sure you answer my question about mr. audley and his friend, you volatile, forgetful alicia!'" "what a pretty hand she writes!" said robert, as his cousin folded the note. "yes, it is pretty, is it not? look at it, robert." she put the letter into his hand, and he contemplated it lazily for a few minutes, while alicia patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare, which was anxious to be off once more. "presently, atalanta, presently. give me back my note, bob." "it is the prettiest, most coquettish little hand i ever saw. do you know, alicia, i have no great belief in those fellows who ask you for thirteen postage stamps, and offer to tell you what you have never been able to find out yourself; but upon my word i think that if i had never seen your aunt, i should know what she was like by this slip of paper. yes, here it all is�the feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls, the penciled eyebrows, the tiny, straight nose, the winning, childish smile; all to be guessed in these few graceful up-strokes and down-strokes. george, look here!" but absent-minded and gloomy george talboys had strolled away along the margin of the ditch, and stood striking the bulrushes with his cane, half a dozen paces away from robert and alicia. "nevermind," said the young lady, impatiently; for she by no means relished this long disquisition upon my lady's note. "give me the letter, and let me go; it's past eight, and i must answer it by to-night's post. come, atalanta! good-by, robert�good-by, mr. talboys. a pleasant journey to town." the chestnut mare cantered briskly through the lane, and miss audley was out of sight before those two big, bright tears that stood in her eyes for one moment, before her pride sent them, back again, rose from her angry heart. "to have only one cousin in the world," she cried, passionately, "my nearest relation after papa, and for him to care about as much for me as he would for a dog!" by the merest of accidents, however, robert and his friend did not go by the . express on the following morning, for the young barrister awoke with such a splitting headache, that he asked george to send him a cup of the strongest green tea that had ever been made at the sun, and to be furthermore so good as to defer their journey until the next day. of course george assented, and robert audley spent the forenoon in a darkened room with a five-days'-old chelmsford paper to entertain himself withal. "it's nothing but the cigars, george," he said, repeatedly. "get me out of the place without my seeing the landlord; for if that man and i meet there will be bloodshed." fortunately for the peace of audley, it happened to be market-day at chelmsford; and the worthy landlord had ridden off in his chaise-cart to purchase supplies for his house�among other things, perhaps, a fresh stock of those very cigars which had been so fatal in their effect upon robert. the young men spent a dull, dawdling, stupid, unprofitable day; and toward dusk mr. audley proposed that they should stroll down to the court, and ask alicia to take them over the house. "it will kill a couple of hours, you know, george: and it seems a great pity to drag you away from audley without having shown you the old place, which, i give you my honor, is very well worth seeing." the sun was low in the skies as they took a short cut through the meadows, and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway�a lurid, heavy-looking, ominous sunset, and a deathly stillness in the air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, and left the field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches. still as the atmosphere was, the leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion which proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive shudder of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm. that stupid clock, which knew no middle course, and always skipped from one hour to the other, pointed to seven as the young men passed under the archway; but, for all that, it was nearer eight. they found alicia in the lime-walk, wandering listlessly up and down under the black shadow of the trees, from which every now and then a withered leaf flapped slowly to the ground. strange to say, george talboys, who very seldom observed anything, took particular notice of this place. "it ought to be an avenue in a churchyard," he said. "how peacefully the dead might sleep under this somber shade! i wish the churchyard at ventnor was like this." they walked on to the ruined well; and alicia told them some old legend connected with the spot�some gloomy story, such as those always attached to an old house, as if the past were one dark page of sorrow and crime. "we want to see the house before it is dark, alicia," said robert. "then we must be quick." she answered. "come." she led the way through an open french window, modernized a few years before, into the library, and thence to the hall. in the hall they passed my lady's pale-faced maid, who looked furtively under her white eyelashes at the two young men. they were going up-stairs, when alicia turned and spoke to the girl. "after we have been in the drawing-room, i should like to show these gentlemen lady audley's rooms. are they in good order, phoebe?" "yes, miss; but the door of the anteroom is locked, and i fancy that my lady has taken the key to london." "taken the key! impossible!" cried alicia. "indeed, miss, i think she has. i cannot find it, and it always used to be in the door." "i declare," said alicia, impatiently, "that is not at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak into her head. i dare say she was afraid we should go into her rooms, and pry about among her pretty dresses, and meddle with her jewelry. it is very provoking, for the best pictures in the house are in that antechamber. there is her own portrait, too, unfinished but wonderfully like." "her portrait!" exclaimed robert audley. "i would give anything to see it, for i have only an imperfect notion of her face. is there no other way of getting into the room, alicia?" "another way?" "yes; is there any door, leading through some of the other rooms, by which we can contrive to get into hers?" his cousin shook her head, and conducted them into a corridor where there were some family portraits. she showed them a tapestried chamber, the large figures upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky light. "that fellow with the battle-ax looks as if he wanted to split george's head open," said mr. audley, pointing to a fierce warrior, whose uplifted arm appeared above george talboys' dark hair. "come out of this room, alicia," added the young man, nervously; "i believe it's damp, or else haunted. indeed, i believe all ghosts to be the result of damp or dyspepsia. you sleep in a damp bed�you awake suddenly in the dead of the night with a cold shiver, and see an old lady in the court costume of george the first's time, sitting at the foot of the bed. the old lady's indigestion, and the cold shiver is a damp sheet." there were lighted candles in the drawing-room. no new-fangled lamps had ever made their appearance at audley court. sir michael's rooms were lighted by honest, thick, yellow-looking wax candles, in massive silver candlesticks, and in sconces against the walls. there was very little to see in the drawing-room; and george talboys soon grew tired of staring at the handsome modern furniture, and at a few pictures of some of the academicians. "isn't there a secret passage, or an old oak chest, or something of that kind, somewhere about the place, alicia?" asked robert. "to be sure!" cried miss audley, with a vehemence that startled her cousin; "of course. why didn't i think of it before? how stupid of me, to be sure!" "why stupid?" "because, if you don't mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can see my lady's apartments, for that passage communicates with her dressing-room. she doesn't know of it herself, i believe. how astonished she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with a dark-lantern, were to rise through the floor some night as she sat before her looking-glass, having her hair dressed for a party!" "shall we try the secret passage, george?" asked mr. audley. "yes, if you wish it." alicia led them into the room which had once been her nursery. it was now disused, except on very rare occasions when the house was full of company. robert audley lifted a corner of the carpet, according to his cousin's directions, and disclosed a rudely-cut trap-door in the oak flooring. "now listen to me," said alicia. "you must let yourself down by the hands into the passage, which is about four feet high; stoop your head, walk straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which will take you to the left, and at the extreme end of it you will find a short ladder below a trap-door like this, which you will have to unbolt; that door opens into the flooring of my lady's dressing-room, which is only covered with a square persian carpet that you can easily manage to raise. you understand me?" "perfectly." "then take the light; mr. talboys will follow you. i give you twenty minutes for your inspection of the paintings�that is, about a minute apiece�and at the end of that time i shall expect to see you return." robert obeyed her implicitly, and george submissively following his friend, found himself, in five minutes, standing amidst the elegant disorder of lady audley's dressing-room. she had left the house in a hurry on her unlooked-for journey to london, and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-table. the atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not been replaced. a bunch of hot-house flowers was withering upon a tiny writing-table. two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within. jewelry, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered here and there about the apartment. george talboys saw his bearded face and tall, gaunt figure reflected in the glass, and wondered to see how out of place he seemed among all these womanly luxuries. they went from the dressing-room to the boudoir, and through the boudoir into the ante-chamber, in which there were, as alicia had said, about twenty valuable paintings, besides my lady's portrait. my lady's portrait stood on an easel, covered with a green baize in the center of the octagonal chamber. it had been a fancy of the artist to paint her standing in this very room, and to make his background a faithful reproduction of the pictured walls. i am afraid the young man belonged to the pre-raphaelite brotherhood, for he had spent a most unconscionable time upon the accessories of this picture�upon my lady's crispy ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet dress. the two young men looked at the paintings on the walls first, leaving this unfinished portrait for a bonne bouche. by this time it was dark, the candle carried by robert only making one nucleus of light as he moved about holding it before the pictures one by one. the broad, bare window looked out upon the pale sky, tinged with the last cold flicker of the twilight. the ivy rustled against the glass with the same ominous shiver as that which agitated every leaf in the garden, prophetic of the storm that was to come. "there are our friend's eternal white horses," said robert, standing beside a wouvermans. "nicholas poussin�salvator�ha�hum! now for the portrait." he paused with his hand on the baize, and solemnly addressed his friend. "george talboys," he said, "we have between us only one wax candle, a very inadequate light with which to look at a painting. let me, therefore, request that you will suffer us to look at it one at a time; if there is one thing more disagreeable than another, it is to have a person dodging behind your back and peering over your shoulder, when you're trying to see what a picture's made of." george fell back immediately. he took no more interest in any lady's picture than in all the other wearinesses of this troublesome world. he fell back, and leaning his forehead against the window-panes, looked out at the night. when he turned round he saw that robert had arranged the easel very conveniently, and that he had seated himself on a chair before it for the purpose of contemplating the painting at his leisure. he rose as george turned round. "now, then, for your turn, talboys," he said. "it's an extraordinary picture." he took george's place at the window, and george seated himself in the chair before the easel. yes, the painter must have been a pre-raphaelite. no one but a pre-raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. no one but a pre-raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes. no one but a pre-raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait. it was so like, and yet so unlike. it was as if you had burned strange-colored fires before my lady's face, and by their influence brought out new lines and new expressions never seen in it before. the perfection of feature, the brilliancy of coloring, were there; but i suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered, for my lady, in his portrait of her, had something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend. her crimson dress, exaggerated like all the rest in this strange picture, hung about her in folds that looked like flames, her fair head peeping out of the lurid mass of color as if out of a raging furnace. indeed the crimson dress, the sunshine on the face, the red gold gleaming in the yellow hair, the ripe scarlet of the pouting lips, the glowing colors of each accessory of the minutely painted background, all combined to render the first effect of the painting by no means an agreeable one. but strange as the picture was, it could not have made any great impression on george talboys, for he sat before it for about a quarter of an hour without uttering a word�only staring blankly at the painted canvas, with the candlestick grasped in his strong right hand, and his left arm hanging loosely by his side. he sat so long in this attitude, that robert turned round at last. "why, george, i thought you had gone to sleep!" "i had almost." "you've caught a cold from standing in that damp tapestried room. mark my words, george talboys, you've caught a cold; you're as hoarse as a raven. but come along." robert audley took the candle from his friend's hand, and crept back through the secret passage, followed by george�very quiet, but scarcely more quiet than usual. they found alicia in the nursery waiting for them. "well?" she said, interrogatively. "we managed it capitally. but i don't like the portrait; there's something odd about it." "there is," said alicia; "i've a strange fancy on that point. i think that sometimes a painter is in a manner inspired, and is able to see, through the normal expression of the face, another expression that is equally a part of it, though not to be perceived by common eyes. we have never seen my lady look as she does in that picture; but i think that she could look so." "alicia," said robert audley, imploringly, "don't be german!" "but, robert�" "don't be german, alicia, if you love me. the picture is�the picture: and my lady is�my lady. that's my way of taking things, and i'm not metaphysical; don't unsettle me." he repeated this several times with an air of terror that was perfectly sincere; and then, having borrowed an umbrella in case of being overtaken by the coming storm, left the court, leading passive george talboys away with him. the one hand of the stupid clock had skipped to nine by the time they reached the archway; but before they could pass under its shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to dash past them. it was a fly from the village, but lady audley's fair face peeped out at the window. dark as it was, she could see the two figures of the young men black against the dusk. "who is that?" she asked, putting out her head. "is it the gardener?" "no, my dear aunt," said robert, laughing; "it is your most dutiful nephew." he and george stopped by the archway while the fly drew up at the door, and the surprised servants came out to welcome their master and mistress. "i think the storm will hold off to-night," said the baronet looking up at the sky; "but we shall certainly have it tomorrow." chapter ix. after the storm. sir michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather. the storm did not hold off until next day, but burst with terrible fury over the village of audley about half an hour before midnight. robert audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life. he lay on a sofa in the sitting-room, ostensibly reading the five-days-old chelmsford paper, and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler of cold punch. but the storm had quite a different effect upon george talboys. his friend was startled when he looked at the young man's white face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder, and staring at the black sky, rent every now and then by forked streaks of steel-blue lightning. "george," said robert, after watching him for some time, "are you frightened of the lightning?" "no," he answered, curtly. "but, dear boy, some of the most courageous men have been frightened of it. it is scarcely to be called a fear: it is constitutional. i am sure you are frightened of it." "no, i am not." "but, george, if you could see yourself, white and haggard, with your great hollow eyes staring out at the sky as if they were fixed upon a ghost. i tell you i know that you are frightened." "and i tell you that i am not." "george talboys, you are not only afraid of the lightning, but you are savage with yourself for being afraid, and with me for telling you of your fear." "robert audley, if you say another word to me, i shall knock you down," cried george, furiously; having said which, mr. talboys strode out of the room, banging the door after him with a violence that shook the house. those inky clouds, which had shut in the sultry earth as if with a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness in a sudden deluge as george left the room; but if the young man was afraid of the lightning, he certainly was not afraid of the rain; for he walked straight down-stairs to the inn door, and went out into the wet high road. he walked up and down, up and down, in the soaking shower for about twenty minutes, and then, re-entering the inn, strode up to his bedroom. robert audley met him on the landing, with his hair beaten about his white face, and his garments dripping wet. "are you going to bed, george?" "yes." "but you have no candle." "i don't want one." "but look at your clothes, man! do you see the wet streaming down your coat-sleeves? what on earth made you go out upon such a night?" "i am tired, and want to go to bed�don't bother me." "you'll take some hot brandy-and-water, george?" robert audley stood in his friend's way as he spoke, anxious to prevent his going to bed in the state he was in; but george pushed him fiercely aside, and, striding past him, said, in the same hoarse voice robert had noticed at the court: "let me alone, robert audley, and keep clear of me if you can." robert followed george to his bedroom, but the young man banged the door in his face, so there was nothing for it but to leave mr. talboys to himself, to recover his temper as best he might. "he was irritated at my noticing his terror of the lightning," thought robert, as he calmly retired to rest, serenely indifferent to the thunder, which seemed to shake him in his bed, and the lightning playing fitfully round the razors in his open dressing-case. the storm rolled away from the quiet village of audley, and when robert awoke the next morning it was to see bright sunshine, and a peep of cloudless sky between the white curtains of his bedroom window. it was one of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm. the birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through. the vine-leaves clustering round robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the rain-drops in diamond showers from every spray and tendril. robert audley found his friend waiting for him at the breakfast-table. george was very pale, but perfectly tranquil�if anything, indeed, more cheerful than usual. he shook robert by the hand with something of that hearty manner for which he had been distinguished before the one affliction of his life overtook and shipwrecked him. "forgive me, bob," he said, frankly, "for my surly temper of last night. you were quite correct in your assertion; the thunderstorm did upset me. it always had the same effect upon me in my youth." "poor old boy! shall we go up by the express, or shall we stop here and dine with my uncle to-night?" asked robert. "to tell the truth, bob, i would rather do neither. it's a glorious morning. suppose we stroll about all day, take another turn with the rod and line, and go up to town by the train that leaves here at . in the evening?" robert audley would have assented to a far more disagreeable proposition than this, rather than have taken the trouble to oppose his friend, so the matter was immediately agreed upon; and after they had finished their breakfast, and ordered a four o'clock dinner, george talboys took the fishing-rod across his broad shoulders, and strode out of the house with his friend and companion. but if the equable temperament of mr. robert audley had been undisturbed by the crackling peals of thunder that shook the very foundations of the sun inn, it had not been so with the more delicate sensibilties of his uncle's young wife. lady audley confessed herself terribly frightened of the lightning. she had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room, and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her, she lay with her face buried in the pillow, shuddering convulsively at every sound of the tempest without. sir michael, whose stout heart had never known a fear, almost trembled for this fragile creature, whom it was his happy privilege to protect and defend. my lady would not consent to undress till nearly three o'clock in the morning, when the last lingering peal of thunder had died away among the distant hills. until that hour she lay in the handsome silk dress in which she had traveled, huddled together among the bedclothes, only looking up now and then with a scared face to ask if the storm was over. toward four o'clock her husband, who spent the night in watching by her bedside, saw her drop off into a deep sleep, from which she did not awake for nearly five hours. but she came into the breakfast-room, at half-past nine o'clock, singing a little scotch melody, her cheeks tinged with as delicate a pink as the pale hue of her muslin morning dress. like the birds and the flowers, she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in the morning sunshine. she tripped lightly out onto the lawn, gathering a last lingering rosebud here and there, and a sprig or two of geranium, and returning through the dewy grass, warbling long cadences for very happiness of heart, and looking as fresh and radiant as the flowers in her hands. the baronet caught her in his strong arms as she came in through the open window. "my pretty one," he said, "my darling, what happiness to see you your own merry self again! do you know, lucy, that once last night, when you looked out through the dark-green bed-curtains, with your poor, white face, and the purple rims round your hollow eyes, i had almost a difficulty to recognize my little wife in that terrified, agonized-looking creature, crying out about the storm. thank god for the morning sun, which has brought back the rosy cheeks and bright smile! i hope to heaven, lucy, i shall never again see you look as you did last night." she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and then was only tall enough to reach his white beard. she told him, laughing, that she had always been a silly, frightened creature�frightened of dogs, frightened of cattle, frightened of a thunderstorm, frightened of a rough sea. "frightened of everything and everybody but my dear, noble, handsome husband," she said. she had found the carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. she chid miss alicia in a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great men into my lady's rooms. "and they had the audacity to look at my picture, alicia," she said, with mock indignation. "i found the baize thrown on the ground, and a great man's glove on the carpet. look!" "she held up a thick driving glove as she spoke. it was george's, which he had dropped looking at the picture. "i shall go up to the sun, and ask those boys to dinner," sir michael said, as he left the court upon his morning walk around his farm. lady audley flitted from room to room in the bright september sunshine�now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad, or the first page of an italian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through a brilliant waltz�now hovering about a stand of hot-house flowers, doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairy-like, silver-mounted embroidery scissors�now strolling into her dressing-room to talk to phoebe marks, and have her curls rearranged for the third or fourth time; for the ringlets were always getting into disorder, and gave no little trouble to lady audley's maid. my dear lady seemed, on this particular september day, restless from very joyousness of spirit, and unable to stay long in one place, or occupy herself with one thing. while lady audley amused herself in her own frivolous fashion, the two young men strolled slowly along the margin of the stream until they reached a shady corner where the water was deep and still, and the long branches of the willows trailed into the brook. george talboys took the fishing-rod, while robert stretched himself at full length on a railway rug, and balancing his hat upon his nose as a screen from the sunshine, fell fast asleep. those were happy fish in the stream on the banks of which mr. talboys was seated. they might have amused themselves to their hearts' content with timid nibbles at this gentleman's bait without in any manner endangering their safety; for george only stared vacantly in the water, holding his rod in a loose, listless hand, and with a strange, far-away look in his eyes. as the church clock struck two he threw down his rod, and, striding away along the bank, left robert audley to enjoy a nap which, according to that gentleman's habits, was by no means unlikely to last for two or three hours. about a quarter of a mile further on george crossed a rustic bridge, and struck into the meadows which led to audley court. the birds had sung so much all the morning, that they had, perhaps, by this time grown tired; the lazy cattle were asleep in the meadows; sir michael was still away on his morning's ramble; miss alicia had scampered off an hour before on her chestnut mare; the servants were all at dinner in the back part of the house; and my lady had strolled, book in hand, into the shadowy lime-walk; so the gray old building had never worn a more peaceful aspect than on that bright afternoon when george talboys walked across the lawn to ring a sonorous peal at the sturdy, iron-bound oak door. the servant who answered his summons told him that sir michael was out, and my lady walking in the lime-tree avenue. he looked a little disappointed at this intelligence, and muttering something about wishing to see my lady, or going to look for my lady (the servant did not clearly distinguish his words), strode away from the door without leaving either card or message for the family. it was full an hour and a half after this when lady audley returned to the house, not coming from the lime-walk, but from exactly the opposite direction, carrying her open book in her hand, and singing as she came. alicia had just dismounted from her mare, and stood in the low-arched doorway, with her great newfoundland dog by her side. the dog, which had never liked my lady, showed his teeth with a suppressed growl. "send that horrid animal away, alicia," lady audley said, impatiently. "the brute knows that i am frightened of him, and takes advantage of my terror. and yet they call the creatures generous and noble-hearted! bah, caesar! i hate you, and you hate me; and if you met me in the dark in some narrow passage you would fly at my throat and strangle me, wouldn't you?" my lady, safely sheltered behind her step-daughter, shook her yellow curls at the angry animal, and defied him maliciously. "do you know, lady audley, that mr. talboys, the young widower, has been here asking for sir michael and you?" lucy audley lifted her penciled eyebrows. "i thought they were coming to dinner," she said. "surely we shall have enough of them then." she had a heap of wild autumn flowers in the skirt of her muslin dress. she had come through the fields at the back of the court, gathering the hedge-row blossoms in her way. she ran lightly up the broad staircase to her own rooms. george's glove lay on her boudoir table. lady audley rung the bell violently, and it was answered by phoebe marks. "take that litter away," she said, sharply. the girl collected the glove and a few withered flowers and torn papers lying on the table into her apron. "what have you been doing all this morning?" asked my lady. "not wasting your time, i hope?" "no, my lady, i have been altering the blue dress. it is rather dark on this side of the house, so i took it up to my own room, and worked at the window." the girl was leaving the room as she spoke, but she turned around and looked at lady audley as if waiting for further orders. lucy looked up at the same moment, and the eyes of the two women met. "phoebe marks," said my lady, throwing herself into an easy-chair, and trifling with the wild flowers in her lap, "you are a good, industrious girl, and while i live and am prosperous, you shall never want a firm friend or a twenty-pound note." chapter x. missing. when robert audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishing-rod lying on the bank, the line trailing idly in the water, and the float bobbing harmlessly up and down in the afternoon sunshine. the young barrister was a long time stretching his arms and legs in various directions to convince himself, by means of such exercise, that he still retained the proper use of those members; then, with a mighty effort, he contrived to rise from the grass, and having deliberately folded his railway rug into a convenient shape for carrying over his shoulder, he strolled away to look for george talboys. once or twice he gave a sleepy shout, scarcely loud enough to scare the birds in the branches above his head, or the trout in the stream at his feet: but receiving no answer, grew tired of the exertion, and dawdled on, yawning as he went, and still looking for george talboys. by-and-by he took out his watch, and was surprised to find that it was a quarter past four. "why, the selfish beggar must have gone home to his dinner!" he muttered, reflectively; "and yet that isn't much like him, for he seldom remembers even his meals unless i jog his memory." even a good appetite, and the knowledge that his dinner would very likely suffer by this delay, could not quicken mr. robert audley's constitutional dawdle, and by the time he strolled in at the front door of the sun, the clocks were striking five. he so fully expected to find george talboys waiting for him in the little sitting-room, that the absence of that gentleman seemed to give the apartment a dreary look, and robert groaned aloud. "this is lively!" he said. "a cold dinner, and nobody to eat it with!" the landlord of the sun came himself to apologize for his ruined dishes. "as fine a pair of ducks, mr. audley, as ever you clapped eyes on, but burnt up to a cinder, along of being kep' hot." "never mind the ducks," robert said impatiently; "where's mr. talboys?" "he ain't been in, sir, since you went out together this morning." "what!" cried robert. "why, in heaven's name, what has the man done with himself?" he walked to the window and looked out upon the broad, white high road. there was a wagon laden with trusses of hay crawling slowly past, the lazy horses and the lazy wagoner drooping their heads with a weary stoop under the afternoon's sunshine. there was a flock of sheep straggling about the road, with a dog running himself into a fever in the endeavor to keep them decently together. there were some bricklayers just released from work�a tinker mending some kettles by the roadside; there was a dog-cart dashing down the road, carrying the master of the audley hounds to his seven o'clock dinner; there were a dozen common village sights and sounds that mixed themselves up into a cheerful bustle and confusion; but there was no george talboys. "of all the extraordinary things that ever happened to me in the whole course of my life," said mr. robert audley, "this is the most miraculous!" the landlord still in attendance, opened his eyes as robert made this remark. what could there be extraordinary in the simple fact of a gentleman being late for his dinner? "i shall go and look for him," said robert, snatching up his hat and walking straight out of the house. but the question was where to look for him. he certainly was not by the trout stream, so it was no good going back there in search of him. robert was standing before the inn, deliberating on what was best to be done, when the landlord came out after him. "i forgot to tell you, mr. audley, as how your uncle called here five minutes after you was gone, and left a message, asking of you and the other gentleman to go down to dinner at the court." "then i shouldn't wonder," said robert, "if george talboys has gone down to the court to call upon my uncle. it isn't like him, but it's just possible that he has done it." it was six o'clock when robert knocked at the door of his uncle's house. he did not ask to see any of the family, but inquired at once for his friend. yes, the servant told him; mr. talboys had been there at two o'clock or a little after. "and not since?" "no, not since." was the man sure that it was at two mr. talboys called? robert asked. yes, perfectly sure. he remembered the hour because it was the servants' dinner hour, and he had left the table to open the door to mr. talboys. "why, what can have become of the man?" thought robert, as he turned his back upon the court. "from two till six�four good hours�and no signs of him!" if any one had ventured to tell mr. robert audley that he could possibly feel a strong attachment to any creature breathing, that cynical gentleman would have elevated his eyebrows in supreme contempt at the preposterous notion. yet here he was, flurried and anxious, bewildering his brain by all manner of conjectures about his missing friend; and false to every attribute of his nature, walking fast. "i haven't walked fast since i was at eton," he murmured, as he hurried across one of sir michael's meadows in the direction of the village; "and the worst of it is, that i haven't the most remote idea where i am going." here he crossed another meadow, and then seating himself upon a stile, rested his elbows upon his knees, buried his face in his hands, and set himself seriously to think the matter out. "i have it," he said, after a few minutes' thought; "the railway station!" he sprang over the stile, and started off in the direction of the little red brick building. there was no train expected for another half hour, and the clerk was taking his tea in an apartment on one side of the office, on the door of which was inscribed in large, white letters, "private." but mr. audley was too much occupied with the one idea of looking for his friend to pay any attention to this warning. he strode at once to the door, and rattling his cane against it, brought the clerk out of his sanctum in a perspiration from hot tea, and with his mouth full of bread and butter. "do you remember the gentleman that came down to audley with me, smithers?" asked robert. "well, to tell you the real truth, mr. audley, i can't say that i do. you came by the four o'clock, if you remember, and there's always a good many passengers by that train." "you don't remember him, then?" "not to my knowledge, sir." "that's provoking! i want to know, smithers, whether he has taken a ticket for london since two o'clock to-day. he's a tall, broad-chested young fellow, with a big brown beard. you couldn't well mistake him." "there was four or five gentlemen as took tickets for the . up," said the clerk rather vaguely, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder at his wife, who looked by no means pleased at this interruption to the harmony of the tea-table. "four or five gentlemen! but did either of them answer to the description of my friend?" "well, i think one of them had a beard, sir." "a dark-brown beard?" "well, i don't know, but it was brownish-like." "was he dressed in gray?" "i believe it was gray; a great many gents wear gray. he asked for the ticket sharp and short-like, and when he'd got it walked straight out onto the platform whistling." "that's george," said robert. "thank you, smithers; i needn't trouble you any more. it's as clear as daylight," he muttered, as he left the station; "he's got one of his gloomy fits on him, and he's gone back to london without saying a word about it. i'll leave audley myself to-morrow morning; and for to-night�why, i may as well go down to the court and make the acquaintance of my uncle's young wife. they don't dine till seven; if i get back across the fields i shall be in time. bob�otherwise robert audley�this sort of thing will never do; you are falling over head and ears in love with your aunt." chapter xi. the mark upon my lady's wrist. robert found sir michael and lady audley in the drawing-room. my lady was sitting on a music-stool before the grand piano, turning over the leaves of some new music. she twirled upon the revolving seat, making a rustling with her silk flounces, as mr. robert audley's name was announced; then, leaving the piano, she made her nephew a pretty, mock ceremonious courtesy. "thank you so much for the sables," she said, holding out her little fingers, all glittering and twinkling with the diamonds she wore upon them; "thank you for those beautiful sables. how good it was of you to get them for me." robert had almost forgotten the commission he had executed for lady audley during his russian expedition. his mind was so full of george talboys that he only acknowledged my lady's gratitude by a bow. "would you believe it, sir michael?" he said. "that foolish chum of mine has gone back to london leaving me in the lurch." "mr. george talboys returned to town?" exclaimed my lady, lifting her eyebrows. "what a dreadful catastrophe!" said alicia, maliciously, "since pythias, in the person of mr. robert audley, cannot exist for half an hour without damon, commonly known as george talboys." "he's a very good fellow," robert said, stoutly; "and to tell the honest truth, i'm rather uneasy about him." "uneasy about him!" my lady was quite anxious to know why robert was uneasy about his friend. "i'll tell you why, lady audley," answered the young barrister. "george had a bitter blow a year ago in the death of his wife. he has never got over that trouble. he takes life pretty quietly�almost as quietly as i do�but he often talks very strangely, and i sometimes think that one day this grief will get the better of him, and he will do something rash." mr. robert audley spoke vaguely, but all three of his listeners knew that the something rash to which he alluded was that one deed for which there is no repentance. there was a brief pause, during which lady audley arranged her yellow ringlets by the aid of the glass over the console table opposite to her. "dear me!" she said, "this is very strange. i did not think men were capable of these deep and lasting affections. i thought that one pretty face was as good as another pretty face to them; and that when number one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only to look out for number two, with dark eyes and black hair, by way of variety." "george talboys is not one of those men. i firmly believe that his wife's death broke his heart." "how sad!" murmured lady audley. "it seems almost cruel of mrs. talboys to die, and grieve her poor husband so much." "alicia was right, she is childish," thought robert as he looked at his aunt's pretty face. my lady was very charming at the dinner-table; she professed the most bewitching incapacity for carving the pheasant set before her, and called robert to her assistance. "i could carve a leg of mutton at mr. dawson's," she said, laughing; "but a leg of mutton is so easy, and then i used to stand up." sir michael watched the impression my lady made upon his nephew with a proud delight in her beauty and fascination. "i am so glad to see my poor little woman in her usual good spirits once more," he said. "she was very down-hearted yesterday at a disappointment she met with in london." "a disappointment!" "yes, mr. audley, a very cruel one," answered my lady. "i received the other morning a telegraphic message from my dear old friend and school-mistress, telling me that she was dying, and that if i wanted to see her again, i must hasten to her immediately. the telegraphic dispatch contained no address, and of course, from that very circumstance, i imagined that she must be living in the house in which i left her three years ago. sir michael and i hurried up to town immediately, and drove straight to the old address. the house was occupied by strange people, who could give me no tidings of my friend. it is in a retired place, where there are very few tradespeople about. sir michael made inquiries at the few shops there are, but, after taking an immense deal of trouble, could discover nothing whatever likely to lead to the information we wanted. i have no friends in london, and had therefore no one to assist me except my dear, generous husband, who did all in his power, but in vain, to find my friend's new residence." "it was very foolish not to send the address in the telegraphic message," said robert. "when people are dying it is not so easy to think of all these things," murmured my lady, looking reproachfully at mr. audley with her soft blue eyes. in spite of lady audley's fascination, and in spite of robert's very unqualified admiration of her, the barrister could not overcome a vague feeling of uneasiness on this quiet september evening. as he sat in the deep embrasure of a mullioned window, talking to my lady, his mind wandered away to shady figtree court, and he thought of poor george talboys smoking his solitary cigar in the room with the birds and canaries. "i wish i'd never felt any friendliness for the fellow," he thought. "i feel like a man who has an only son whose life has gone wrong with him. i wish to heaven i could give him back his wife, and send him down to ventnor to finish his days in peace." still my lady's pretty musical prattle ran on as merrily and continuously as the babble in some brook; and still robert's thoughts wandered, in spite of himself, to george talboys. he thought of him hurrying down to southampton by the mail train to see his boy. he thought of him as he had often seen him spelling over the shipping advertisements in the times, looking for a vessel to take him back to australia. once he thought of him with a shudder, lying cold and stiff at the bottom of some shallow stream with his dead face turned toward the darkening sky. lady audley noticed his abstraction, and asked him what he was thinking of. "george talboys," he answered abruptly. she gave a little nervous shudder. "upon my word," she said, "you make me quite uncomfortable by the way in which you talk of mr. talboys. one would think that something extraordinary had happened to him." "god forbid! but i cannot help feeling uneasy about him." later in the evening sir michael asked for some music, and my lady went to the piano. robert audley strolled after her to the instrument to turn over the leaves of her music; but she played from memory, and he was spared the trouble his gallantry would have imposed upon him. he carried a pair of lighted candles to the piano, and arranged them conveniently for the pretty musician. she struck a few chords, and then wandered into a pensive sonata of beethoven's. it was one of the many paradoxes in her character, that love of somber and melancholy melodies, so opposite to her gay nature. robert audley lingered by her side, and as he had no occupation in turning over the leaves of her music, he amused himself by watching her jeweled, white hands gliding softly over the keys, with the lace sleeves dropping away from, her graceful, arched wrists. he looked at her pretty fingers one by one; this one glittering with a ruby heart; that encircled by an emerald serpent; and about them all a starry glitter of diamonds. from the fingers his eyes wandered to the rounded wrists: the broad, flat, gold bracelet upon her right wrist dropped over her hand, as she executed a rapid passage. she stopped abruptly to rearrange it; but before she could do so robert audley noticed a bruise upon her delicate skin. "you have hurt your arm, lady audley!" he exclaimed. she hastily replaced the bracelet. "it is nothing," she said. "i am unfortunate in having a skin which the slightest touch bruises." she went on playing, but sir michael came across the room to look into the matter of the bruise upon his wife's pretty wrist. "what is it, lucy?" he asked; "and how did it happen?" "how foolish you all are to trouble yourselves about anything so absurd!" said lady audley, laughing. "i am rather absent in mind, and amused myself a few days ago by tying a piece of ribbon around my arm so tightly, that it left a bruise when i removed it." "hum!" thought robert. "my lady tells little childish white lies; the bruise is of a more recent date than a few days ago; the skin has only just begun to change color." sir michael took the slender wrist in his strong hand. "hold the candle, robert," he said, "and let us look at this poor little arm." it was not one bruise, but four slender, purple marks, such as might have been made by the four fingers of a powerful hand, that had grasped the delicate wrist a shade too roughly. a narrow ribbon, bound tightly, might have left some such marks, it is true, and my lady protested once more that, to the best of her recollection, that must have been how they were made. across one of the faint purple marks there was a darker tinge, as if a ring worn on one of those strong and cruel fingers had been ground into the tender flesh. "i am sure my lady must tell white lies," thought robert, "for i can't believe the story of the ribbon." he wished his relations good-night and good-by at about half past ten o'clock; he should run up to london by the first train to look for george in figtree court. "if i don't find him there i shall go to southampton," he said; "and if i don't find him there�" "what then?" asked my lady. "i shall think that something strange has happened." robert audley felt very low-spirited as he walked slowly home between the shadowy meadows; more low-spirited still when he re-entered the sitting room at sun inn, where he and george had lounged together, staring out of the window and smoking their cigars. "to think," he said, meditatively, "that it is possible to care so much for a fellow! but come what may, i'll go up to town after him the first thing to-morrow morning; and, sooner than be balked in finding him, i'll go to the very end of the world." with mr. audley's lymphatic nature, determination was so much the exception rather than the rule, that when he did for once in his life resolve upon any course of action, he had a certain dogged, iron-like obstinacy that pushed him on to the fulfillment of his purpose. the lazy bent of his mind, which prevented him from thinking of half a dozen things at a time, and not thinking thoroughly of any one of them, as is the manner of your more energetic people, made him remarkably clear-sighted upon any point to which he ever gave his serious attention. indeed, after all, though solemn benchers laughed at him, and rising barristers shrugged their shoulders under rustling silk gowns, when people spoke of robert audley, i doubt if, had he ever taken the trouble to get a brief, he might not have rather surprised the magnates who underrated his abilities. chapter xii. still missing. the september sunlight sparkled upon the fountain in the temple gardens when robert audley returned to figtree court early the following morning. he found the canaries singing in the pretty little room in which george had slept, but the apartment was in the same prim order in which the laundress had arranged it after the departure of the two young men�not a chair displaced, or so much as the lid of a cigar-box lifted, to bespeak the presence of george talboys. with a last, lingering hope, he searched upon the mantelpieces and tables of his rooms, on the chance of finding some letter left by george. "he may have slept here last night, and started for southampton early this morning," he thought. "mrs. maloney has been here, very likely, to make everything tidy after him." but as he sat looking lazily around the room, now and then whistling to his delighted canaries, a slipshod foot upon the staircase without bespoke the advent of that very mrs. maloney who waited upon the two young men. no, mr. talboys had not come home; she had looked in as early as six o'clock that morning, and found the chambers empty. "had anything happened to the poor, dear gentleman?" she asked, seeing robert audley's pale face. he turned around upon her quite savagely at this question. happened to him! what should happen to him? they had only parted at two o'clock the day before. mrs. maloney would have related to him the history of a poor dear young engine-driver, who had once lodged with her, and who went out, after eating a hearty dinner, in the best of spirits, to meet with his death from the concussion of an express and a luggage train; but robert put on his hat again, and walked straight out of the house before the honest irishwoman could begin her pitiful story. it was growing dusk when he reached southampton. he knew his way to the poor little terrace of houses, in a full street leading down to the water, where george's father-in-law lived. little georgey was playing at the open parlor window as the young man walked down the street. perhaps it was this fact, and the dull and silent aspect of the house, which filled robert audley's mind with a vague conviction that the man he came to look for was not there. the old man himself opened the door, and the child peeped out of the parlor to see the strange gentleman. he was a handsome boy, with his father's brown eyes and dark waving hair, and with some latent expression which was not his father's and which pervaded his whole face, so that although each feature of the child resembled the same feature in george talboys, the boy was not actually like him. mr. maldon was delighted to see robert audley; he remembered having had the pleasure of meeting him at ventnor, on the melancholy occasion of�he wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the sentence. would mr. audley walk in? robert strode into the parlor. the furniture was shabby and dingy, and the place reeked with the smell of stale tobacco and brandy-and-water. the boy's broken playthings, and the old man's broken clay pipes and torn, brandy-and-water-stained newspapers were scattered upon the dirty carpet. little georgey crept toward the visitor, watching him furtively out of his big, brown eyes. robert took the boy on his knee, and gave him his watch-chain to play with while he talked to the old man. "i need scarcely ask the question that i come to ask," he said; "i was in hopes i should have found your son-in-law here." "what! you knew that he was coming to southampton?" "knew that he was coming?" cried robert, brightening up. "he is here, then?" "no, he is not here now; but he has been here." "when?" "late last night; he came by the mail." "and left again immediately?" "he stayed little better than an hour." "good heaven!" said robert, "what useless anxiety that man has given me! what can be the meaning of all this?" "you knew nothing of his intention, then?" "of what intention?" "i mean of his determination to go to australia." "i know that it was always in his mind more or less, but not more just now than usual." "he sails to-night from liverpool. he came here at one o'clock this morning to have a look at the boy, he said, before he left england, perhaps never to return. he told me he was sick of the world, and that the rough life out there was the only thing to suit him. he stayed an hour, kissed the boy without awaking him, and left southampton by the mail that starts at a quarter-past two." "what can be the meaning of all this?" said robert. "what could be his motive for leaving england in this manner, without a word to me, his most intimate friend�without even a change of clothes; for he has left everything at my chambers? it is the most extraordinary proceeding!" the old man looked very grave. "do you know, mr. audley," he said, tapping his forehead significantly, "i sometimes fancy that helen's death had a strange effect upon poor george." "pshaw!" cried robert, contemptuously; "he felt the blow most cruelly, but his brain was as sound as yours or mine." "perhaps he will write to you from liverpool," said george's father-in-law. he seemed anxious to smooth over any indignation that robert might feel at his friend's conduct. "he ought," said robert, gravely, "for we've been good friends from the days when we were together at eton. it isn't kind of george talboys to treat me like this." but even at the moment that he uttered the reproach a strange thrill of remorse shot through his heart. "it isn't like him," he said, "it isn't like george talboys." little georgey caught at the sound. "that's my name," he said, "and my papa's name�the big gentleman's name." "yes, little georgey, and your papa came last night and kissed you in your sleep. do you remember?" "no," said the boy, shaking his curly little head. "you must have been very fast asleep, little georgey, not to see poor papa." the child did not answer, but presently, fixing his eyes upon robert's face, he said abruptly: "where's the pretty lady?" "what pretty lady?" "the pretty lady that used to come a long while ago." "he means his poor mamma," said the old man. "no," cried the boy resolutely, "not mamma. mamma was always crying. i didn't like mamma�" "hush, little georgey!" "but i didn't, and she didn't like me. she was always crying. i mean the pretty lady; the lady that was dressed so fine, and that gave me my gold watch." "he means the wife of my old captain�an excellent creature, who took a great fancy to georgey, and gave him some handsome presents." "where's my gold watch? let me show the gentleman my gold watch," cried georgey. "it's gone to be cleaned, georgey," answered his grandfather. "it's always going to be cleaned," said the boy. "the watch is perfectly safe, i assure you, mr. audley," murmured the old man, apologetically; and taking out a pawnbroker's duplicate, he handed it to robert. it was made out in the name of captain mortimer: "watch, set with diamonds, £ ." "i'm often hard pressed for a few shillings, mr. audley," said the old man. "my son-in-law has been very liberal to me; but there are others, there are others, mr. audley�and�and�i've not been treated well." he wiped away some genuine tears as he said this in a pitiful, crying voice. "come, georgey, it's time the brave little man was in bed. come along with grandpa. excuse me for a quarter of an hour, mr. audley." the boy went very willingly. at the door of the room the old man looked back at his visitor, and said in the same peevish voice, "this is a poor place for me to pass my declining years in, mr. audley. i've made many sacrifices, and i make them still, but i've not been treated well." left alone in the dusky little sitting-room, robert audley folded his arms, and sat absently staring at the floor. george was gone, then; he might receive some letter of explanation perhaps, when he returned to london; but the chances were that he would never see his old friend again. "and to think that i should care so much for the fellow!" he said, lifting his eyebrows to the center of his forehead. "the place smells of stale tobacco like a tap-room," he muttered presently; "there can be no harm in my smoking a cigar here." he took one from the case in his pocket: there was a spark of fire in the little grate, and he looked about for something to light his cigar with. a twisted piece of paper lay half burned upon the hearthrug; he picked it up, and unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-light by folding it the other way of the paper. as he did so, absently glancing at the penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a portion of a name caught his eye�a portion of the name that was most in his thoughts. he took the scrap of paper to the window, and examined it by the declining light. it was part of a telegraphic dispatch. the upper portion had been burnt away, but the more important part, the greater part of the message itself, remained. "�alboys came to �� last night, and left by the mail for london, on his way to liverpool, whence he was to sail for sydney." the date and the name and address of the sender of the message had been burnt with the heading. robert audley's face blanched to a deathly whiteness. he carefully folded the scrap of paper, and placed it between the leaves of his pocket-book. "my god!" he said, "what is the meaning of this? i shall go to liverpool to-night, and make inquiries there!" chapter xiii. troubled dreams. robert audley left southampton by the mail, and let himself into his chambers just as the dawn was creeping cold and gray into the solitary rooms, and the canaries were beginning to rustle their feathers feebly in the early morning. there were several letters in the box behind the door, but there was none from george talboys. the young barrister was worn out by a long day spent in hurrying from place to place. the usual lazy monotony of his life had been broken as it had never been broken before in eight-and-twenty tranquil, easy-going years. his mind was beginning to grow confused upon the point of time. it seemed to him months since he had lost sight of george talboys. it was so difficult to believe that it was less than forty-eight hours ago that the young man had left him asleep under the willows by the trout stream. his eyes were painfully weary for want of sleep. he searched about the room for some time, looking in all sorts of impossible places for a letter from george talboys, and then threw himself dressed upon his friend's bed, in the room with the canaries and geraniums. "i shall wait for to-morrow morning's post," he said; "and if that brings no letter from george, i shall start for liverpool without a moment's delay." he was thoroughly exhausted, and fell into a heavy sleep�a sleep which was profound without being in any way refreshing, for he was tormented all the time by disagreeable dreams�dreams which were painful, not from any horror in themselves, but from a vague and wearying sense of their confusion and absurdity. at one time he was pursuing strange people and entering strange houses in the endeavor to unravel the mystery of the telegraphic dispatch; at another time he was in the church-yard at ventnor, gazing at the headstone george had ordered for the grave of his dead wife. once in the long, rambling mystery of these dreams he went to the grave, and found this headstone gone, and on remonstrating with the stonemason, was told that the man had a reason for removing the inscription; a reason that robert would some day learn. in another dream he saw the grave of helen talboys open, and while he waited, with the cold horror lifting up his hair, to see the dead woman rise and stand before him with her stiff, charnel-house drapery clinging about her rigid limbs, his uncle's wife tripped gaily out of the open grave, dressed in the crimson velvet robes in which the artist had painted her, and with her ringlets flashing like red gold in the unearthly light that shone about her. but into all these dreams the places he had last been in, and the people with whom he had last been concerned, were dimly interwoven�sometimes his uncle; sometimes alicia; oftenest of all my lady; the trout stream in essex; the lime-walk at the court. once he was walking in the black shadows of this long avenue, with lady audley hanging on his arm, when suddenly they heard a great knocking in the distance, and his uncle's wife wound her slender arms around him, crying out that it was the day of judgment, and that all wicked secrets must now be told. looking at her as she shrieked this in his ear, he saw that her face had grown ghastly white, and that her beautiful golden ringlets were changing into serpents, and slowly creeping down her fair neck. he started from his dream to find that there was some one really knocking at the outer door of his chambers. it was a dreary, wet morning, the rain beating against the windows, and the canaries twittering dismally to each other�complaining, perhaps, of the bad weather. robert could not tell how long the person had been knocking. he had mixed the sound with his dreams, and when he woke he was only half conscious of other things. "it's that stupid mrs. maloney, i dare say," he muttered. "she may knock again for all i care. why can't she use her duplicate key, instead of dragging a man out of bed when he's half dead with fatigue." the person, whoever it was, did knock again, and then desisted, apparently tired out; but about a minute afterward a key turned in the door. "she had her key with her all the time, then," said robert. "i'm very glad i didn't get up." the door between the sitting-room and bed-room was half open, and he could see the laundress bustling about, dusting the furniture, and rearranging things that had never been disarranged. "is that you, mrs. maloney?" he asked. "yes, sir," "then why, in goodness' name, did you make that row at the door, when you had a key with you all the time?" "a row at the door, sir?" "yes; that infernal knocking." "sure i never knocked, mister audley, but walked straight in with my kay�" "then who did knock? there's been some one kicking up a row at that door for a quarter of an hour, i should think; you must have met him going down-stairs." "but i'm rather late this morning, sir, for i've been in mr. martin's rooms first, and i've come straight from the floor above." "then you didn't see any one at the door, or on the stairs?" "not a mortal soul, sir." "was ever anything so provoking?" said robert. "to think that i should have let this person go away without ascertaining who he was, or what he wanted! how do i know that it was not some one with a message or a letter from george talboys?" "sure if it was, sir, he'll come again," said mrs. maloney, soothingly. "yes, of course, if it was anything of consequence he'll come again," muttered robert. the fact was, that from the moment of finding the telegraphic message at southampton, all hope of hearing of george had faded out of his mind. he felt that there was some mystery involved in the disappearance of his friend�some treachery toward himself, or toward george. what if the young man's greedy old father-in-law had tried to separate them on account of the monetary trust lodged in robert audley's hands? or what if, since even in these civilized days all kinds of unsuspected horrors are constantly committed�what if the old man had decoyed george down to southampton, and made away with him in order to get possession of that £ , , left in robert's custody for little georgey's use? but neither of these suppositions explained the telegraphic message, and it was the telegraphic message which had filled robert's mind with a vague sense of alarm. the postman brought no letter from george talboys, and the person who had knocked at the door of the chambers did not return between seven and nine o'clock, so robert audley left figtree court once more in search of his friend. this time he told the cabman to drive to the euston station, and in twenty minutes he was on the platform, making inquiries about the trains. the liverpool express had started half an hour before he reached the station, and he had to wait an hour and a quarter for a slow train to take him to his destination. robert audley chafed cruelly at this delay. half a dozen vessels might sail for australia while he roamed up and down the long platform, tumbling over trucks and porters, and swearing at his ill-luck. he bought the times newspaper, and looked instinctively at the second column, with a morbid interest in the advertisements of people missing�sons, brothers, and husbands who had left their homes, never to return or to be heard of more. there was one advertisement of a young man found drowned somewhere on the lambeth shore. what if that should have been george's fate? no; the telegraphic message involved his father-in-law in the fact of his disappearance, and every speculation about him must start from that one point. it was eight o'clock in the evening when robert got into liverpool; too late for anything except to make inquiries as to what vessel had sailed within the last two days for the antipodes. an emigrant ship had sailed at four o'clock that afternoon�the victoria regia, bound for melbourne. the result of his inquiries amounted to this�if he wanted to find out who had sailed in the victoria regia, he must wait till the next morning, and apply for information of that vessel. robert audley was at the office at nine o'clock the next morning, and was the first person after the clerks who entered it. he met with every civility from the clerk to whom he applied. the young man referred to his books, and running his pen down the list of passengers who had sailed in the victoria regia, told robert that there was no one among them of the name of talboys. he pushed his inquiries further. had any of the passengers entered their names within a short time of the vessel's sailing? one of the other clerks looked up from his desk as robert asked this question. yes, he said; he remembered a young man's coming into the office at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, and paying his passage money. his name was the last on the list�thomas brown. robert audley shrugged his shoulders. there could have been no possible reason for george's taking a feigned name. he asked the clerk who had last spoken if he could remember the appearance of this mr. thomas brown. no; the office was crowded at the time; people were running in and out, and he had not taken any particular notice of this last passenger. robert thanked them for their civility, and wished them good-morning. as he was leaving the office, one of the young men called after him: "oh, by-the-by, sir," he said, "i remember one thing about this mr. thomas brown�his arm was in a sling." there was nothing more for robert audley to do but to return to town. he re-entered his chambers at six o'clock that evening, thoroughly worn out once more with his useless search. mrs. maloney brought him his dinner and a pint of wine from a tavern in the strand. the evening was raw and chilly, and the laundress had lighted a good fire in the sitting-room grate. after eating about half a mutton-chop, robert sat with his wine untasted upon the table before him, smoking cigars and staring into the blaze. "george talboys never sailed for australia," he said, after long and painful reflection. "if he is alive, he is still in england; and if he is dead, his body is hidden in some corner of england." he sat for hours smoking and thinking�trouble and gloomy thoughts leaving a dark shadow upon his moody face, which neither the brilliant light of the gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel. very late in the evening he rose from his chair, pushed away the table, wheeled his desk over to the fire-place, took out a sheet of fools-cap, and dipped a pen in the ink. but after doing this he paused, leaned his forehead upon his hand, and once more relapsed into thought. "i shall draw up a record of all that has occurred between our going down to essex and to-night, beginning at the very beginning." he drew up this record in short, detached sentences, which he numbered as he wrote. it ran thus: "journal of facts connected with the disappearance of george talboys, inclusive of facts which have no apparent relation to that circumstance." in spite of the troubled state of his mind, he was rather inclined to be proud of the official appearance of this heading. he sat for some time looking at it with affection, and with the feather of his pen in his mouth. "upon my word," he said, "i begin to think that i ought to have pursued my profession, instead of dawdling my life away as i have done." he smoked half a cigar before he had got his thoughts in proper train, and then began to write: " . i write to alicia, proposing to take george down to the court." " . alicia writes, objecting to the visit, on the part of lady audley." " . we go to essex in spite of that objection. i see my lady. my lady refuses to be introduced to george on that particular evening on the score of fatigue." " . sir michael invites george and me to dinner for the following evening." " . my lady receives a telegraphic dispatch the next morning which summons her to london." " . alicia shows me a letter from my lady, in which she requests to be told when i and my friend, mr. talboys, mean to leave essex. to this letter is subjoined a postscript, reiterating the above request." " . we call at the court, and ask to see the house. my lady's apartments are locked." " . we get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage, the existence of which is unknown to my lady. in one of the rooms we find her portrait." " . george is frightened at the storm. his conduct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening." " . george quite himself again the following morning. i propose leaving audley court immediately; he prefers remaining till the evening." " . we go out fishing. george leaves me to go to the court." " . the last positive information i can obtain of him in essex is at the court, where the servant says he thinks mr. talboys told him he would go and look for my lady in the grounds." " . i receive information about him at the station which may or may not be correct." " . i hear of him positively once more at southampton, where, according to his father-in-law, he had been for an hour on the previous night." " . the telegraphic message." when robert audley had completed this brief record, which he drew up with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection, alterations and erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the written page. at last he read it carefully over, stopping at some of the numbered paragraphs, and marking some of them with a pencil cross; then he folded the sheet of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in that very pigeon-hole into which he had thrust alicia's letter�the pigeon-hole marked important. having done this, he returned to his easy-chair by the fire, pushed away his desk, and lighted a cigar. "it's as dark as midnight from first to last," he said; "and the clew to the mystery must be found either at southampton or in essex. be it how it may, my mind is made up. i shall first go to audley court, and look for george talboys in a narrow radius." chapter xiv. phoebe's suitor. "mr. george talboys.�any person who has met this gentleman since the th inst., or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating with a.z., chancery lane." sir michael audley read the above advertisement in the second column of the times, as he sat at breakfast with my lady and alicia two or three days after robert's return to town. "robert's friend has not yet been heard of, then," said the baronet, after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter. "as for that," replied my lady, "i cannot help wondering that any one can be silly enough to advertise for him. the young man was evidently of a restless, roving disposition�a sort of bamfyld moore carew of modern life, whom no attraction could ever keep in one spot." though the advertisement appeared three successive times, the party at the court attached very little importance to mr. talboys' disappearance; and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either sir michael, my lady, or alicia. alicia audley and her pretty stepmother were by no means any better friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined at the court. "she is a vain, frivolous, heartless little coquette," said alicia, addressing herself to her newfoundland dog caesar, who was the sole recipient of the young lady's confidences; "she is a practiced and consummate flirt, caesar; and not contented with setting her yellow ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in essex, she must needs make that stupid cousin of mine dance attendance upon her. i haven't common patience with her." in proof of which last assertion miss alicia audley treated her stepmother with such very palpable impertinence that sir michael felt himself called upon to remonstrate with his only daughter. "the poor little woman is very sensitive, you know, alicia," the baronet said, gravely, "and she feels your conduct most acutely." "i don't believe it a bit, papa," answered alicia, stoutly. "you think her sensitive because she has soft little white hands, and big blue eyes with long lashes, and all manner of affected, fantastical ways, which you stupid men call fascinating. sensitive! why, i've seen her do cruel things with those slender white fingers, and laugh at the pain she inflicted. i'm very sorry, papa," she added, softened a little by her father's look of distress; "though she has come between us, and robbed poor alicia of the love of that dear, generous heart, i wish i could like her for your sake; but i can't, i can't, and no more can caesar. she came up to him once with her red lips apart, and her little white teeth glistening between them, and stroked his great head with her soft hand; but if i had not had hold of his collar, he would have flown at her throat and strangled her. she may bewitch every man in essex, but she'd never make friends with my dog." "your dog shall be shot," answered sir michael angrily, "if his vicious temper ever endangers lucy." the newfoundland rolled his eyes slowly round in the direction of the speaker, as if he understood every word that had been said. lady audley happened to enter the room at this very moment, and the animal cowered down by the side of his mistress with a suppressed growl. there was something in the manner of the dog which was, if anything, more indicative of terror than of fury; incredible as it appears that caesar should be frightened by so fragile a creature as lucy audley. amicable as was my lady's nature, she could not live long at the court without discovering alicia's dislike to her. she never alluded to it but once; then, shrugging her graceful white shoulders, she said, with a sigh: "it seems very hard that you cannot love me, alicia, for i have never been used to make enemies; but since it seems that it must be so, i cannot help it. if we cannot be friends, let us be neutral. you won't try to injure me?" "injure you!" exclaimed alicia; "how should i injure you?" "you'll not try to deprive me of your father's affection?" "i may not be as amiable as you are, my lady, and i may not have the same sweet smiles and pretty words for every stranger i meet, but i am not capable of a contemptible meanness; and even if i were, i think you are so secure of my father's love, that nothing but your own act will ever deprive you of it." "what a severe creature you are, alicia!" said my lady, making a little grimace. "i suppose you mean to infer by all that, that i'm deceitful. why, i can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them. i know i'm no better than the rest of the world; but i can't help it if i'm pleasantér. it's constitutional." alicia having thus entirely shut the door upon all intimacy between lady audley and herself, and sir michael being chiefly occupied in agricultural pursuits and manly sports, which kept him away from home, it was perhaps natural that my lady, being of an eminently social disposition, should find herself thrown a good deal upon her white-eyelashed maid for society. phoebe marks was exactly the sort of a girl who is generally promoted from the post of lady's maid to that of companion. she had just sufficient education to enable her to understand her mistress when lucy chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of intellectual tarantella, in which her tongue went mad to the sound of its own rattle, as the spanish dancer at the noise of his castanets. phoebe knew enough of the french language to be able to dip into the yellow-paper-covered novels which my lady ordered from the burlington arcade, and to discourse with her mistress upon the questionable subjects of these romances. the likeness which the lady's maid bore to lucy audley was, perhaps, a point of sympathy between the two women. it was not to be called a striking likeness; a stranger might have seen them both together, and yet have failed to remark it. but there were certain dim and shadowy lights in which, meeting phoebe marks gliding softly through the dark oak passages of the court, or under the shrouded avenues in the garden, you might have easily mistaken her for my lady. sharp october winds were sweeping the leaves from the limes in the long avenue, and driving them in withered heaps with a ghostly rustling noise along the dry gravel walks. the old well must have been half choked up with the leaves that drifted about it, and whirled in eddying circles into its black, broken mouth. on the still bosom of the fish-pond the same withered leaves slowly rotted away, mixing themselves with the tangled weeds that discolored the surface of the water. all the gardeners sir michael could employ could not keep the impress of autumn's destroying hand from the grounds about the court. "how i hate this desolate month!" my lady said, as she walked about the garden, shivering beneath her sable mantle. "every thing dropping to ruin and decay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth, as the glare of gas-lamps lights the wrinkles of an old woman. shall i ever grow old, phoebe? will my hair ever drop off as the leaves are falling from those trees, and leave me wan and bare like them? what is to become of me when i grow old?" she shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the cold, wintry breeze, and muffling herself closely in her fur, walked so fast that her maid had some difficulty in keeping up with her. "do you remember, phoebe," she said, presently, relaxing her pace, "do you remember that french story we read�the story of a beautiful woman who had committed some crime�i forget what�in the zenith of her power and loveliness, when all paris drank to her every night, and when the people ran away from the carriage of the king to flock about hers, and get a peep at her face? do you remember how she kept the secret of what she had done for nearly half a century, spending her old age in her family chateau, beloved and honored by all the province as an uncanonized saint and benefactress to the poor; and how, when her hair was white, and her eyes almost blind with age, the secret was revealed through one of those strange accidents by which such secrets always are revealed in romances, and she was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be burned alive? the king who had worn her colors was dead and gone; the court of which she had been a star had passed away; powerful functionaries and great magistrates, who might perhaps have helped her, were moldering in the graves; brave young cavaliers, who would have died for her, had fallen upon distant battle-fields; she had lived to see the age to which she had belonged fade like a dream; and she went to the stake, followed by only a few ignorant country people, who forgot all her bounties, and hooted at her for a wicked sorceress." "i don't care for such dismal stories, my lady," said phoebe marks with a shudder. "one has no need to read books to give one the horrors in this dull place." lady audley shrugged her shoulders and laughed at her maid's candor. "it is a dull place, phoebe," she said, "though it doesn't do to say so to my dear old husband. though i am the wife of one of the most influential men in the county, i don't know that i wasn't nearly as well off at mr. dawson's; and yet it's something to wear sables that cost sixty guineas, and have a thousand pounds spent on the decoration of one's apartments." treated as a companion by her mistress, in the receipt of the most liberal wages, and with perquisites such as perhaps lady's maid never had before, it was strange that phoebe marks should wish to leave her situation; but it was not the less a fact that she was anxious to exchange all the advantages of audley court for the very unpromising prospect which awaited her as the wife of her cousin luke. the young man had contrived in some manner to associate himself with the improved fortunes of his sweetheart. he had never allowed phoebe any peace till she had obtained for him, by the aid of my lady's interference, a situation as undergroom of the court. he never rode out with either alicia or sir michael; but on one of the few occasions upon which my lady mounted the pretty little gray thoroughbred reserved for her use, he contrived to attend her in her ride. he saw enough, in the very first half hour they were out, to discover that, graceful as lucy audley might look in her long blue cloth habit, she was a timid horsewoman, and utterly unable to manage the animal she rode. lady audley remonstrated with her maid upon her folly in wishing to marry the uncouth groom. the two women were seated together over the fire in my lady's dressing-room, the gray sky closing in upon the october afternoon, and the black tracery of ivy darkening the casement windows. "you surely are not in love with the awkward, ugly creature are you, phoebe?" asked my lady sharply. the girl was sitting on a low stool at her mistress feet. she did not answer my lady's question immediately, but sat for some time looking vacantly into the red abyss in the hollow fire. presently she said, rather as if she had been thinking aloud than answering lucy's question: "i don't think i can love him. we have been together from children, and i promised, when i was little better than fifteen, that i'd be his wife. i daren't break that promise now. there have been times when i've made up the very sentence i meant to say to him, telling him that i couldn't keep my faith with him; but the words have died upon my lips, and i've sat looking at him, with a choking sensation, in my throat that wouldn't let me speak. i daren't refuse to marry him. i've often watched and watched him, as he has sat slicing away at a hedge-stake with his great clasp-knife, till i have thought that it is just such men as he who have decoyed their sweethearts into lonely places, and murdered them for being false to their word. when he was a boy he was always violent and revengeful. i saw him once take up that very knife in a quarrel with his mother. i tell you, my lady, i must marry him." "you silly girl, you shall do nothing of the kind!" answered lucy. "you think he'll murder you, do you? do you think, then, if murder is in him, you would be any safer as his wife? if you thwarted him, or made him jealous; if he wanted to marry another woman, or to get hold of some poor, pitiful bit of money of yours, couldn't he murder you then? i tell you you sha'n't marry him, phoebe. in the first place i hate the man; and, in the next place i can't afford to part with you. we'll give him a few pounds and send him about his business." phoebe marks caught my lady's hand in hers, and clasped them convulsively. "my lady�my good, kind mistress!" she cried, vehemently, "don't try to thwart me in this�don't ask me to thwart him. i tell you i must marry him. you don't know what he is. it will be my ruin, and the ruin of others, if i break my word. i must marry him!" "very well, then, phoebe," answered her mistress, "i can't oppose you. there must be some secret at the bottom of all this." "there is, my lady," said the girl, with her face turned away from lucy. "i shall be very sorry to lose you; but i have promised to stand your friend in all things. what does your cousin mean to do for a living when you are married?" "he would like to take a public house." "then he shall take a public house, and the sooner he drinks himself to death the better. sir michael dines at a bachelor's party at major margrave's this evening, and my step-daughter is away with her friends at the grange. you can bring your cousin into the drawing-room after dinner, and i'll tell him what i mean to do for him." "you are very good, my lady," phoebe answered with a sigh. lady audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax candles in the luxurious drawing-room; the amber damask cushions of the sofa contrasting with her dark violet velvet dress, and her rippling hair falling about her neck in a golden haze. everywhere around her were the evidences of wealth and splendor; while in strange contrast to all this, and to her own beauty; the awkward groom stood rubbing his bullet head as my lady explained to him what she intended to do for her confidential maid. lucy's promises were very liberal, and she had expected that, uncouth as the man was, he would, in his own rough manner, have expressed his gratitude. to her surprise he stood staring at the floor without uttering a word in answer to her offer. phoebe was standing close to his elbow, and seemed distressed at the man's rudeness. "tell my lady how thankful you are, luke," she said. "but i'm not so over and above thankful," answered her lover, savagely. "fifty pound ain't much to start a public. you'll make it a hundred, my lady?" "i shall do nothing of the kind," said lady audley, her clear blue eyes flashing with indignation, "and i wonder at your impertinence in asking it." "oh, yes, you will, though," answered luke, with quiet insolence that had a hidden meaning. "you'll make it a hundred, my lady." lady audley rose from her seat, looked the man steadfastly in the face till his determined gaze sunk under hers; then walking straight up to her maid, she said in a high, piercing voice, peculiar to her in moments of intense agitation: "phoebe marks, you have told this man!" the girl fell on her knees at my lady's feet. "oh, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "he forced it from me, or i would never, never have told!" chapter xv. on the watch. upon a lowering morning late in november, with the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows, and the blinded cattle groping their way through the dim obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and leafless hedges, or stumbling into ditches, undistinguishable in the hazy atmosphere; with the village church looming brown and dingy through the uncertain light; with every winding path and cottage door, every gable end and gray old chimney, every village child and straggling cur seeming strange and weird of aspect in the semi-darkness, phoebe marks and her cousin luke made their way through the churchyard of audley, and presented themselves before a shivering curate, whose surplice hung in damp folds, soddened by the morning mist, and whose temper was not improved by his having waited five minutes for the bride and bridegroom. luke marks, dressed in his ill-fitting sunday clothes, looked by no means handsomer than in his every-day apparel; but phoebe, arrayed in a rustling silk of delicate gray, that had been worn about half a dozen times by her mistress, looked, as the few spectators of the ceremony remarked, "quite the lady." a very dim and shadowy lady, vague of outline, and faint of coloring, with eyes, hair, complexion and dress all melting into such pale and uncertain shades that, in the obscure light of the foggy november morning a superstitious stranger might have mistaken the bride for the ghost of some other bride, dead and buried in the vault below the church. mr. luke marks, the hero of the occasion, thought very little of all this. he had secured the wife of his choice, and the object of his life-long ambition�a public house. my lady had provided the seventy-five pounds necessary for the purchase of the good-will and fixtures, with the stock of ales and spirits, of a small inn in the center of a lonely little village, perched on the summit of a hill, and called mount stanning. it was not a very pretty house to look at; it had something of a tumble-down, weather-beaten appearance, standing, as it did, upon high ground, sheltered only by four or five bare and overgrown poplars, that had shot up too rapidly for their strength, and had a blighted, forlorn look in consequence. the wind had had its own way with the castle inn, and had sometimes made cruel use of its power. it was the wind that battered and bent the low, thatched roofs of outhouses and stables, till they hung over and lurched forward, as a slouched hat hangs over the low forehead of some village ruffian; it was the wind that shook and rattled the wooden shutters before the narrow casements, till they hung broken and dilapidated upon their rusty hinges; it was the wind that overthrew the pigeon house, and broke the vane that had been imprudently set up to tell the movements of its mightiness; it was the wind that made light of any little bit of wooden trellis-work, or creeping plant, or tiny balcony, or any modest decoration whatsoever, and tore and scattered it in its scornful fury; it was the wind that left mossy secretions on the discolored surface of the plaster walls; it was the wind, in short, that shattered, and ruined, and rent, and trampled upon the tottering pile of buildings, and then flew shrieking off, to riot and glory in its destroying strength. the dispirited proprietor grew tired of his long struggle with this mighty enemy; so the wind was left to work its own will, and the castle inn fell slowly to decay. but for all that it suffered without, it was not the less prosperous within doors. sturdy drovers stopped to drink at the little bar; well-to-do farmers spent their evenings and talked politics in the low, wainscoted parlor, while their horses munched some suspicious mixture of moldy hay and tolerable beans in the tumble-down stables. sometimes even the members of the audley hunt stopped to drink and bait their horses at the castle inn; while, on one grand and never-to-be-forgotten occasion, a dinner had been ordered by the master of the hounds for some thirty gentlemen, and the proprietor driven nearly mad by the importance of the demand. so luke marks, who was by no means troubled with an eye for the beautiful, thought himself very fortunate in becoming the landlord of the castle inn, mount stanning. a chaise-cart was waiting in the fog to convey the bride and bridegroom to their new home; and a few of the villagers, who had known phoebe from a child, were lingering around the churchyard gate to bid her good-by. her pale eyes were still paler from the tears she had shed, and the red rims which surrounded them. the bridegroom was annoyed at this exhibition of emotion. "what are you blubbering for, lass?" he said, fiercely. "if you didn't want to marry me you should have told me so. i ain't going to murder you, am i?" the lady's maid shivered as he spoke to her, and dragged her little silk mantle closely around her. "you're cold in all this here finery," said luke, staring at her costly dress with no expression of good-will. "why can't women dress according to their station? you won't have no silk gownds out of my pocket, i can tell you." he lifted the shivering girl into the chaise, wrapped a rough great-coat about her, and drove off through the yellow fog, followed by a feeble cheer from two or three urchins clustered around the gate. a new maid was brought from london to replace phoebe marks about the person of my lady�a very showy damsel, who wore a black satin gown, and rose-colored ribbons in her cap, and complained bitterly of the dullness of audley court. but christmas brought visitors to the rambling old mansion. a country squire and his fat wife occupied the tapestried chamber; merry girls scampered up and down the long passages, and young men stared out of the latticed windows, watching for southerly winds and cloudy skies; there was not an empty stall in the roomy old stables; an extempore forge had been set up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters; yelping dogs made the place noisy with their perpetual clamor; strange servants herded together on the garret story; and every little casement hidden away under some pointed gable, and every dormer window in the quaint old roof, glimmered upon the winter's night with its separate taper, till, coming suddenly upon audley court, the benighted stranger, misled by the light, and noise, and bustle of the place, might have easily fallen into young marlowe's error, and have mistaken the hospitable mansion for a good, old-fashioned inn, such as have faded from this earth since the last mail coach and prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to the knacker's yard. among other visitors mr. robert audley came down to essex for the hunting season, with half a dozen french novels, a case of cigars, and three pounds of turkish tobacco in his portmanteau. the honest young country squires, who talked all breakfast time of flying dutchman fillies and voltigeur colts; of glorious runs of seven hours' hard riding over three counties, and a midnight homeward ride of thirty miles upon their covert hacks; and who ran away from the well-spread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin, to look at that off pastern, or that sprained forearm, or the colt that had just come back from the veterinary surgeon's, set down robert audley, dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade, as a person utterly unworthy of any remark whatsoever. the young barrister had brought a couple of dogs with him; and the country gentleman who gave fifty pounds for a pointer; and traveled a couple of hundred miles to look at a leash of setters before he struck a bargain, laughed aloud at the two miserable curs, one of which had followed robert audley through chancery lane, and half the length of holborn; while his companion had been taken by the barrister vi et armis from a coster-monger who was ill-using him. and as robert furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable animals under his easy-chair in the drawing-room, much to the annoyance of my lady, who, as we know, hated all dogs, the visitors at audley court looked upon the baronet's nephew as an inoffensive species of maniac. during other visits to the court robert audley had made a feeble show of joining in the sports of the merry assembly. he had jogged across half a dozen ploughed fields on a quiet gray pony of sir michael's, and drawing up breathless and panting at the door of some farm-house, had expressed his intention of following the hounds no further that morning. he had even gone so far as to put on, with great labor, a pair of skates, with a view to taking a turn on the frozen surface of the fishpond, and had fallen ignominously at the first attempt, lying placidly extended on the flat of his back until such time as the bystanders should think fit to pick him up. he had occupied the back seat in a dog-cart during a pleasant morning drive, vehemently protesting against being taken up hill, and requiring the vehicle to be stopped every ten minutes in order to readjust the cushions. but this year he showed no inclination for any of these outdoor amusements, and he spent his time entirely in lounging in the drawing-room, and making himself agreeable, after his own lazy fashion, to my lady and alicia. lady audley received her nephew's attentions in that graceful half-childish fashion which her admirers found so charming; but alicia was indignant at the change in her cousin's conduct. "you were always a poor, spiritless fellow, bob," said the young lady, contemptuously, as she bounced into the drawing-room in her riding-habit, after a hunting breakfast, from which robert had absented himself, preferring a cup of tea in my lady's boudoir; "but this year i don't know what has come to you. you are good for nothing but to hold a skein of silk or read tennyson to lady audley." "my dear, hasty, impetuous alicia, don't be violent," said the young man imploringly. "a conclusion isn't a five-barred gate; and you needn't give your judgment its head, as you give your mare atalanta hers, when you're flying across country at the heels of an unfortunate fox. lady audley interests me, and my uncle's county friends do not. is that a sufficient answer, alicia?" miss audley gave her head a little scornful toss. "it's as good an answer as i shall ever get from, you, bob," she said, impatiently; "but pray amuse yourself in your own way; loll in an easy-chair all day, with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees; spoil my lady's window-curtains with your cigars and annoy everybody in the house with your stupid, inanimate countenance." mr. robert audley opened his handsome gray eyes to their widest extent at this tirade, and looked helplessly at miss alicia. the young lady was walking up and down the room, slashing the skirt of her habit with her riding-whip. her eyes sparkled with an angry flash, and a crimson glow burned under her clear brown skin. the young barrister knew very well, by these diagnostics, that his cousin was in a passion. "yes," she repeated, "your stupid, inanimate countenance. do you know, robert audley, that with all your mock amiability, you are brimful of conceit and superciliousness. you look down upon our amusements; you lift up your eyebrows, and shrug your shoulders, and throw yourself back in your chair, and wash your hands of us and our pleasures. you are a selfish, cold-hearted sybarite�" "alicia! good�gracious�me!" the morning paper dropped out of his hands, and he sat feebly staring at his assailant. "yes, selfish, robert audley! you take home half-starved dogs, because you like half-starved dogs. you stoop down, and pat the head of every good-for-nothing cur in the village street, because you like good-for-nothing curs. you notice little children, and give them halfpence, because it amuses you to do so. but you lift your eyebrows a quarter of a yard when poor sir harry towers tells a stupid story, and stare the poor fellow out of countenance with your lazy insolence. as to your amiability, you would let a man hit you, and say 'thank you' for the blow, rather than take the trouble to hit him again; but you wouldn't go half a mile out of your way to serve your dearest friend. sir harry is worth twenty of you, though he did write to ask if my m-a-i-r atalanta had recovered from the sprain. he can't spell, or lift his eyebrows to the roots of his hair; but he would go through fire and water for the girl he loves; while you�" at this very point, when robert was most prepared to encounter his cousin's violence, and when miss alicia seemed about to make her strongest attack, the young lady broke down altogether, and burst into tears. robert sprang from his easy-chair, upsetting his dogs on the carpet. "alicia, my darling, what is it?" "it's�it's�it's the feather of my hat that got into my eyes," sobbed his cousin; and before he could investigate the truth of this assertion alicia had darted out of the room. robert audley was preparing to follow her, when he heard her voice in the court-yard below, amidst the tramping of horses and the clamor of visitors, dogs, and grooms. sir harry towers, the most aristocratic young sportsman in the neighborhood, had just taken her little foot in his hand as she sprung into her saddle. "good heaven!" exclaimed robert, as he watched the merry party of equestrians until they disappeared under the archway. "what does all this mean? how charmingly she sits her horse! what a pretty figure, too, and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face: but to fly at a fellow like that, without the least provocation! that's the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds. she learns to look at everything in life as she does at six feet of timber or a sunk fence; she goes through the world as she goes across country�straight ahead, and over everything. such a nice girl as she might have been, too, if she'd been brought up in figtree court! if ever i marry, and have daughters (which remote contingency may heaven forefend!) they shall be educated in paper buildings, take their sole exercise in the temple gardens, and they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable, when i will walk them straight across fleet street to st. dunstan's church, and deliver them into the hands of their husbands." with such reflections as these did mr. robert audley beguile the time until my lady re-entered the drawing-room, fresh and radiant in her elegant morning costume, her yellow curls glistening with the perfumed waters in which she had bathed, and her velvet-covered sketch-book in her arms. she planted a little easel upon a table by the window, seated herself before it, and began to mix the colors upon her palette, robert watching her out of his half-closed eyes. "you are sure my cigar does not annoy you, lady audley?" "oh, no indeed; i am quite used to the smell of tobacco. mr. dawson, the surgeon, smoked all the evening when i lived in his house." "dawson is a good fellow, isn't he?" robert asked, carelessly. my lady burst into her pretty, gushing laugh. "the dearest of good creatures," she said. "he paid me five-and-twenty pounds a year�only fancy, five-and-twenty pounds! that made six pounds five a quarter. how well i remember receiving the money�six dingy old sovereigns, and a little heap of untidy, dirty silver, that came straight from the till in the surgery! and then how glad i was to get it! while now�i can't help laughing while i think of it�these colors i am using cost a guinea each at winsor & newton's�the carmine and ultramarine thirty shillings. i gave mrs. dawson one of my silk dresses the other day, and the poor thing kissed me, and the surgeon carried the bundle home under his cloak." my lady laughed long and joyously at the thought. her colors were mixed; she was copying a water-colored sketch of an impossibly turneresque atmosphere. the sketch was nearly finished, and she had only to put in some critical little touches with the most delicate of her sable pencils. she prepared herself daintily for the work, looking sideways at the painting. all this time mr. robert audley's eyes were fixed intently on her pretty face. "it is a change," he said, after so long a pause that my lady might have forgotten what she had been talking of, "it is a change! some women would do a great deal to accomplish such a change as that." lady audley's clear blue eyes dilated as she fixed them suddenly on the young barrister. the wintry sunlight, gleaming full upon her face from a side window, lit up the azure of those beautiful eyes, till their color seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and green, as the opal tints of the sea change upon a summer's day. the small brush fell from her hand, and blotted out the peasant's face under a widening circle of crimson lake. robert audley was tenderly coaxing the crumbled leaf of his cigar with cautious fingers. "my friend at the corner of chancery lane has not given me such good manillas as usual," he murmured. "if ever you smoke, my dear aunt (and i am told that many women take a quiet weed under the rose), be very careful how you choose your cigars." my lady drew a long breath, picked up her brush, and laughed aloud at robert's advice. "what an eccentric creature you are, mr. audley i do you know that you sometimes puzzle me�" "not more than you puzzle me, dear aunt." my lady put away her colors and sketch book, and seating herself in the deep recess of another window, at a considerable distance from robert audley, settled to a large piece of berlin-wool work�a piece of embroidery which the penelopes of ten or twelve years ago were very fond of exercising their ingenuity upon�the olden time at bolton abbey. seated in the embrasure of this window, my lady was separated from robert audley by the whole length of the room, and the young man could only catch an occasional glimpse of her fair face, surrounded by its bright aureole of hazy, golden hair. robert audley had been a week at the court, but as yet neither he nor my lady had mentioned the name of george talboys. this morning, however, after exhausting the usual topics of conversation, lady audley made an inquiry about her nephew's friend; "that mr. george�george�" she said, hesitating. "talboys," suggested robert. "yes, to be sure�mr. george talboys. rather a singular name, by-the-by, and certainly, by all accounts, a very singular person. have you seen him lately?" "i have not seen him since the th of september last�the day upon which he left me asleep in the meadows on the other side of the village." "dear me!" exclaimed my lady, "what a very strange young man this mr. george talboys must be! pray tell me all about it." robert told, in a few words, of his visit to southampton and his journey to liverpool, with their different results, my lady listening very attentively. in order to tell this story to better advantage, the young man left his chair, and, crossing the room, took up his place opposite to lady audley, in the embrasure of the window. "and what do you infer from all this?" asked my lady, after a pause. "it is so great a mystery to me," he answered, "that i scarcely dare to draw any conclusion whatever; but in the obscurity i think i can grope my way to two suppositions, which to me seem almost certainties." "and they are�" "first, that george talboys never went beyond southampton. second, that he never went to southampton at all." "but you traced him there. his father-in-law had seen him." "i have reason to doubt his father-in-law's integrity." "good gracious me!" cried my lady, piteously. "what do you mean by all this?" "lady audley," answered the young man, gravely, "i have never practiced as a barrister. i have enrolled myself in the ranks of a profession, the members of which hold solemn responsibilities and have sacred duties to perform; and i have shrunk from those responsibilities and duties, as i have from all the fatigues of this troublesome life. but we are sometimes forced into the very position we have most avoided, and i have found myself lately compelled to think of these things. lady audley, did you ever study the theory of circumstantial evidence?" "how can you ask a poor little woman about such horrid things?" exclaimed my lady. "circumstantial evidence," continued the young man, as if he scarcely heard lady audley's interruption�"that wonderful fabric which is built out of straws collected at every point of the compass, and which is yet strong enough to hang a man. upon what infinitesimal trifles may sometimes hang the whole secret of some wicked mystery, inexplicable heretofore to the wisest upon the earth! a scrap of paper, a shred of some torn garment, the button off a coat, a word dropped incautiously from the overcautious lips of guilt, the fragment of a letter, the shutting or opening of a door, a shadow on a window-blind, the accuracy of a moment tested by one of benson's watches�a thousand circumstances so slight as to be forgotten by the criminal, but links of iron in the wonderful chain forged by the science of the detective officer; and lo! the gallows is built up; the solemn bell tolls through the dismal gray of the early morning, the drop creaks under the guilty feet, and the penalty of crime is paid." faint shadows of green and crimson fell upon my lady's face from the painted escutcheons in the mullioned window by which she sat; but every trace of the natural color of that face had faded out, leaving it a ghastly ashen gray. sitting quietly in her chair, her head fallen back upon the amber damask cushions, and her little hands lying powerless in her lap, lady audley had fainted away. "the radius grows narrower day by day," said robert audley. "george talboys never reached southampton." chapter xvi. robert audley gets his conge. the christmas week was over, and one by one the country visitors dropped away from audley court. the fat squire and his wife abandoned the gray, tapestried chamber, and left the black-browed warriors looming from the wall to scowl upon and threaten new guests, or to glare vengefully upon vacancy. the merry girls on the second story packed, or caused to be packed, their trunks and imperials, and tumbled gauze ball-dresses were taken home that had been brought fresh to audley. blundering old family chariots, with horses whose untrimmed fetlocks told of rougher work than even country roads, were brought round to the broad space before the grim oak door, and laden with chaotic heaps of womanly luggage. pretty rosy faces peeped out of carriage windows to smile the last farewell upon the group at the hall door, as the vehicle rattled and rumbled under the ivied archway. sir michael was in request everywhere. shaking hands with the young sportsmen; kissing the rosy-cheeked girls; sometimes even embracing portly matrons who came to thank him for their pleasant visit; everywhere genial, hospitable, generous, happy, and beloved, the baronet hurried from room to room, from the hall to the stables, from the stables to the court-yard, from the court-yard to the arched gateway to speed the parting guest. my lady's yellow curls flashed hither and thither like wandering gleams of sunshine on these busy days of farewell. her great blue eyes had a pretty, mournful look, in charming unison with the soft pressure of her little hand, and that friendly, though perhaps rather stereotyped speech, in which she told her visitors how she was so sorry to lose them, and how she didn't know what she should do till they came once more to enliven the court by their charming society. but however sorry my lady might be to lose her visitors, there was at least one guest whose society she was not deprived of. robert audley showed no intention of leaving his uncle's house. he had no professional duties, he said; figtree court was delightfully shady in hot weather, but there was a sharp corner round which the wind came in the summer months, armed with avenging rheumatisms and influenzas. everybody was so good to him at the court, that really he had no inclination to hurry away. sir michael had but one answer to this: "stay, my dear boy; stay, my dear bob, as long as ever you like. i have no son, and you stand to me in the place of one. make yourself agreeable to lucy, and make the court your home as long as you live." to which robert would merely reply by grasping his uncle's hand vehemently, and muttering something about "a jolly old prince." it was to be observed that there was sometimes a certain vague sadness in the young man's tone when he called sir michael "a jolly old prince;" some shadow of affectionate regret that brought a mist into robert's eyes, as he sat in a corner of the room looking thoughtfully at the white-bearded baronet. before the last of the young sportsmen departed, sir harry towers demanded and obtained an interview with miss alicia audley in the oak library�an interview in which considerable emotion was displayed by the stalwart young fox-hunter; so much emotion, indeed, and of such a genuine and honest character, that alicia fairly broke down as she told him she should forever esteem and respect him for his true and noble heart, but that he must never, never, unless he wished to cause her the most cruel distress, ask more from her than this esteem and respect. sir harry left the library by the french window opening into the pond-garden. he strolled into that very lime-walk which george talboys had compared to an avenue in a churchyard, and under the leafless trees fought the battle of his brave young heart. "what a fool i am to feel it like this!" he cried, stamping his foot upon the frosty ground. "i always knew it would be so; i always knew that she was a hundred times too good for me. god bless her! how nobly and tenderly she spoke; how beautiful she looked with the crimson blushes under her brown skin, and the tears in her big, gray eyes�almost as handsome as the day she took the sunk fence, and let me put the brush in her hat as we rode home! god bless her! i can get over anything as long as she doesn't care for that sneaking lawyer. but i couldn't stand that." that sneaking lawyer, by which appellation sir harry alluded to mr. robert audley, was standing in the hall, looking at a map of the midland counties, when alicia came out of the library, with red eyes, after her interview with the fox-hunting baronet. robert, who was short-sighted, had his eyes within half an inch of the surface of the map as the young lady approached him. "yes," he said, "norwich is in norfolk, and that fool, young vincent, said it was in herefordshire. ha, alicia, is that you?" he turned round so as to intercept miss audley on her way to the staircase. "yes," replied his cousin curtly, trying to pass him. "alicia, you have been crying." the young lady did not condescend to reply. "you have been crying, alicia. sir harry towers, of towers park, in the county of herts, has been making you an offer of his hand, eh?" "have you been listening at the door, mr. audley?" "i have not, miss audley. on principle, i object to listen, and in practice i believe it to be a very troublesome proceeding; but i am a barrister, miss alicia, and able to draw a conclusion by induction. do you know what inductive evidence is, miss audley?" "no," replied alicia, looking at her cousin as a handsome young panther might look at its daring tormentor. "i thought not. i dare say sir harry would ask if it was a new kind of horse-ball. i knew by induction that the baronet was going to make you an offer; first, because he came downstairs with his hair parted on the wrong side, and his face as pale as a tablecloth; secondly, because he couldn't eat any breakfast, and let his coffee go the wrong way; and, thirdly, because he asked for an interview with you before he left the court. well, how's it to be, alicia? do we marry the baronet, and is poor cousin bob to be the best man at the wedding?" "sir harry towers is a noble-hearted young man," said alicia, still trying to pass her cousin. "but do we accept him�yes or no? are we to be lady towers, with a superb estate in hertfordshire, summer quarters for our hunters, and a drag with outriders to drive us across to papa's place in essex? is it to be so, alicia, or not?" "what is that to you, mr. robert audley?" cried alicia, passionately. "what do you care what becomes of me, or whom i marry? if i married a chimney-sweep you'd only lift up your eyebrows and say, 'bless my soul, she was always eccentric.' i have refused sir harry towers; but when i think of his generous and unselfish affection, and compare it with the heartless, lazy, selfish, supercilious indifference of other men, i've a good mind to run after him and tell him�" "that you'll retract, and be my lady towers?" "yes." "then don't, alicia, don't," said robert audley, grasping his cousin's slender little wrist, and leading her up-stairs. "come into the drawing-room with me, alicia, my poor little cousin; my charming, impetuous, alarming little cousin. sit down here in this mullioned window, and let us talk seriously and leave off quarreling if we can." the cousins had the drawing-room all to themselves. sir michael was out, my lady in her own apartments, and poor sir harry towers walking up and down upon the gravel walk, darkened with the flickering shadows of the leafless branches in the cold winter sunshine. "my poor little alicia," said robert, as tenderly as if he had been addressing some spoiled child, "do you suppose that because people don't wear vinegar tops, or part their hair on the wrong side, or conduct themselves altogether after the manner of well-meaning maniacs, by way of proving the vehemence of their passion�do you suppose because of this, alicia audley, that they may not be just as sensible of the merits of a dear little warm-hearted and affectionate girl as ever their neighbors can be? life is such a very troublesome matter, when all is said and done, that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly. i don't make a great howling because i can get good cigars one door from the corner of chancery lane, and have a dear, good girl for my cousin; but i am not the less grateful to providence that it is so." alicia opened her gray eyes to their widest extent, looking her cousin full in the face with a bewildered stare. robert had picked up the ugliest and leanest of his attendant curs, and was placidly stroking the animal's ears. "is this all you have to say to me, robert?" asked miss audley, meekly. "well, yes, i think so," replied her cousin, after considerable deliberation. "i fancy that what i wanted to say was this�don't marry the fox-hunting baronet if you like anybody else better; for if you'll only be patient and take life easily, and try and reform yourself of banging doors, bouncing in and out rooms, talking of the stables, and riding across country, i've no doubt the person you prefer will make you a very excellent husband." "thank you, cousin," said miss audley, crimsoning with bright, indignant blushes up to the roots of her waving brown hair; "but as you may not know the person i prefer, i think you had better not take upon yourself to answer for him." robert pulled the dog's ears thoughtfully for some moments. "no, to be sure," he said, after a pause. "of course, if i don't know him�i thought i did." "did you?" exclaimed alicia; and opening the door with a violence that made her cousin shiver, she bounced out of the drawing-room. "i only said i thought i knew him," robert called after her; and, then, as he sunk into an easy-chair, he murmured thoughtfully: "such a nice girl, too, if she didn't bounce." so poor sir harry towers rode away from audley court, looking very crestfallen and dismal. he had very little pleasure in returning to the stately mansion, hidden among sheltering oaks and venerable beeches. the square, red brick house, gleaming at the end of a long arcade of leafless trees was to be forever desolate, he thought, since alicia would not come to be its mistress. a hundred improvements planned and thought of were dismissed from his mind as useless now. the hunter that jim the trainer was breaking in for a lady; the two pointer pups that were being reared for the next shooting season; the big black retriever that would have carried alicia's parasol; the pavilion in the garden, disused since his mother's death, but which he had meant to have restored for miss audley�all these things were now so much vanity and vexation of spirit. "what's the good of being rich if one has no one to help spend one's money?" said the young baronet. "one only grows a selfish beggar, and takes to drinking too much port. it's a hard thing that a girl can refuse a true heart and such stables as we've got at the park. it unsettles a man somehow." indeed, this unlooked for rejection had very much unsettled the few ideas which made up the small sum of the baronet's mind. he had been desperately in love with alicia ever since the last hunting season, when he had met her at the county ball. his passion, cherished through the slow monotony of a summer, had broken out afresh in the merry winter months, and the young man's mauvaise honte alone had delayed the offer of his hand. but he had never for a moment supposed that he would be refused; he was so used to the adulation of mothers who had daughters to marry, and of even the daughters themselves; he had been so accustomed to feel himself the leading personage in an assembly, although half the wits of the age had been there, and he could only say "haw, to be sure!" and "by jove�hum!" he had been so spoiled by the flatteries of bright eyes that looked, or seemed to look, the brighter when he drew near, that without being possessed of one shadow of personal vanity, he had yet come to think that he had only to make an offer to the prettiest girl in essex to behold himself immediately accepted. "yes," he would say complacently to some admiring satellite, "i know i'm a good match, and i know what makes the gals so civil. they're very pretty, and they're very friendly to a fellow; but i don't care about 'em. they're all alike�they can only drop their eyes and say, 'lor', sir harry, why do you call that curly black dog a retriever?' or 'oh sir harry, and did the poor mare really sprain her pastern shoulder-blade?' i haven't got much brains myself, i know," the baronet would add deprecatingly; "and i don't want a strong-minded woman, who writes books and wears green spectacles; but, hang it! i like a gal who knows what she's talking about." so when alicia said "no," or rather made that pretty speech about esteem and respect, which well-bred young ladies substitute for the obnoxious monosyllable, sir harry towers felt that the whole fabric of the future he had built so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins. sir michael grasped him warmly by the hand just before the young man mounted his horse in the court-yard. "i'm very sorry, towers," he said. "you're as good a fellow as ever breathed, and would have made my girl an excellent husband; but you know there's a cousin, and i think that�" "don't say that, sir michael," interrupted the fox-hunter, energetically. "i can get over anything but that. a fellow whose hand upon the curb weighs half a ton (why, he pulled the cavalier's mouth to pieces, sir, the day you let him ride the horse); a fellow who turns his collars down, and eats bread and marmalade! no, no, sir michael; it's a queer world, but i can't think that of miss audley. there must be some one in the background, sir; it can't be the cousin." sir michael shook his head as the rejected suitor rode away. "i don't know about that," he muttered. "bob's a good lad, and the girl might do worse; but he hangs back as if he didn't care for her. there's some mystery�there's some mystery!" the old baronet said this in that semi-thoughtful tone with which we speak of other people's affairs. the shadows of the early winter twilight, gathering thickest under the low oak ceiling of the hall, and the quaint curve of the arched doorway, fell darkly round his handsome head; but the light of his declining life, his beautiful and beloved young wife, was near him, and he could see no shadows when she was by. she came skipping through the hall to meet him, and, shaking her golden ringlets, buried her bright head on her husband's breast. "so the last of our visitors is gone, dear, and we're all alone," she said. "isn't that nice?" "yes, darling," he answered fondly, stroking her bright hair. "except mr. robert audley. how long is that nephew of yours going to stay here?" "as long as he likes, my pet; he's always welcome," said the baronet; and then, as if remembering himself, he added, tenderly: "but not unless his visit is agreeable to you, darling; not if his lazy habits, or his smoking, or his dogs, or anything about him is displeasing to you." lady audley pursed up her rosy lips and looked thoughtfully at the ground. "it isn't that," she said, hesitatingly. "mr. audley is a very agreeable young man, and a very honorable young man; but you know, sir michael, i'm rather a young aunt for such a nephew, and�" "and what, lucy?" asked the baronet, fiercely. "poor alicia is rather jealous of any attention mr. audley pays me, and�and�i think it would be better for her happiness if your nephew were to bring his visit to a close." "he shall go to-night, lucy," exclaimed sir michael. "i am a blind, neglectful fool not to have thought of this before. my lovely little darling, it was scarcely just to bob to expose the poor lad to your fascinations. i know him to be as good and true-hearted a fellow as ever breathed, but�but�he shall go tonight." "but you won't be too abrupt, dear? you won't be rude?" "rude! no, lucy. i left him smoking in the lime-walk. i'll go and tell him that he must get out of the house in an hour." so in that leafless avenue, under whose gloomy shade george talboys had stood on that thunderous evening before the day of his disappearance, sir michael audley told his nephew that the court was no home for him, and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of eight-and-twenty. robert only shrugged his shoulders and elevated his thick, black eyebrows as sir michael delicately hinted all this. "i have been attentive to my lady," he said. "she interests me;" and then, with a change in his voice, and an emotion not common to him, he turned to the baronet, and grasping his hand, exclaimed, "god forbid, my dear uncle, that i should ever bring trouble upon such a noble heart as yours! god forbid that the slightest shadow of dishonor should ever fall upon your honored head�least of all through agency of mine." the young man uttered these few words in a broken and disjointed fashion in which sir michael had never heard him speak, before, and then turning away his head, fairly broke down. he left the court that night, but he did not go far. instead of taking the evening train for london, he went straight up to the little village of mount stanning, and walking into the neatly-kept inn, asked phoebe marks if he could be accommodated with apartments. chapter xvii. at the castle inn. the little sitting-room into which phoebe marks ushered the baronet's nephew was situated on the ground floor, and only separated by a lath-and-plaster partition from the little bar-parlor occupied by the innkeeper and his wife. it seemed as though the wise architect who had superintended the building of the castle inn had taken especial care that nothing but the frailest and most flimsy material should be used, and that the wind, having a special fancy for this unprotected spot, should have full play for the indulgence of its caprices. to this end pitiful woodwork had been used instead of solid masonry; rickety ceilings had been propped up by fragile rafters, and beams that threatened on every stormy night to fall upon the heads of those beneath them; doors whose specialty was never to be shut, yet always to be banging; windows constructed with a peculiar view to letting in the draft when they were shut, and keeping out the air when they were open. the hand of genius had devised this lonely country inn; and there was not an inch of woodwork, or trowelful of plaster employed in all the rickety construction that did not offer its own peculiar weak point to every assault of its indefatigable foe. robert looked about him with a feeble smile of resignation. it was a change, decidedly, from the luxurious comforts of audley court, and it was rather a strange fancy of the young barrister to prefer loitering at this dreary village hostelry to returning to his snug chambers in figtree court. but he had brought his lares and penates with him, in the shape of his german pipe, his tobacco canister, half a dozen french novels, and his two ill-conditioned, canine favorites, which sat shivering before the smoky little fire, barking shortly and sharply now and then, by way of hinting for some slight refreshment. while mr. robert audley contemplated his new quarters, phoebe marks summoned a little village lad who was in the habit of running errands for her, and taking him into the kitchen, gave him a tiny note, carefully folded and sealed. "you know audley court?" "yes, mum." "if you'll run there with this letter to-night, and see that it's put safely in lady audley's hands, i'll give you a shilling." "yes, mum." "you understand? ask to see my lady; you can say you've a message�not a note, mind�but a message from phoebe marks; and when you see her, give this into her own hand." "yes, mum." "you won't forget?" "no, mum." "then be off with you." the boy waited for no second bidding, but in another moment was scudding along the lonely high road, down the sharp descent that led to audley. phoebe marks went to the window, and looked out at the black figure of the lad hurrying through the dusky winter evening. "if there's any bad meaning in his coming here," she thought, "my lady will know of it in time, at any rate." phoebe herself brought the neatly arranged tea-tray, and the little covered dish of ham and eggs which had been prepared for this unlooked-for visitor. her pale hair was as smoothly braided, and her light gray dress fitted as precisely as of old. the same neutral tints pervaded her person and her dress; no showy rose-colored ribbons or rustling silk gown proclaimed the well-to-do innkeeper's wife. phoebe marks was a person who never lost her individuality. silent and self-constrained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no color from the outer world. robert looked at her thoughtfully as she spread the cloth, and drew the table nearer to the fireplace. "that," he thought, "is a woman who could keep a secret." the dogs looked rather suspiciously at the quiet figure of mrs. marks gliding softly about the room, from the teapot to the caddy, and from the caddy to the kettle singing on the hob. "will you pour out my tea for me, mrs. marks?" said robert, seating himself on a horsehair-covered arm-chair, which fitted him as tightly in every direction as if he had been measured for it. "you have come straight from the court, sir?" said phoebe, as she handed robert the sugar-basin. "yes; i only left my uncle's an hour ago." "and my lady, sir, was she quite well?" "yes, quite well." "as gay and light-hearted as ever, sir?" "as gay and light-hearted as ever." phoebe retired respectfully after having given mr. audley his tea, but as she stood with her hand upon the lock of the door he spoke again. "you knew lady audley when she was miss lucy graham, did you not?" he asked. "yes, sir. i lived at mrs. dawson's when my lady was governess there." "indeed! was she long in the surgeon's family?" "a year and a half, sir." "and she came from london?" "yes, sir." "and she was an orphan, i believe?" "yes, sir." "always as cheerful as she is now?" "always, sir." robert emptied his teacup and handed it to mrs. marks. their eyes met�a lazy look in his, and an active, searching glance in hers. "this woman would be good in a witness-box," he thought; "it would take a clever lawyer to bother her in a cross-examination." he finished his second cup of tea, pushed away his plate, fed his dogs, and lighted his pipe, while phoebe carried off the tea-tray. the wind came whistling up across the frosty open country, and through the leafless woods, and rattled fiercely at the window-frames. "there's a triangular draught from those two windows and the door that scarcely adds to the comfort of this apartment," murmured robert; "and there certainly are pleasantér sensations than that of standing up to one's knees in cold water." he poked the fire, patted his dogs, put on his great coat, rolled a rickety old sofa close to the hearth, wrapped his legs in his railway rug, and stretching himself at full length upon the narrow horsehair cushion, smoked his pipe, and watched the bluish-gray wreaths curling upward to the dingy ceiling. "no," he murmured, again; "that is a woman who can keep a secret. a counsel for the prosecution could get very little out of her." i have said that the bar-parlor was only separated from the sitting-room occupied by robert by a lath-and-plaster partition. the young barrister could hear the two or three village tradesmen and a couple of farmers laughing and talking round the bar, while luke marks served them from his stock of liquors. very often he could even hear their words, especially the landlord's, for he spoke in a coarse, loud voice, and had a more boastful manner than any of his customers. "the man is a fool," said robert, as he laid down his pipe. "i'll go and talk to him by-and-by." he waited till the few visitors to the castle had dropped away one by one, and when luke marks had bolted the door upon the last of his customers, he strolled quietly into the bar-parlor, where the landlord was seated with his wife. phoebe was busy at a little table, upon which stood a prim work-box, with every reel of cotton and glistening steel bodkin in its appointed place. she was darning the coarse gray stockings that adorned her husband's awkward feet, but she did her work as daintily as if they had been my lady's delicate silken hose. i say that she took no color from external things, and that the vague air of refinement that pervaded her nature clung to her as closely in the society of her boorish husband at the castle inn as in lady audley's boudoir at the court. she looked up suddenly as robert entered the bar-parlor. there was some shade of vexation in her pale gray eyes, which changed to an expression of anxiety�nay, rather of almost terror�as she glanced from mr. audley to luke marks. "i have come in for a few minutes' chat before i go to bed," said robert, settling himself very comfortably before the cheerful fire. "would you object to a cigar, mrs. marks? i mean, of course, to my smoking one," he added, explanatorily. "not at all, sir." "it would be a good 'un her objectin' to a bit o' 'bacca," growled mr. marks, "when me and the customers smokes all day." robert lighted his cigar with a gilt-paper match of phoebe's making that adorned the chimney-piece, and took half a dozen reflective puffs before he spoke. "i want you to tell me all about mount stanning, mr. marks," he said, presently. "then that's pretty soon told," replied luke, with a harsh, grating laugh. "of all the dull holes as ever a man set foot in, this is about the dullest. not that the business don't pay pretty tidy; i don't complain of that; but i should ha' liked a public at chelmsford, or brentwood, or romford, or some place where there's a bit of life in the streets; and i might have had it," he added, discontentedly, "if folks hadn't been so precious stingy." as her husband muttered this complaint in a grumbling undertone, phoebe looked up from her work and spoke to him. "we forgot the brew-house door, luke," she said. "will you come with me and help me put up the bar?" "the brew-house door can bide for to-night," said mr. marks; "i ain't agoin' to move now. i've seated myself for a comfortable smoke." he took a long clay pipe from a corner of the fender as he spoke, and began to fill it deliberately. "i don't feel easy about that brew-house door, luke," remonstrated his wife; "there are always tramps about, and they can get in easily when the bar isn't up." "go and put the bar up yourself, then, can't you?" answered mr. marks. "it's too heavy for me to lift." "then let it bide, if you're too fine a lady to see to it yourself. you're very anxious all of a sudden about this here brew-house door. i suppose you don't want me to open my mouth to this here gent, that's about it. oh, you needn't frown at me to stop my speaking! you're always putting in your tongue and clipping off my words before i've half said 'em; but i won't stand it." "do you hear? i won't stand it!" phoebe marks shrugged her shoulders, folded her work, shut her work-box, and crossing her hands in her lap, sat with her gray eyes fixed upon her husband's bull-like face. "then you don't particularly care to live at mount stanning?" said robert, politely, as if anxious to change the conversation. "no, i don't," answered luke; "and i don't care who knows it; and, as i said before, if folks hadn't been so precious stingy, i might have had a public in a thrivin' market town, instead of this tumble-down old place, where a man has his hair blowed off his head on a windy day. what's fifty pound, or what's a hundred pound�" "luke! luke!" "no, you're not goin' to stop my mouth with all your 'luke, lukes!'" answered mr. marks to his wife's remonstrance. "i say again, what's a hundred pound?" "no," answered robert audley, with wonderful distinctness, and addressing his words to luke marks, but fixing his eyes upon phoebe's anxious face. "what, indeed, is a hundred pounds to a man possessed of the power which you hold, or rather which your wife holds, over the person in question." phoebe's face, at all times almost colorless, seemed scarcely capable of growing paler; but as her eyelids drooped under robert audley's searching glance, a visible change came over the pallid hues of her complexion. "a quarter to twelve," said robert, looking at his watch. "late hours for such a quiet village as mount stanning. good-night, my worthy host. good-night, mrs. marks. you needn't send me my shaving water till nine o'clock to-morrow morning." chapter xviii. robert receives a visitor whom he had scarcely expected. eleven o'clock struck the next morning, and found mr. robert audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table, with one of his dogs at each side of his arm-chair, regarding him with watchful eyes and opened mouths, awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast. robert had a county paper on his knees, and made a feeble effort now and then to read the first page, which was filled with advertisements of farming stock, quack medicines, and other interesting matter. the weather had changed, and the snow, which had for the last few days been looming blackly in the frosty sky, fell in great feathery flakes against the windows, and lay piled in the little bit of garden-ground without. the long, lonely road leading toward audley seemed untrodden by a footstep, as robert audley looked out at the wintry landscape. "lively," he said, "for a man used to the fascinations of temple bar." as he watched the snow-flakes falling every moment thicker and faster upon the lonely road, he was surprised by seeing a brougham driving slowly up the hill. "i wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a spirit to stop at home on such a morning as this," he muttered, as he returned to the arm-chair by the fire. he had only reseated himself a few moments when phoebe marks entered the room to announce lady audley. "lady audley! pray beg her to come in," said robert; and then, as phoebe left the room to usher in this unexpected visitor, he muttered between his teeth�"a false move, my lady, and one i never looked for from you." lucy audley was radiant on this cold and snowy january morning. other people's noses are rudely assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim ice-king, but not my lady's; other people's lips turn pale and blue with the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but my lady's pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest freshness. she was wrapped in the very sables which robert audley had brought from russia, and carried a muff that the young man thought seemed almost as big as herself. she looked a childish, helpless, babyfied little creature; and robert looked down upon her with some touch of pity in his eyes, as she came up to the hearth by which he was standing, and warmed her tiny gloved hands at the blaze. "what a morning, mr. audley!" she said, "what a morning!" "yes, indeed! why did you come out in such weather?" "because i wished to see you�particularly." "indeed!" "yes," said my lady, with an air of considerable embarrassment, playing with the button of her glove, and almost wrenching it off in her restlessness�"yes, mr. audley, i felt that you had not been well treated; that�that you had, in short, reason to complain; and that an apology was due to you." "i do not wish for any apology, lady audley." "but you are entitled to one," answered my lady, quietly. "why, my dear robert, should we be so ceremonious toward each other? you were very comfortable at audley; we were very glad to have you there; but, my dear, silly husband must needs take it into his foolish head that it is dangerous for his poor little wife's peace of mind to have a nephew of eight or nine and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir, and, behold! our pleasant little family circle is broken up." lucy audley spoke with that peculiar childish vivacity which seemed so natural to her, robert looking down almost sadly at her bright, animated face. "lady audley," he said, "heaven forbid that either you or i should ever bring grief or dishonor upon my uncle's generous heart! better, perhaps, that i should be out of the house�better, perhaps, that i had never entered it!" my lady had been looking at the fire while her nephew spoke, but at his last words she lifted her head suddenly, and looked him full in the face with a wondering expression�an earnest, questioning gaze, whose full meaning the young barrister understood. "oh, pray do not be alarmed, lady audley," he said, gravely. "you have no sentimental nonsense, no silly infatuation, borrowed from balzac or dumas fils, to fear from me. the benchers of the inner temple will tell you that robert audley is troubled with none of the epidemics whose outward signs are turn-down collars and byronic neckties. i say that i wish i had never entered my uncle's house during the last year; but i say it with a far more solemn meaning than any sentimental one." my lady shrugged her shoulders. "if you insist on talking in enigmas, mr. audley," she said, "you must forgive a poor little woman if she declines to answer them." robert made no reply to this speech. "but tell me," said my lady, with an entire change of tone, "what could have induced you to come up to this dismal place?" "curiosity." "curiosity?" "yes; i felt an interest in that bull-necked man, with the dark-red hair and wicked gray eyes. a dangerous man, my lady�a man in whose power i should not like to be." a sudden change came over lady audley's face; the pretty, roseate flush faded out from her cheeks, and left them waxen white, and angry flashes lightened in her blue eyes. "what have i done to you, robert audley," she cried, passionately�"what have i done to you that you should hate me so?" he answered her very gravely: "i had a friend, lady audley, whom i loved very dearly, and since i have lost him i fear that my feelings toward other people are strangely embittered." "you mean the mr. talboys who went to australia?" "yes, i mean the mr. talboys who i was told set out for liverpool with the idea of going to australia." "and you do not believe in his having sailed for australia?" "i do not." "but why not?" "forgive me, lady audley, if i decline to answer that question." "as you please," she said, carelessly. "a week after my friend disappeared," continued robert, "i posted an advertisement to the sydney and melbourne papers, calling upon him if he was in either city when the advertisement appeared, to write and tell me of his whereabouts, and also calling on any one who had met him, either in the colonies or on the voyage out, to give me any information respecting him. george talboys left essex, or disappeared from essex, on the th of september last. i ought to receive some answer to this advertisement by the end of this month. to-day is the th; the time draws very near." "and if you receive no answer?" asked lady audley. "if i receive no answer i shall think that my fears have been not unfounded, and i shall do my best to act." "what do you mean by that?" "ah, lady audley, you remind me how very powerless i am in this matter. my friend might have been made away with in this very inn, and i might stay here for a twelvemonth, and go away at the last as ignorant of his fate as if i had never crossed the threshold. what do we know of the mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter? if i were to go to-morrow into that commonplace, plebeian, eight-roomed house in which maria manning and her husband murdered their guest, i should have no awful prescience of that bygone horror. foul deeds have been done under the most hospitable roofs; terrible crimes have been committed amid the fairest scenes, and have left no trace upon the spot where they were done. i do not believe in mandrake, or in bloodstains that no time can efface. i believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime, and breathe none the less freely. i believe that we may look into the smiling face of a murderer, and admire its tranquil beauty." my lady laughed at robert's earnestness. "you seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects," she said, rather scornfully; "you ought to have been a detective police officer." "i sometimes think i should have been a good one." "why?" "because i am patient." "but to return to mr. george talboys, whom we lost sight of in your eloquent discussion. what if you receive no answer to your advertisements?" "i shall then consider myself justified in concluding my friend is dead." "yes, and then�?" "i shall examine the effects he left at my chambers." "indeed! and what are they? coats, waistcoats, varnished boots, and meerschaum pipes, i suppose," said lady audley, laughing. "no; letters�letters from his friends, his old schoolfellows, his father, his brother officers." "yes?" "letters, too, from his wife." my lady was silent for some few moments, looking thoughtfully at the fire. "have you ever seen any of the letters written by the late mrs. talboys?" she asked presently. "never. poor soul! her letters are not likely to throw much light upon my friend's fate. i dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl. there are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as yours, lady audley." "ah, you know my hand, of course." "yes, i know it very well indeed." my lady warmed her hands once more, and then taking up the big muff which she had laid aside upon a chair, prepared to take her departure. "you have refused to accept my apology, mr. audley," she said; "but i trust you are not the less assured of my feelings toward you." "perfectly assured, lady audley." "then good-by, and let me recommend you not to stay long in this miserable draughty place, if you do not wish to take rheumatism back to figtree court." "i shall return to town to-morrow morning to see after my letters." "then once more good-by." she held out her hand; he took it loosely in his own. it seemed such a feeble little hand that he might have crushed it in his strong grasp, had he chosen to be so pitiless. he attended her to her carriage, and watched it as it drove off, not toward audley, but in the direction of brentwood, which was about six miles from mount stanning. about an hour and a half after this, as robert stood at the door of the inn, smoking a cigar and watching the snow falling in the whitened fields opposite, he saw the brougham drive back, empty this time, to the door of the inn. "have you taken lady audley back to the court?" he said to the coachman, who had stopped to call for a mug of hot spiced ale. "no, sir; i've just come from the brentwood station. my lady started for london by the . train." "for town?" "yes, sir." "my lady gone to london!" said robert, as he returned to the little sitting-room. "then i'll follow her by the next train; and if i'm not very much mistaken, i know where to find her." he packed his portmanteau, paid his bill, fastened his dogs together with a couple of leathern collars and a chain, and stepped into the rumbling fly kept by the castle inn for the convenience of mount stanning. he caught an express that left brentwood at three o'clock, and settled himself comfortably in a corner of an empty first-class carriage, coiled up in a couple of railway rugs, and smoking a cigar in mild defiance of the authorities. chapter xix. the writing in the book. it was exactly five minutes past four as mr. robert audley stepped out upon the platform at shoreditch, and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attendant porter who had called his cab, and undertaken the general conduct of his affairs, with that disinterested courtesy which does such infinite credit to a class of servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute of a grateful public. robert audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time; but as the express was generally a long train, and as there were a great many passengers from norfolk carrying guns and pointers, and other paraphernalia of a critical description, it took a long while to make matters agreeable to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way. "perhaps, when that gentleman who is making such a noise about a pointer with liver-colored spots, has discovered the particular pointer and spots that he wants�which happy combination of events scarcely seems likely to arrive�they'll give me my luggage and let me go. the designing wretches knew at a glance that i was born to be imposed upon; and that if they were to trample the life out of me upon this very platform, i should never have the spirit to bring an action against the company." suddenly an idea seemed to strike him, and he left the porter to struggle for the custody of his goods, and walked round to the other side of the station. he heard a bell ring, and looking at the clock, had remembered that the down train for colchester started at this time. he had learned what it was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance of george talboys; and he reached the opposite platform in time to see the passengers take their seats. there was one lady who had evidently only just arrived at the station; for she hurried on to the platform at the very moment that robert approached the train, and almost ran against that gentleman in her haste and excitement. "i beg your pardon," she began, ceremoniously; then raising her eyes from mr. audley's waistcoat, which was about on a level with her pretty face, she exclaimed, "robert, you in london already?" "yes, lady audley; you were quite right; the castle inn is a dismal place, and�" "you got tired of it�i knew you would. please open the carriage door for me: the train will start in two minutes." robert audley was looking at his uncle's wife with rather a puzzled expression of countenance. "what does it mean?" he thought. "she is altogether a different being to the wretched, helpless creature who dropped her mask for a moment, and looked at me with her own pitiful face, in the little room at mount stanning, four hours ago. what has happened to cause the change?" he opened the door for her while he thought this, and helped her to settle herself in her seat, spreading her furs over her knees, and arranging the huge velvet mantle in which her slender little figure was almost hidden. "thank you very much; how good you are to me," she said, as he did this. "you will think me very foolish to travel upon such a day, without my dear darling's knowledge too; but i went up to town to settle a very terrific milliner's bill, which i did not wish my best of husbands to see; for, indulgent as he is, he might think me extravagant; and i cannot bear to suffer even in his thoughts." "heaven forbid that you ever should, lady audley," robert said, gravely. she looked at him for a moment with a smile, which had something defiant in its brightness. "heaven forbid it, indeed," she murmured. "i don't think i ever shall." the second bell rung, and the train moved as she spoke. the last robert audley saw of her was that bright defiant smile. "whatever object brought her to london has been successfully accomplished," he thought. "has she baffled me by some piece of womanly jugglery? am i never to get any nearer to the truth, but am i to be tormented all my life by vague doubts, and wretched suspicions, which may grow upon me till i become a monomaniac? why did she come to london?" he was still mentally asking himself this question as he ascended the stairs in figtree court, with one of his dogs under each arm, and his railway rugs over his shoulder. he found his chambers in their accustomed order. the geraniums had been carefully tended, and the canaries had retired for the night under cover of a square of green baize, testifying to the care of honest mrs. maloney. robert cast a hurried glance round the sitting-room; then setting down the dogs upon the hearth-rug, he walked straight into the little inner chamber which served as his dressing-room. it was in this room that he kept disused portmanteaus, battered japanned cases, and other lumber; and it was in this room that george talboys had left his luggage. robert lifted a portmanteau from the top of a large trunk, and kneeling down before it with a lighted candle in his hand, carefully examined the lock. to all appearance it was exactly in the same condition in which george had left it, when he laid his mourning garments aside and placed them in this shabby repository with all other memorials of his dead wife. robert brushed his coat sleeve across the worn, leather-covered lid, upon which the initials g. t. were inscribed with big brass-headed nails; but mrs. maloney, the laundress, must have been the most precise of housewives, for neither the portmanteau nor the trunk were dusty. mr. audley dispatched a boy to fetch his irish attendant, and paced up and down his sitting-room waiting anxiously for her arrival. she came in about ten minutes, and, after expressing her delight in the return of "the master," humbly awaited his orders. "i only sent for you to ask if anybody has been here; that is to say, if anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms to-day�any lady?" "lady? no, indeed, yer honor; there's been no lady for the kay; barrin' it's the blacksmith." "the blacksmith!" "yes; the blacksmith your honor ordered to come to-day." "i order a blacksmith!" exclaimed robert. "i left a bottle of french brandy in the cupboard," he thought, "and mrs. m. has been evidently enjoying herself." "sure, and the blacksmith your honor tould to see to the locks," replied mrs. maloney. "it's him that lives down in one of the little streets by the bridge," she added, giving a very lucid description of the man's whereabouts. robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair. "if you'll sit down and compose yourself, mrs. m.," he said�he abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labor�"perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other. you say a blacksmith has been here?" "sure and i did, sir." "to-day?" "quite correct, sir." step by step mr. audley elicited the following information. a locksmith had called upon mrs. maloney that afternoon at three o'clock, and had asked for the key of mr. audley's chambers, in order that he might look to the locks of the doors, which he stated were all out of repair. he declared that he was acting upon mr. audley's own orders, conveyed to him by a letter from the country, where the gentleman was spending his christmas. mrs. maloney, believing in the truth of this statement, had admitted the man to the chambers, where he stayed about half an hour. "but you were with him while he examined the locks, i suppose?" mr. audley asked. "sure i was, sir, in and out, as you may say, all the time, for i've been cleaning the stairs this afternoon, and i took the opportunity to begin my scouring while the man was at work." "oh, you were in and out all the time. if you could conveniently give me a plain answer, mrs. m., i should be glad to know what was the longest time that you were out while the locksmith was in my chambers?" but mrs. maloney could not give a plain answer. it might have been ten minutes; though she didn't think it was as much. it might have been a quarter of an hour; but she was sure it wasn't more. it didn't seem to her more than five minutes, but "thim stairs, your honor;" and here she rambled off into a disquisition upon the scouring of stairs in general, and the stairs outside robert's chambers in particular. mr. audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful resignation. "never mind, mrs. m.," he said; "the locksmith had plenty of time to do anything he wanted to do, i dare say, without your being any the wiser." mrs. maloney stared at her employer with mingled surprise and alarm. "sure, there wasn't anything for him to stale, your honor, barrin' the birds and the geran'ums, and�" "no, no, i understand. there, that'll do, mrs. m. tell me where the man lives, and i'll go and see him." "but you'll have a bit of dinner first, sir?" "i'll go and see the locksmith before i have my dinner." he took up his hat as he announced his determination, and walked toward the door. "the man's address, mrs. m?" the irishwoman directed him to a small street at the back of st. bride's church, and thither mr. robert audley quietly strolled, through the miry slush which simple londoners call snow. he found the locksmith, and, at the sacrifice of the crown of his hat, contrived to enter the low, narrow doorway of a little open shop. a jet of gas was flaring in the unglazed window, and there was a very merry party in the little room behind the shop; but no one responded to robert's "hulloa!" the reason of this was sufficiently obvious. the merry party was so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf to all commonplace summonses from the outer world; and it was only when robert, advancing further into the cavernous little shop, made so bold as to open the half-glass door which separated him from the merry-makers, that he succeeded in obtaining their attention. a very jovial picture of the teniers school was presented to mr. robert audley upon the opening of this door. the locksmith, with his wife and family, and two or three droppers-in of the female sex, were clustered about a table, which was adorned by two bottles; not vulgar bottles of that colorless extract of the juniper berry, much affected by the masses; but of bona fide port and sherry�fiercely strong sherry, which left a fiery taste in the mouth, nut-brown sherry�rather unnaturally brown, if anything�and fine old port; no sickly vintage, faded and thin from excessive age: but a rich, full-bodied wine, sweet and substantial and high colored. the locksmith was speaking as robert audley opened the door. "and with that," he said, "she walked off, as graceful as you please." the whole party was thrown into confusion by the appearance of mr. audley, but it was to be observed that the locksmith was more embarrassed than his companions. he set down his glass so hurriedly, that he spilt his wine, and wiped his mouth nervously with the back of his dirty hand. "you called at my chambers to-day," robert said, quietly. "don't let me disturb you, ladies." this to the droppers-in. "you called at my chambers to-day, mr. white, and�" the man interrupted him. "i hope, sir, you will be so good as to look over the mistake," he stammered. "i'm sure, sir, i'm very sorry it should have occurred. i was sent for to another gentleman's chambers, mr. aulwin, in garden court; and the name slipped my memory; and havin' done odd jobs before for you, i thought it must be you as wanted me to-day; and i called at mrs. maloney's for the key accordin'; but directly i see the locks in your chambers, i says to myself, the gentleman's locks ain't out of order; the gentleman don't want all his locks repaired." "but you stayed half an hour." "yes, sir; for there was one lock out of order�the door nighest the staircase�and i took it off and cleaned it and put it on again. i won't charge you nothin' for the job, and i hope as you'll be as good as to look over the mistake as has occurred, which i've been in business thirteen years come july, and�" "nothing of this kind ever happened before, i suppose," said robert, gravely. "no, it's altogether a singular kind of business, not likely to come about every day. you've been enjoying yourself this evening i see, mr. white. you've done a good stroke of work to-day, i'll wager�made a lucky hit, and you're what you call 'standing treat,' eh?" robert audley looked straight into the man's dingy face as he spoke. the locksmith was not a bad-looking fellow, and there was nothing that he need have been ashamed of in his face, except the dirt, and that, as hamlet's mother says, "is common;" but in spite of this, mr. white's eyelids dropped under the young barrister's calm scrutiny, and he stammered out some apologetic sort of speech about his "missus," and his missus' neighbors, and port wine and sherry wine, with as much confusion as if he, an honest mechanic in a free country, were called upon to excuse himself to robert audley for being caught in the act of enjoying himself in his own parlor. robert cut him short with a careless nod. "pray don't apologize," he said; "i like to see people enjoy themselves. good-night, mr. white good-night, ladies." he lifted his hat to "the missus," and the missus' neighbors, who were much fascinated by his easy manner and his handsome face, and left the shop. "and so," he muttered to himself as he went back to his chambers, "'with that she walked off as graceful as you please.'who was it that walked off; and what was the story which the locksmith was telling when i interrupted him at that sentence? oh, george talboys, george talboys, am i ever to come any nearer to the secret of your fate? am i coming nearer to it now, slowly but surely? is the radius to grow narrower day by day until it draws a dark circle around the home of those i love? how is it all to end?" he sighed wearily as he walked slowly back across the flagged quadrangles in the temple to his own solitary chambers. mrs. maloney had prepared for him that bachelor's dinner, which, however excellent and nutritious in itself, has no claim to the special charm of novelty. she had cooked for him a mutton-chop, which was soddening itself between two plates upon the little table near the fire. robert audley sighed as he sat down to the familiar meal, remembering his uncle's cook with a fond, regretful sorrow. "her cutlets a la maintenon made mutton seem more than mutton; a sublimated meat that could scarcely have grown upon any mundane sheep," he murmured sentimentally, "and mrs. maloney's chops are apt to be tough; but such is life�what does it matter?" he pushed away his plate impatiently after eating a few mouthfuls. "i have never eaten a good dinner at this table since i lost george talboys," he said. "the place seems as gloomy as if the poor fellow had died in the next room, and had never been taken away to be buried. how long ago that september afternoon appears as i look back at it�that september afternoon upon which i parted with him alive and well; and lost him as suddenly and unaccountably as if a trap-door had opened in the solid earth and let him through to the antipodes!" mr. audley rose from the dinner-table and walked over to the cabinet in which he kept the document he had drawn up relating to george talboys. he unlocked the doors of his cabinet, took the paper from the pigeon-hole marked important, and seated himself at his desk to write. he added several paragraphs to those in the document, numbering the fresh paragraphs as carefully as he had numbered the old ones. "heaven help us all," he muttered once; "is this paper with which no attorney has had any hand to be my first brief?" he wrote for about half an hour, then replaced the document in the pigeon-hole, and locked the cabinet. when he had done this, he took a candle in his hand, and went into the room in which were his own portmanteaus and the trunk belonging to george talboys. he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and tried them one by one. the lock of the shabby old trunk was a common one, and at the fifth trial the key turned easily. "there'd be no need for any one to break open such a lock as this," muttered robert, as he lifted the lid of the trunk. he slowly emptied it of its contents, taking out each article separately, and laying it carefully upon a chair by his side. he handled the things with a respectful tenderness, as if he had been lifting the dead body of his lost friend. one by one he laid the neatly folded mourning garments on the chair. he found old meerschaum pipes, and soiled, crumpled gloves that had once been fresh from the parisian maker; old play-bills, whose biggest letters spelled the names of actors who were dead and gone; old perfume-bottles, fragrant with essences, whose fashion had passed away; neat little parcels of letters, each carefully labeled with the name of the writer; fragments of old newspapers; and a little heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in robert's incautious hand. but among all the mass of worthless litter, each scrap of which had once had its separate purpose, robert audley looked in vain for that which he sought�the packet of letters written to the missing man by his dead wife helen talboys. he had heard george allude more than once to the existence of these letters. he had seen him once sorting the faded papers with a reverent hand; and he had seen him replace them, carefully tied together with a faded ribbon which had once been helen's, among the mourning garments in the trunk. whether he had afterward removed them, or whether they had been removed since his disappearance by some other hand, it was not easy to say; but they were gone. robert audley sighed wearily as he replaced the things in the empty box, one by one, as he had taken them out. he stopped with the little heap of tattered books in his hand, and hesitated for a moment. "i will keep these out," he muttered, "there may be something to help me in one of them." george's library was no very brilliant collection of literature. there was an old greek testament and the eton latin grammar; a french pamphlet on the cavalry sword-exercise; an odd volume of tom jones with one half of its stiff leather cover hanging to it by a thread; byron's don juan, printed in a murderous type, which must have been invented for the special advantage of oculists and opticians; and a fat book in a faded gilt and crimson cover. robert audley locked the trunk and took the books under his arm. mrs. maloney was clearing away the remains of his repast when he returned to the sitting-room. he put the books aside on a little table in a corner of the fire-place, and waited patiently while the laundress finished her work. he was in no humor even for his meerschaum consoler; the yellow-papered fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale and profitless�he opened a volume of balzac, but his uncle's wife's golden curls danced and trembled in a glittering haze, alike upon the metaphysical diablerie of the peau de chagrin, and the hideous social horrors of "cousine bette." the volume dropped from his hand, and he sat wearily watching mrs. maloney as she swept up the ashes on the hearth, replenished the fire, drew the dark damask curtains, supplied the simple wants of the canaries, and put on her bonnet in the disused clerk's office, prior to bidding her employer good-night. as the door closed upon the irishwoman, he arose impatiently from his chair, and paced up and down the room. "why do i go on with this," he said, "when i know that it is leading me, step by step, day by day, hour by hour, nearer to that conclusion which, of all others, i should avoid? am i tied to a wheel, and must i go with its every revolution, let it take me where it will? or can i sit down here to-night and say i have done my duty to my missing friend, i have searched for him patiently, but i have searched in vain? should i be justified in doing this? should i be justified in letting the chain which i have slowly put together, link by link, drop at this point, or must i go on adding fresh links to that fatal chain until the last rivet drops into its place and the circle is complete? i think, and i believe, that i shall never see my friend's face again; and that no exertion of mine can ever be of any benefit to him. in plainer, crueler words i believe him to be dead. am i bound to discover how and where he died? or being, as i think, on the road to that discovery, shall i do a wrong to the memory of george talboys by turning back or stopping still? what am i to do?�what am i to do?" he rested his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. the one purpose which had slowly grown up in his careless nature until it had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature, made him what he had never been before�a christian; conscious of his own weakness; anxious to keep to the strict line of duty; fearful to swerve from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point the way which he was to go. perhaps he uttered his first earnest prayer that night, seated by his lonely fireside, thinking of george talboys. when he raised his head from that long and silent revery, his eyes had a bright, determined glance, and every feature in his face seemed to wear a new expression. "justice to the dead first," he said; "mercy to the living afterward." he wheeled his easy-chair to the table, trimmed the lamp, and settled himself to the examination of the books. he took them up, one by one, and looked carefully through them, first looking at the page on which the name of the owner is ordinarily written, and then searching for any scrap of paper which might have been left within the leaves. on the first page of the eton latin grammar the name of master talboys was written in a prim, scholastic hand; the french pamphlet had a careless g.t. scrawled on the cover in pencil, in george's big, slovenly calligraphy: the tom jones had evidently been bought at a book-stall, and bore an inscription, dated march th, , setting forth that the book was a tribute of respect to mr. thos. scrowton, from his obedient servant, james anderley; the don juan and the testament were blank. robert audley breathed more freely; he had arrived at the last but one of the books without any result whatever, and there only remained the fat gilt-and-crimson-bound volume to be examined before his task was finished. it was an annual of the year . the copper-plate engravings of lovely ladies, who had flourished in that day, were yellow and spotted with mildew; the costumes grotesque and outlandish; the simpering beauties faded and commonplace. even the little clusters of verses (in which the poet's feeble candle shed its sickly light upon the obscurities of the artist's meaning) had an old-fashioned twang; like music on a lyre, whose strings are slackened by the damps of time. robert audley did not stop to read any of the mild productions. he ran rapidly through the leaves, looking for any scrap of writing or fragment of a letter which might have been used to mark a place. he found nothing but a bright ring of golden hair, of that glittering hue which is so rarely seen except upon the head of a child�a sunny lock, which curled as naturally as the tendril of a vine; and was very opposite in texture, if not different in hue, to the soft, smooth tresses which the landlady at ventnor had given to george talboys after his wife's death. robert audley suspended his examination of the book, and folded this yellow lock in a sheet of letter paper, which he sealed with his signet-ring, and laid aside, with the memorandum about george talboys and alicia's letter, in the pigeon-hole marked important. he was going to replace the fat annual among the other books, when he discovered that the two blank leaves at the beginning were stuck together. he was so determined to prosecute his search to the very uttermost, that he took the trouble to part these leaves with the sharp end of his paper-knife, and he was rewarded for his perseverance by finding an inscription upon one of them. this inscription was in three parts, and in three different hands. the first paragraph was dated as far back as the year in which the annual had been published, and set forth that the book was the property of a certain miss elizabeth ann bince, who had obtained the precious volume as a reward for habits of order, and for obedience to the authorities of camford house seminary, torquay. the second paragraph was dated five years later, and was in the handwriting of miss bince herself, who presented the book, as a mark of undying affection and unfading esteem (miss bince was evidently of a romantic temperament) to her beloved friend, helen maldon. the third paragraph was dated september, , and was in the hand of helen maldon, who gave the annual to george talboys; and it was at the sight of this third paragraph that mr. robert audley's face changed from its natural hue to a sickly, leaden pallor. "i thought it would be so," said the young man, shutting the book with a weary sigh. "god knows i was prepared for the worst, and the worst has come. i can understand all now. my next visit must be to southampton. i must place the boy in better hands." chapter xx. mrs. plowson. among the packet of letters which robert audley had found in george's trunk, there was one labeled with the name of the missing man's father�the father, who had never been too indulgent a friend to his younger son, and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse afforded by george's imprudent marriage to abandon the young man to his own resources. robert audley had never seen mr. harcourt talboys; but george's careless talk of his father had given his friend some notion of that gentleman's character. he had written to mr. talboys immediately after the disappearance of george, carefully wording his letter, which vaguely hinted at the writer's fear of some foul play in the mysterious business; and, after the lapse of several weeks, he had received a formal epistle, in which mr. harcourt talboys expressly declared that he had washed his hands of all responsibility in his son george's affairs upon the young man's wedding-day; and that his absurd disappearance was only in character with his preposterous marriage. the writer of this fatherly letter added in a postscript that if george talboys had any low design of alarming his friends by this pretended disappearance, and thereby playing on their feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage, he was most egregiously deceived in the character of those persons with whom he had to deal. robert audley had answered this letter by a few indignant lines, informing mr. talboys that his son was scarcely likely to hide himself for the furtherance of any deep-laid design on the pockets of his relatives, as he had left twenty thousand pounds in his bankers' hands at the time of his disappearance. after dispatching this letter, robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural course of things, should have been most interested in george's fate; but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly indifferent mr. harcourt talboys. "i will run into dorsetshire after i leave southampton," he said, "and see this man. if he is content to let his son's fate rest a dark and cruel mystery to all who knew him�if he is content to go down to his grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellow's end�why should i try to unravel the tangled skein, to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle, and gather together the stray fragments which, when collected, may make such a hideous whole? i will go to him and lay my darkest doubts freely before him. it will be for him to say what i am to do." robert audley started by an early express for southampton. the snow lay thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went; and the young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods, rather than a living member of a learned profession. he looked gloomily out of the misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly indian officer, who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape, which had a certain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow. he wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug, with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter's day. "who would have thought that i could have grown so fond of the fellow," he muttered, "or feel so lonely without him? i've a comfortable little fortune in the three per cents.; i'm heir presumptive to my uncle's title; and i know of a certain dear little girl who, as i think, would do her best to make me happy; but i declare that i would freely give up all, and stand penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could be satisfactorily cleared away, and george talboys could stand by my side." he reached southampton between eleven and twelve o'clock, and walked across the platform, with the snow drifting in his face, toward the pier and the lower end of the town. the clock of st. michael's church was striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that edifice stands, and groped his way through the narrow streets leading down to the water. mr. maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some miserable fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous town. brigsome's terrace was, perhaps, one of the most dismal blocks of building that was ever composed of brick and mortar since the first mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan. the builder who had speculated in the ten dreary eight-roomed prison-houses had hung himself behind the parlor door of an adjacent tavern while the carcases were yet unfinished. the man who had bought the brick and mortar skeletons had gone through the bankruptcy court while the paper-hangers were still busy in brigsome's terrace, and had whitewashed his ceilings and himself simultaneously. ill luck and insolvency clung to the wretched habitations. the bailiff and the broker's man were as well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played upon the waste ground in front of the parlor windows. solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night. insolvent tenants openly defied the collector of the water-rate from their ten-roomed strongholds, and existed for weeks without any visible means of procuring that necessary fluid. robert audley looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the waterside into this poverty-stricken locality. a child's funeral was leaving one of the houses as he approached, and he thought with a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held george's son, he would have been in some measure responsible for the boy's death. "the poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel," he thought, as he knocked at the door of mr. maldon's house. "he is the legacy of my best friend, and it shall be my business to secure his safety." a slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked at mr. audley rather suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he pleased to want. the door of the little sitting room was ajar, and robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish voice of little george prattling gayly. he told the servant that he had come from london, that he wanted to see master talboys, and that he would announce himself; and walking past her, without further ceremony he opened the door of the parlor. the girl stared at him aghast as he did this; and as if struck by some sudden and terrible conviction, threw her apron over her head and ran out into the snow. she darted across the waste ground, plunged into a narrow alley, and never drew breath till she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the coach and horses, and much affected by mr. maldon. the lieutenant's faithful retainer had taken robert audley for some new and determined collector of poor's rates�rejecting that gentleman's account of himself as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial defaulters�and had hurried off to give her master timely warning of the enemy's approach. when robert entered the sitting-room he was surprised to find little george seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honors of a shabby repast, spread upon a dirty table-cloth, and flanked by a pewter beer measure. the woman rose as robert entered, and courtesied very humbly to the young barrister. she looked about fifty years of age, and was dressed in rusty widow's weeds. her complexion was insipidly fair, and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless, flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes. she had been a rustic beauty, perhaps, in her time, but her features, although tolerably regular in their shape, had a mean, pinched look, as if they had been made too small for her face. this defect was peculiarly noticeable in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the set of teeth it contained. she smiled as she courtesied to mr. robert audley, and her smile, which laid bare the greater part of this set of square, hungry-looking teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal appearance. "mr. maldon is not at home, sir," she said, with insinuating civility; "but if it's for the water-rate, he requested me to say that�" she was interrupted by little george talboys, who scrambled down from the high chair upon which he had been perched, and ran to robert audley. "i know you," he said; "you came to ventnor with the big gentleman, and you came here once, and you gave me some money, and i gave it to gran'pa to take care of, and gran'pa kept it, and he always does." robert audley took the boy in his arms, and carried him to a little table in the window. "stand there, georgey," he said, "i want to have a good look at you." he turned the boy's face to the light, and pushed the brown curls off his forehead with both hands. "you are growing more like your father every day, georgey; and you're growing quite a man, too," he said; "would you like to go to school?" "oh, yes, please, i should like it very much," the boy answered, eagerly. "i went to school at miss pevins' once�day-school, you know�round the corner in the next street; but i caught the measles, and gran'pa wouldn't let me go any more, for fear i should catch the measles again; and gran'pa won't let me play with the little boys in the street, because they're rude boys; he said blackguard boys; but he said i mustn't say blackguard boys, because it's naughty. he says damn and devil, but he says he may because he's old. i shall say damn and devil when i'm old; and i should like to go to school, please, and i can go to-day, if you like; mrs. plowson will get my frocks ready, won't you, mrs. plowson?" "certainly, master georgey, if your grandpapa wishes it," the woman answered, looking rather uneasily at mr. robert audley. "what on earth is the matter with this woman," thought robert as he turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself slowly toward the table upon which little george talboys stood talking to his guardian. "does she still take me for a tax-collector with inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels; or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still. that's scarcely likely, though; for whatever secrets lieutenant maldon may have, it's not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them." mrs. plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time, and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy, when robert turned sharply round. "what are you going to do with the child?" he said. "i was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face, sir, and smooth his hair," answered the woman, in the most insinuating tone in which she had spoken of the water-rate. "you don't see him to any advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty. i won't be five minutes making him as neat as a new pin." she had her long, thin arms about the boy as she spoke, and she was evidently going to carry him off bodily, when robert stopped her. "i'd rather see him as he is, thank you," he said. "my time in southampton isn't very long, and i want to hear all that the little man can tell me." the little man crept closer to robert, and looked confidingly into the barrister's gray eyes. "i like you very much," he said. "i was frightened of you when you came before, because i was shy. i am not shy now�i am nearly six years old." robert patted the boy's head encouragingly, but he was not looking at little george; he was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground. "you're rather fidgety about some one, ma'am, i'm afraid," said robert. she colored violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered him in a confused manner. "i was looking for mr. maldon, sir," she said; "he'll be so disappointed if he doesn't see you." "you know who i am, then?" "no, sir, but�" the boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his bosom and showing it to robert. "this is the watch the pretty lady gave me," he said. "i've got it now�but i haven't had it long, because the jeweler who cleans it is an idle man, gran'pa says, and always keeps it such a long time; and gran'pa says it will have to be cleaned again, because of the taxes. he always takes it to be cleaned when there's taxes�but he says if he were to lose it the pretty lady would give me another. do you know the pretty lady?" "no, georgey, but tell me about her." mrs. plowson made another descent upon the boy. she was armed with a pocket-handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the state of little george's nose, but robert warded off the dreaded weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor. "the boy will do very well, ma'am," he said, "if you'll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes. now, georgey, suppose you sit on my knee, and tell me all about the pretty lady." the child clambered from the table onto mr. audley's knees, assisting his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian's coat-collar. "i'll tell you all about the pretty lady," he said, "because i like you very much. gran'pa told me not to tell anybody, but i'll tell you, you know, because i like you, and because you're going to take me to school. the pretty lady came here one night�long ago�oh, so long ago," said the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time. "she came when i was not nearly so big as i am now�and she came at night�after i'd gone to bed, and she came up into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried�and she left the watch under my pillow, and she�why do you make faces at me, mrs. plowson? i may tell this gentleman," georgey added, suddenly addressing the widow, who was standing behind robert's shoulder. mrs. plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid master george was troublesome. "suppose you wait till i say so, ma'am, before you stop the little fellow's mouth," said robert audley, sharply. "a suspicious person might think from your manner that mr. maldon and you had some conspiracy between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy's talk may let slip." he rose from his chair, and looked full at mrs. plowson as he said this. the fair-haired widow's face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet them with her tongue before the words would come. the little boy relieved her embarrassment. "don't be cross to mrs. plowson," he said. "mrs. plowson is very kind to me. mrs. plowson is matilda's mother. you don't know matilda. poor matilda was always crying; she was ill, she�" the boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of mr. maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at robert audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer. the servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master. early in the day though it was, the old man's speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to mrs. plowson. "you're a prett' creature to call yoursel' sensible woman?" he said. "why don't you take th' chile 'way, er wash 's face? d'yer want to ruin me? d'yer want to 'stroy me? take th' chile 'way! mr. audley, sir, i'm ver' glad to see yer; ver' 'appy to 'ceive yer in m' humbl' 'bode," the old man added with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor. "whatever this man's secrets are," thought robert, as mrs. plowson hustled little george talboys out of the room, "that woman has no unimportant share of them. whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker and thicker at every step; but i try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friend's unknown grave." chapter xxi. little georgey leaves his old home. "i am going to take your grandson away with me, mr. maldon," robert said gravely, as mrs. plowson retired with her young charge. the old man's drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy mists of a london fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear. the very uncertain radiance of lieutenant maldon's intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rum-and-water; but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point. "yes, yes," he said, feebly; "take the boy away from his poor old grandfather; i always thought so." "you always thought that i should take him away?" scrutinizing the half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. "why did you think so, mr. maldon?" the fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely: "thought so�'cause i thought so." meeting the young barrister's impatient frown, he made another effort, and the light glimmered again. "because i thought you or his father would fetch 'm away." "when i was last in this house, mr. maldon, you told me that george talboys had sailed for australia." "yes, yes�i know, i know," the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands�"i know; but he might have come back�mightn't he? he was restless, and�and�queer in his mind, perhaps, sometimes. he might have come back." he repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones; groping about on the littered mantle-piece for a dirty-looking clay pipe, and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently. robert audley watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness. then walking once or twice up and down the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consoler. presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face. "mr. maldon," he said, slowly watching the effect of every syllable as he spoke, "george talboys never sailed for australia�that i know. more than this, he never came to southampton; and the lie you told me on the th of last september was dictated to you by the telegraphic message which you received on that day." the dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; he sat trembling in every limb, and looking, heaven knows how piteously, at robert audley. "the lie was dictated to you, and you repeated your lesson. but you no more saw george talboys here on the th of september than i see him in this room now. you thought you had burnt the telegraphic message, but you had only burnt a part of it�the remainder is in my possession." lieutenant maldon was quite sober now. "what have i done?" he murmured, hopelessly. "oh, my god! what have i done?" "at two o'clock on the th of september last," continued the pitiless, accusing voice, "george talboys was seen alive and well at a house in essex." robert paused to see the effect of these words. they had produced no change in the old man. he still sat trembling from head to foot, and staring with the fixed and solid gaze of some helpless wretch whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror. "at two o'clock on that day," remarked robert audley, "my poor friend was seen alive and well at ��, at the house of which i speak. from that hour to this i have never been able to hear that he has been seen by any living creature. i have taken such steps as must have resulted in procuring the information of his whereabouts, were he alive. i have done this patiently and carefully�at first, even hopefully. now i know that he is dead." robert audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation in the old man's manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible anguish, the ghastly terror, which convulsed mr. maldon's haggard face as he uttered the last word. "no, no, no, no," reiterated the lieutenant, in a shrill, half-screaming voice; "no, no! for god's sake, don't say that! don't think it�don't let me think it�don't let me dream of it! not dead�anything but dead! hidden away, perhaps�bribed to keep out of the way, perhaps; but not dead�not dead�not dead!" he cried these words aloud, like one beside himself, beating his hands upon his gray head, and rocking backward and forward in his chair. his feeble hands trembled no longer�they were strengthened by some convulsive force that gave them a new power. "i believe," said robert, in the same solemn, relentless voice, "that my friend left essex; and i believe he died on the th of september last." the wretched old man, still beating his hands among his thin gray hair, slid from his chair to the ground, and groveled at robert's feet. "oh! no, no�for god's, no!" he shrieked hoarsely. "no! you don't know what you say�you don't know what your words mean!" "i know their weight and value only too well�as well as i see you do, mr. maldon. god help us!" "oh, what am i doing? what am i doing?" muttered the old man, feebly; then raising himself from the ground with an effort, he drew himself to his full height, and said, in a manner which was new to him, and which was not without a certain dignity of his own�that dignity which must be always attached to unutterable misery, in whatever form it may appear�he said, gravely: "you have no right to come here and terrify a man who has been drinking, and who is not quite himself. you have no right to do it, mr. audley. even the�the officer, sir, who�who�." he did not stammer, but his lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their motion. "the officer, i repeat, sir, who arrests a�thief, or a�." he stopped to wipe his lips, and to still them if he could by doing so, which he could not. "a thief or a murderer�" his voice died suddenly away upon the last word, and it was only by the motion of those trembling lips that robert knew what he meant. "gives him warning, sir, fair warning, that he may say nothing which shall commit himself�or�or�other people. the�the�law, sir, has that amount of mercy for a�a�suspected criminal. but you, sir,�you come to my house, and you come at a time when�when�contrary to my usual habits�which, as people will tell you, are sober�you take the opportunity to�terrify me�and it is not right, sir�it is�" whatever he would have said died away into inarticulate gasps, which seemed to choke him, and sinking into a chair, he dropped his face upon the table, and wept aloud. perhaps in all the dismal scenes of domestic misery which had been acted in those spare and dreary houses�in all the petty miseries, the burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter disgraces which own poverty for their father�there had never been such a scene as this. an old man hiding his face from the light of day, and sobbing aloud in his wretchedness. robert audley contemplated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying face. "if i had known this," he thought, "i might have spared him. it would have been better, perhaps, to have spared him." the shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure of the old man, with his gray head upon the soiled tablecloth, amid the muddled débris of a wretched dinner, grew blurred before the sight of robert audley as he thought of another man, as old as this one, but, ah! how widely different in every other quality! who might come by and by to feel the same, or even a worse anguish, and to shed, perhaps, yet bitterer tears. the moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and dimmed the piteous scene before him, was long enough to take him back to essex, and to show him the image of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame. "why do i go on with this?" he thought; "how pitiless i am, and how relentlessly i am carried on. it is not myself; it is the hand which is beckoning me further and further upon the dark road, whose end i dare not dream of." he thought this, and a hundred times more than this, while the old man sat with his face still hidden, wrestling with his anguish, but without power to keep it down. "mr. maldon," robert audley said, after a pause, "i do not ask you to forgive me for what i have brought upon you, for the feeling is strong within me that it must have come to you sooner or later�if not through me, through some one else. there are�" he stopped for a moment hesitating. the sobbing did not cease; it was sometimes low, sometimes loud, bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an instant, but never ceasing. "there are some things which, as people say, cannot be hidden. i think there is truth in that common saying which had its origin in that old worldly wisdom which people gathered from experience and not from books. if�if i were content to let my friend rest in his hidden grave, it is but likely that some stranger who had never heard the name of george talboys, might fall by the remotest accident upon the secret of his death. to-morrow, perhaps; or ten years hence, or in another generation, when the�the hand that wronged him is as cold as his own. if i could let the matter rest; if�if i could leave england forever, and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across another clew to the secret, i would do it�i would gladly, thankfully do it�but i cannot! a hand which is stronger than my own beckons me on. i wish to take no base advantage of you, less than of all other people; but i must go on; i must go on. if there is any warning you would give to any one, give it. if the secret toward which i am traveling day by day, hour by hour, involves any one in whom you have an interest, let that person fly before i come to the end. let them leave this country; let them leave all who know them�all whose peace their wickedness has endangered; let them go away�they shall not be pursued. but if they slight your warning�if they try to hold their present position in defiance of what it will be in your power to tell them�let them beware of me, for, when the hour comes, i swear that i will not spare them." the old man looked up for the first time, and wiped his wrinkled face upon a ragged silk handkerchief. "i declare to you that i do not understand you," he said. "i solemnly declare to you that i cannot understand; and i do not believe that george talboys is dead." "i would give ten years of my own life if i could see him alive," answered robert, sadly. "i am sorry for you, mr. maldon�i am sorry for all of us." "i do not believe that my son-in-law is dead," said the lieutenant; "i do not believe that the poor lad is dead." he endeavored in a feeble manner to show to robert audley that his wild outburst of anguish had been caused by his grief for the loss of george; but the pretense was miserably shallow. mrs. plowson re-entered the room, leading little georgey, whose face shone with that brilliant polish which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the human countenance. "dear heart alive!" exclaimed mrs. plowson, "what has the poor old gentleman been taking on about? we could hear him in the passage, sobbin' awful." little george crept up to his grandfather, and smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy hand. "don't cry, gran'pa," he said, "don't cry. you shall have my watch to be cleaned, and the kind jeweler shall lend you the money to pay the taxman while he cleans the watch�i don't mind, gran'pa. let's go to the jeweler, the jeweler in high street, you know, with golden balls painted upon his door, to show that he comes from lombar�lombardshire," said the boy, making a dash at the name. "come, gran'pa." the little fellow took the jeweled toy from his bosom and made for the door, proud of being possessed of a talisman, which he had seen so often made useful. "there are wolves at southampton," he said, with rather a triumphant nod to robert audley. "my gran'pa says when he takes my watch that he does it to keep the wolf from the door. are there wolves where you live?" the young barrister did not answer the child's question, but stopped him as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door. "your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day, georgey," he said, gravely. "why is he sorry, then?" asked georgey, naively; "when he wants the watch he is always sorry, and beats his poor forehead so"�the boy stopped to pantomime with his small fists�"and says that she�the pretty lady, i think he means�uses him very hard, and that he can't keep the wolf from the door; and then i say, 'gran'pa, have the watch;' and then he takes me in his arms, and says, 'oh, my blessed angel! how can i rob my blessed angel?' and then he cries, but not like to-day�not loud, you know; only tears running down his poor cheeks, not so that you could hear him in the passage." painful as the child's prattle was to robert audley, it seemed a relief to the old man. he did not hear the boy's talk, but walked two or three times up and down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair and suffered his cravat to be arranged by mrs. plowson, who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his agitation. "poor dear old gentleman," she said, looking at robert. "what has happened to upset him so?" "his son-in-law is dead," answered mr. audley, fixing his eyes upon mrs. plowson's sympathetic face. "he died, within a year and a half after the death of helen talboys, who lies buried in ventnor churchyard." the face into which he was looking changed very slightly, but the eyes that had been looking at him shifted away as he spoke, and mrs. plowson was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue before she answered him. "poor mr. talboys dead!" she said; "that is bad news indeed, sir." little george looked wistfully up at his guardian's face as this was said. "who's dead?" he said. "george talboys is my name. who's dead?" "another person whose name is talboys, georgey." "poor person! will he go to the pit-hole?" the boy had that notion of death which is generally imparted to children by their wise elders, and which always leads the infant mind to the open grave and rarely carries it any higher. "i should like to see him put in the pit-hole," georgey remarked, after a pause. he had attended several infant funerals in the neighborhood, and was considered valuable as a mourner on account of his interesting appearance. he had come, therefore, to look upon the ceremony of interment as a solemn festivity; in which cake and wine, and a carriage drive were the leading features. "you have no objection to my taking georgey away with me, mr. maldon?" asked robert audley. the old man's agitation had very much subsided by this time. he had found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the looking-glass, and was trying to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper. "you do not object, mr. maldon?" "no, sir�no, sir; you are his guardian, and you have a right to take him where you please. he has been a very great comfort to me in my lonely old age, but i have been prepared to lose him. i�i may not have always done my duty to him, sir, in�in the way of schooling, and�and boots. the number of boots which boys of his age wear out, sir, is not easily realized by the mind of a young man like yourself; he has been kept away from school, perhaps, sometimes, and occasionally worn shabby boots when our funds have got low; but he has not been unkindly treated. no, sir; if you were to question him for a week, i don't think you'd hear that his poor old grandfather ever said a harsh word to him." upon this, georgie, perceiving the distress of his old protector, set up a terrible howl, and declared that he would never leave him. "mr. maldon," said robert audley, with a tone which was half-mournful, half-compassionate, "when i looked at my position last night, i did not believe that i could ever come to think it more painful than i thought it then. i can only say�god have mercy upon us all. i feel it my duty to take the child away, but i shall take him straight from your house to the best school in southampton; and i give you my honor that i will extort nothing from his innocent simplicity which can in any manner�i mean," he said, breaking off abruptly, "i mean this. i will not seek to come one step nearer the secret through him. i�i am not a detective officer, and i do not think the most accomplished detective would like to get his information from a child." the old man did not answer; he sat with his face shaded by his hand, and with his extinguished pipe between the listless fingers of the other. "take the boy away, mrs. plowson," he said, after a pause; "take him away and put his things on. he is going with mr. audley." "which i do say that it's not kind of the gentleman to take his poor grandpa's pet away," mrs. plowson exclaimed, suddenly, with respectful indignation. "hush, mrs. plowson," the old man answered, piteously; "mr. audley is the best judge. i�i haven't many years to live; i sha'n't trouble anybody long." the tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers with which he shaded his blood-shot eyes, as he said this. "god knows, i never injured your friend, sir," he said, by-and-by, when mrs. plowson and georgey had returned, "nor even wished him any ill. he was a good son-in-law to me�better than many a son. i never did him any wilful wrong, sir. i�i spent his money, perhaps, but i am sorry for it�i am very sorry for it now. but i don't believe he is dead�no, sir; no, i don't believe it!" exclaimed the old man, dropping his hand from his eyes, and looking with new energy at robert audley. "i�i don't believe it, sir! how�how should he be dead?" robert did not answer this eager questioning. he shook his head mournfully, and, walking to the little window, looked out across a row of straggling geraniums at the dreary patch of waste ground on which the children were at play. mrs. plowson returned with little georgey muffled in a coat and comforter, and robert took the boy's hand. the little fellow sprung toward the old man, and clinging about him, kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks. "don't be sorry for me, gran'pa," he said; "i am going to school to learn to be a clever man, and i shall come home to see you and mrs. plowson, sha'n't i?" he added, turning to robert. "yes, my dear, by-and-by." "take him away, sir�take him away," cried mr. maldon; "you are breaking my heart." the little fellow trotted away contentedly at robert's side. he was very well pleased at the idea of going to school, though he had been happy enough with his drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done his best to spoil georgey, by letting him have his own way in everything; in consequence of which indulgence, master talboys had acquired a taste for late hours, hot suppers of the most indigestible nature, and sips of rum-and-water from his grandfather's glass. he communicated his sentiments upon many subjects to robert audley, as they walked to the dolphin hotel; but the barrister did not encourage him to talk. it was no very difficult matter to find a good school in such a place as southampton. robert audley was directed to a pretty house between the bar and the avenue, and leaving georgey to the care of a good-natured waiter, who seemed to have nothing to do but to look out of the window, and whisk invisible dust off the brightly polished tables, the barrister walked up the high street toward mr. marchmont's academy for young gentlemen. he found mr. marchmont a very sensible man, and he met a file of orderly-looking young gentlemen walking townward under the escort of a couple of ushers as he entered the house. he told the schoolmaster that little george talboys had been left in his charge by a dear friend, who had sailed for australia some months before, and whom he believed to be dead. he confided him to mr. marchmont's especial care, and he further requested that no visitors should be admitted to see the boy unless accredited by a letter from himself. having arranged the matter in a very few business-like words, he returned to the hotel to fetch georgey. he found the little man on intimate terms with the idle waiter, who had been directing master georgey's attention to the different objects of interest in the high street. poor robert had about as much notion of the requirements of a child as he had of those of a white elephant. he had catered for silkworms, guinea-pigs, dormice, canary-birds, and dogs, without number, during his boyhood, but he had never been called upon to provide for a young person of five years old. he looked back five-and-twenty years, and tried to remember his own diet at the age of five. "i've a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and boiled mutton," he thought; "and i've another vague recollection of not liking them. i wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled mutton." he stood pulling his thick mustache and staring thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he could get any further. "i dare say you're hungry, georgey?" he said, at last. the boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth. "perhaps you'd like some lunch?" mr. audley suggested, still pulling his mustache. the boy burst out laughing. "lunch!" he cried. "why, it's afternoon, and i've had my dinner." robert audley felt himself brought to a standstill. what refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three o'clock? "you shall have some bread and milk, georgey," he said, presently. "waiter, bread and milk, and a pint of hock." master talboys made a wry face. "i never have bread and milk," he said, "i don't like it. i like what gran'pa calls something savory. i should like a veal cutlet. gran'pa told me he dined here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, gran'pa said. please may i have a veal cutlet, with egg and bread-crumb, you know, and lemon-juice you know?" he added to the waiter: "gran'pa knows the cook here. the cook's such a nice gentleman, and once gave me a shilling, when gran'pa brought me here. the cook wears better clothes than gran'pa�better than yours, even," said master georgey, pointing to robert's rough great-coat with a depreciating nod. robert audley stared aghast. how was he to deal with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread and milk and asked for veal cutlets? "i'll tell you what i'll do with you, little georgey," he exclaimed, after a pause�"i'll give you a dinner!" the waiter nodded briskly. "upon my word, sir," he said, approvingly, "i think the little gentleman will know how to eat it." "i'll give you a dinner, georgey," repeated robert�"some stewed eels, a little julienne, a dish of cutlets, a bird, and a pudding. what do you say to that, georgey?" "i don't think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it, sir," said the waiter. "eels, julienne, cutlets, bird, pudding�i'll go and tell the cook, sir. what time, sir?" "well, we'll say six, and master georgey will get to his new school by bedtime. you can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon, i dare say. i have some business to settle, and sha'n't be able to take him out. i shall sleep here to-night. good-by, georgey; take care of yourself and try and get your appetite in order against six o'clock." robert audley left the boy in charge of the idle waiter, and strolled down to the water side, choosing that lonely bank which leads away under the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the narrowing river. he had purposely avoided the society of the child, and he walked through the light drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him. he went back to the town, and made inquiries at the station about the trains for dorsetshire. "i shall start early to-morrow morning," he thought, "and see george's father before nightfall. i will tell him all�all but the interest which i take in�in the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next to be done." master georgey did very good justice to the dinner which robert had ordered. he drank bass' pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years. at eight o'clock a fly was brought out for his accommodation, and he departed in the highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket, and a letter from robert to mr. marchmont, inclosing a check for the young gentleman's outfit. "i'm glad i'm going to have new clothes," he said, as he bade robert good-by; "for mrs. plowson has mended the old ones ever so many times. she can have them now, for billy." "who's billy?" robert asked, laughing at the boy's chatter. "billy is poor matilda's little boy. he's a common boy, you know. matilda was common, but she�" but the flyman snapping his whip at this moment, the old horse jogged off, and robert audley heard no more of matilda. chapter xxii. coming to a standstill. mr. harcourt talboys lived in a prim, square, red-brick mansion, within a mile of a little village called grange heath, in dorsetshire. the prim, square, red-brick mansion stood in the center of prim, square grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too large to be called anything else�so neither the house nor the grounds had any name, and the estate was simply designated squire talboys'. perhaps mr. harcourt talboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely, hearty, rural old english title of squire. he neither hunted nor farmed. he had never worn crimson, pink, or top-boots in his life. a southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim comforts; and he only cared for the state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents which he received for the farms upon his estate. he was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony and angular, with a square, pale face, light gray eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance to that of a terrier�a sharp, uncompromising, hard-headed terrier�a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest dog-stealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession. nobody ever remembered getting upon what is popularly called the blind side of harcourt talboys. he was like his own square-built, northern-fronted, shelterless house. there were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight. he was all daylight. he looked at everything in the same broad glare of intellectual sunlight, and would see no softening shadows that might alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts, subduing them to beauty. i do not know if i express what i mean, when i say that there were no curves in his character�that his mind ran in straight lines, never diverging to the right or the left to round off their pitiless angles. with him right was right, and wrong was wrong. he had never in his merciless, conscientious life admitted the idea that circumstances might mitigate the blackness of wrong or weaken the force of right. he had cast off his only son because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes' notice for the same reason. if this square-built, hard-headed man could be possessed of such a weakness as vanity, he was certainly vain of his hardness. he was vain of that inflexible squareness of intellect, which made him the disagreeable creature that he was. he was vain of that unwavering obstinacy which no influence of love or pity had ever been known to bend from its remorseless purpose. he was vain of the negative force of a nature which had never known the weakness of the affections, or the strength which may be born of that very weakness. if he had regretted his son's marriage, and the breach of his own making, between himself and george, his vanity had been more powerful than his regret, and had enabled him to conceal it. indeed, unlikely as it appears at the first glance that such a man as this could have been vain, i have little doubt that vanity was the center from which radiated all the disagreeable lines in the character of mr. harcourt talboys. i dare say junius brutus was vain, and enjoyed the approval of awe-stricken rome when he ordered his son off for execution. harcourt talboys would have sent poor george from his presence between the reversed fasces of the lictors, and grimly relished his own agony. heaven only knows how bitterly this hard man may have felt the separation between himself and his only son, or how much the more terrible the anguish might have been made by that unflinching self-conceit which concealed the torture. "my son did me an unpardonable wrong by marrying the daughter of a drunken pauper," mr. talboys would answer to any one who had the temerity to speak to him about george, "and from that hour i had no longer a son. i wish him no ill. he is simply dead to me. i am sorry for him, as i am sorry for his mother who died nineteen years ago. if you talk to me of him as you would talk of the dead, i shall be ready to hear you. if you speak of him as you would speak of the living, i must decline to listen." i believe that harcourt talboys hugged himself upon the gloomy roman grandeur of this speech, and that he would like to have worn a toga, and wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned his back upon poor george's intercessor. george never in his own person made any effort to soften his father's verdict. he knew his father well enough to know that the case was hopeless. "if i write to him, he will fold my letter with the envelope inside, and indorse it with my name and the date of its arrival," the young man would say, "and call everybody in the house to witness that it had not moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful thought. he will stick to his resolution to his dying day. i dare say, if the truth was known, he is glad that his only son has offended him and given him the opportunity of parading his roman virtues." george had answered his wife thus when she and her father had urged him to ask assistance from harcourt talboys. "no my darling," he would say, conclusively. "it's very hard, perhaps, to be poor, but we will bear it. we won't go with pitiful faces to the stern father, and ask him to give us food and shelter, only to be refused in long, johnsonian sentences, and made a classical example for the benefit of the neighborhood. no, my pretty one; it is easy to starve, but it is difficult to stoop." perhaps poor mrs. george did not agree very heartily to the first of these two propositions. she had no great fancy for starving, and she whimpered pitifully when the pretty pint bottles of champagne, with cliquot's and moet's brands upon their corks, were exchanged for sixpenny ale, procured by a slipshod attendant from the nearest beer-shop. george had been obliged to carry his own burden and lend a helping hand with that of his wife, who had no idea of keeping her regrets or disappointments a secret. "i thought dragoons were always rich," she used to say, peevishly. "girls always want to marry dragoons; and tradespeople always want to serve dragoons; and hotel-keepers to entertain dragoons; and theatrical managers to be patronized by dragoons. who could have ever expected that a dragoon would drink sixpenny ale, smoke horrid bird's-eye tobacco, and let his wife wear a shabby bonnet?" if there were any selfish feelings displayed in such speeches as these, george talboys had never discovered it. he had loved and believed in his wife from the first to the last hour of his brief married life. the love that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity after all; for when cupid takes the fillet from his eyes it is a fatally certain indication that he is preparing to spread his wings for a flight. george never forgot the hour in which he had first become bewitched by lieutenant maldon's pretty daughter, and however she might have changed, the image which had charmed him then, unchanged and unchanging, represented her in his heart. robert audley left southampton by a train which started before daybreak, and reached wareham station early in the day. he hired a vehicle at wareham to take him over to grange heath. the snow had hardened upon the ground, and the day was clear and frosty, every object in the landscape standing in sharp outline against the cold blue sky. the horses' hoofs clattered upon the ice-bound road, the iron shoes striking on the ground that was almost as iron as themselves. the wintry day bore some resemblance to the man to whom robert was going. like him, it was sharp, frigid, and uncompromising: like him, it was merciless to distress and impregnable to the softening power of sunshine. it would accept no sunshine but such january radiance as would light up the bleak, bare country without brightening it; and thus resembled harcourt talboys, who took the sternest side of every truth, and declared loudly to the disbelieving world that there never had been, and never could be, any other side. robert audley's heart sunk within him as the shabby hired vehicle stopped at a stern-looking barred fence, and the driver dismounted to open a broad iron gate which swung back with a clanking noise and was caught by a great iron tooth, planted in the ground, which snapped at the lowest bar of the gate as if it wanted to bite. this iron gate opened into a scanty plantation of straight-limbed fir-trees, that grew in rows and shook their sturdy winter foliage defiantly in the very teeth of the frosty breeze. a straight graveled carriage-drive ran between these straight trees across a smoothly kept lawn to a square red-brick mansion, every window of which winked and glittered in the january sunlight as if it had been that moment cleaned by some indefatigable housemaid. i don't know whether junius brutus was a nuisance in his own house, but among other of his roman virtues, mr. talboys owned an extreme aversion to disorder, and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment. the windows winked and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight, the prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy, gingery aspect to the place, reminding one unpleasantly of red hair. the lawn was chiefly ornamented with dark, wintry shrubs of a funereal aspect which grew in beds that looked like problems in algebra; and the flight of stone steps leading to the square half-glass door of the hall was adorned with dark-green wooden tubs containing the same sturdy evergreens. "if the man is anything like his house," robert thought, "i don't wonder that poor george and he parted." at the end of a scanty avenue the carriage-drive turned a sharp corner (it would have been made to describe a curve in any other man's grounds) and ran before the lower windows of the house. the flyman dismounted at the steps, ascended them, and rang a brass-handled bell, which flew back to its socket, with an angry, metallic snap, as if it had been insulted by the plebeian touch of the man's hand. a man in black trousers and a striped linen jacket, which was evidently fresh from the hands of the laundress, opened the door. mr. talboys was at home. would the gentleman send in his card? robert waited in the hall while his card was taken to the master of the house. the hall was large and lofty, paved with stone. the panels of the oaken wainscot shone with the same uncompromising polish which was on every object within and without the red-bricked mansion. some people are so weak-minded as to affect pictures and statues. mr. harcourt talboys was far too practical to indulge in any foolish fancies. a barometer and an umbrella-stand were the only adornments of his entrance-hall. robert audley looked at these while his name was being submitted to george's father. the linen-jacketed servant returned presently. he was a square, pale-faced man of almost forty, and had the appearance of having outlived every emotion to which humanity is subject. "if you will step this way, sir," he said, "mr. talboys will see you, although he is at breakfast. he begged me to state that everybody in dorsetshire was acquainted with his breakfast hour." this was intended as a stately reproof to mr. robert audley. it had, however, very small effect upon the young barrister. he merely lifted his eyebrows in placid deprecation of himself and everybody else. "i don't belong to dorsetshire," he said. "mr. talboys might have known that, if he'd done me the honor to exercise his powers of ratiocination. drive on, my friend." the emotionless man looked at robert audley with a vacant stare of unmitigated horror, and opening one of the heavy oak doors, led the way into a large dining-room furnished with the severe simplicity of an apartment which is meant to be ate in, but never lived in; and at top of a table which would have accommodated eighteen persons robert beheld mr. harcourt talboys. mr. talboys was robed in a dressing-gown of gray cloth, fastened about his waist with a girdle. it was a severe looking garment, and was perhaps the nearest approach to the toga to be obtained within the range of modern costume. he wore a buff waistcoat, a stiffly starched cambric cravat, and a faultless shirt collar. the cold gray of his dressing gown was almost the same as the cold gray of his eyes, and the pale buff of his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion. robert audley had not expected to find harcourt talboys at all like george in his manners or disposition, but he had expected to see some family likeness between the father and the son. there was none. it would have been impossible to imagine any one more unlike george than the author of his existence. robert scarcely wondered at the cruel letter he received from mr. talboys when he saw the writer of it. such a man could scarcely have written otherwise. there was a second person in the large room, toward whom robert glanced after saluting harcourt talboys, doubtful how to proceed. this second person was a lady, who sat at the last of a range of four windows, employed with some needlework, the kind which is generally called plain work, and with a large wicker basket, filled with calicoes and flannels, standing by her. the whole length of the room divided this lady from robert, but he could see that she was young, and that she was like george talboys. "his sister!" he thought in that one moment, during which he ventured to glance away from the master of the house toward the female figure at the window. "his sister, no doubt. he was fond of her, i know. surely, she is not utterly indifferent as to his fate?" the lady half rose from her seat, letting her work, which was large and awkward, fall from her lap as she did so, and dropping a reel of cotton, which rolled away upon the polished oaken flooring beyond the margin of the turkey carpet. "sit down, clara," said the hard voice of mr. talboys. that gentleman did not appear to address his daughter, nor had his face been turned toward her when she rose. it seemed as if he had known it by some social magnetism peculiar to himself; it seemed, as his servants were apt disrespectfully to observe, as if he had eyes in the back of his head. "sit down, clara," he repeated, "and keep your cotton in your workbox." the lady blushed at this reproof, and stooped to look for the cotton. mr. robert audley, who was unabashed by the stern presence of the master of the house, knelt on the carpet, found the reel, and restored it to its owner; harcourt talboys staring at the proceeding with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. "perhaps, mr. ��, mr. robert audley!" he said, looking at the card which he held between his finger and thumb, "perhaps when you have finished looking for reels of cotton, you will be good enough to tell me to what i owe the honor of this visit?" he waved his well-shaped hand with a gesture which might have been admired in the stately john kemble; and the servant, understanding the gesture, brought forward a ponderous red-morocco chair. the proceeding was so slow and solemn, that robert had at first thought that something extraordinary was about to be done; but the truth dawned upon him at last, and he dropped into the massive chair. "you may remain, wilson," said mr. talboys, as the servant was about to withdraw; "mr. audley would perhaps like coffee." robert had eaten nothing that morning, but he glanced at the long expanse of dreary table-cloth, the silver tea and coffee equipage, the stiff splendor, and the very little appearance of any substantial entertainment, and he declined mr. talboys' invitation. "mr. audley will not take coffee, wilson," said the master of the house. "you may go." the man bowed and retired, opening and shutting the door as cautiously as if he were taking a liberty in doing it at all, or as if the respect due to mr. talboys demanded his walking straight through the oaken panel like a ghost in a german story. mr. harcourt talboys sat with his gray eyes fixed severely on his visitor, his elbows on the red-morocco arms of his chair, and his finger-tips joined. it was the attitude in which, had he been junius brutus, he would have sat at the trial of his son. had robert audley been easily to be embarrassed, mr. talboys might have succeeded in making him feel so: as he would have sat with perfect tranquility upon an open gunpowder barrel lighting his cigar, he was not at all disturbed upon this occasion. the father's dignity seemed a very small thing to him when he thought of the possible causes of the son's disappearance. "i wrote to you some time since, mr. talboys," he said quietly, when he saw that he was expected to open the conversation. harcourt talboys bowed. he knew that it was of his lost son that robert came to speak. heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness which robert thought it. he bowed across his finger-tips at his visitor. the trial had begun, and junius brutus was enjoying himself. "i received your communication, mr. audley," he said. "it is among other business letters: it was duly answered." "that letter concerned your son." there was a little rustling noise at the window where the lady sat, as robert said this: he looked at her almost instantaneously, but she did not seem to have stirred. she was not working, but she was perfectly quiet. "she's as heartless as her father, i expect, though she is like george," thought mr. audley. "if your letter concerned the person who was once my son, perhaps, sir," said harcourt talboys, "i must ask you to remember that i have no longer a son." "you have no reason to remind me of that, mr. talboys," answered robert, gravely; "i remember it only too well. i have fatal reason to believe that you have no longer a son. i have bitter cause to think that he is dead." it may be that mr. talboys' complexion faded to a paler shade of buff as robert said this; but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and shook his head gently. "no," he said, "no, i assure you, no." "i believe that george talboys died in the month of september." the girl who had been addressed as clara, sat with work primly folded upon her lap, and her hands lying clasped together on her work, and never stirred when robert spoke of his friend's death. he could not distinctly see her face, for she was seated at some distance from him, and with her back to the window. "no, no, i assure you," repeated mr. talboys, "you labor under a sad mistake." "you believe that i am mistaken in thinking your son dead?" asked robert. "most certainly," replied mr. talboys, with a smile, expressive of the serenity of wisdom. "most certainly, my dear sir. the disappearance was a very clever trick, no doubt, but it was not sufficiently clever to deceive me. you must permit me to understand this matter a little better than you, mr. audley, and you must also permit me to assure you of three things. in the first place, your friend is not dead. in the second place, he is keeping out of the way for the purpose of alarming me, of trifling with my feelings as a�as a man who was once his father, and of ultimately obtaining my forgiveness. in the third place, he will not obtain that forgiveness, however long he may please to keep out of the way; and he would therefore act wisely by returning to his ordinary residence and avocations without delay." "then you imagine him to purposely hide himself from all who know him, for the purpose of�" "for the purpose of influencing me," exclaimed mr. talboys, who, taking a stand upon his own vanity, traced every event in life from that one center, and resolutely declined to look at it from any other point of view. "for the purpose of influencing me. he knew the inflexibility of my character; to a certain degree he was acquainted with me, and knew that all attempts at softening my decision, or moving me from the fixed purpose of my life, would fail. he therefore tried extraordinary means; he has kept out of the way in order to alarm me, and when after due time he discovers that he has not alarmed me, he will return to his old haunts. when he does so," said mr. talboys, rising to sublimity, "i will forgive him. yes, sir, i will forgive him. i shall say to him: you have attempted to deceive me, and i have shown you that i am not to be deceived; you have tried to frighten me, and i have convinced you that i am not to be frightened; you did not believe in my generosity, i will show you that i can be generous." harcourt talboys delivered himself of these superb periods with a studied manner, that showed they had been carefully composed long ago. robert audley sighed as he heard them. "heaven grant that you may have an opportunity of saying this to your son, sir," he answered sadly. "i am very glad to find that you are willing to forgive him, but i fear that you will never see him again upon this earth. i have a great deal to say to you upon this�this sad subject, mr. talboys; but i would rather say it to you alone," he added, glancing at the lady in the window. "my daughter knows my ideas upon this subject, mr. audley," said harcourt talboys; "there is no reason why she should not hear all you have to say. miss clara talboys, mr. robert audley," he added, waving his hand majestically. the young lady bent her head in recognition of robert's bow. "let her hear it," he thought. "if she has so little feeling as to show no emotion upon such a subject, let her hear the worst i have to tell." there was a few minutes' pause, during which robert took some papers from his pocket; among them the document which he had written immediately after george's disappearance. "i shall require all your attention, mr. talboys," he said, "for that which i have to disclose to you is of a very painful nature. your son was my very dear friend�dear to me for many reasons. perhaps most of all dear, because i had known him and been with him through the great trouble of his life; and because he stood comparatively alone in the world�cast off by you who should have been his best friend, bereft of the only woman he had ever loved." "the daughter of a drunken pauper," mr. talboys remarked, parenthetically. "had he died in his bed, as i sometimes thought he would," continued robert audley, "of a broken heart, i should have mourned for him very sincerely, even though i had closed his eyes with my own hands, and had seen him laid in his quiet resting-place. i should have grieved for my old schoolfellow, and for the companion who had been dear to me. but this grief would have been a very small one compared to that which i feel now, believing, as i do only too firmly, that my poor friend has been murdered." "murdered!" the father and daughter simultaneously repeated the horrible word. the father's face changed to a ghastly duskiness of hue; the daughter's face dropped upon her clasped hands, and was never lifted again throughout the interview. "mr. audley, you are mad!" exclaimed harcourt talboys; "you are mad, or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings. i protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and i�i revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son!" he was himself again as he said this. the blow had been a sharp one, but its effect had been momentary. "it is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily, sir," answered robert. "heaven grant that you may be right and i wrong. i pray for it, but i cannot think it�i cannot even hope it. i come to you for advice. i will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions. if you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded i am ready to submit to your better judgment. i will leave england; and i abandon my search for the evidence wanting to�to confirm my fears. if you say go on, i will go on." nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of mr. harcourt talboys than this appeal. he declared himself ready to listen to all that robert might have to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his power. he laid some stress upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity itself. robert audley drew his chair nearer to that of mr. talboys, and commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to george from the time of his arrival in england to the hour of his disappearance, as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance in any way touching upon that particular subject. harcourt talboys listened with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question. clara talboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands. the hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when robert began his story. the clock struck twelve as he finished. he had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncle's wife in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned. "now, sir," he said, when the story had been told, "i await your decision. you have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible conclusion. in what manner do these reasons influence you?" "they don't in any way turn me from my previous opinion," answered mr. harcourt talboys, with the unreasoning pride of an obstinate man. "i still think, as i thought before, that my son is alive, and that his disappearance is a conspiracy against myself. i decline to become the victim of that conspiracy." "and you tell me to stop?" asked robert, solemnly. "i tell you only this: if you go on, you go on for your own satisfaction, not for mine. i see nothing in what you have told me to alarm me for the safety of�your friend." "so be it, then!" exclaimed robert, suddenly; "from this moment i wash my hands of this business. from this moment the purpose of my life shall be to forget it." he rose as he spoke, and took his hat from the table on which he had placed it. he looked at clara talboys. her attitude had never changed since she had dropped her face upon her hands. "good morning, mr. talboys," he said, gravely. "god grant that you are right. god grant that i am wrong. but i fear a day will come when you will have reason to regret your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only son." he bowed gravely to mr. harcourt talboys and to the lady, whose face was hidden by her hands. he lingered for a moment looking at miss talboys, thinking that she would look up, that she would make some sign, or show some desire to detain him. mr. talboys rang for the emotionless servant, who led robert off to the hall-door with the solemnity of manner which would have been in perfect keeping had he been leading him to execution. "she is like her father," thought mr. audley, as he glanced for the last time at the drooping head. "poor george, you had need of one friend in this world, for you have had very few to love you." chapter xxiii. clara. robert audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle. he had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, and he was very glad to welcome the return of his fare. the old white horse, who looked as if he had been foaled in the year in which the carriage had been built, and seemed, like the carriage, to have outlived the fashion, was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a jerk as robert came down the stony flight of steps, attended by his executioner, who waited respectfully till mr. audley had entered the vehicle and been turned off. the horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip and a shake of the shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-somnambulent state; and robert, with his hat very much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend. he had played in these stiff gardens, and under these dreary firs, years ago, perhaps�if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful within the range of mr. harcourt talboys' hard gray eyes. he had played beneath these dark trees, perhaps, with the sister who had heard of his fate to-day without a tear. robert audley looked at the rigid primness of the orderly grounds, wondering how george could have grown up in such a place to be the frank, generous, careless friend whom he had known. how was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes, he had not grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be a nuisance to his fellow-men? how was it? because we have some one higher than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small; and because, while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly sequence from father to son, from grandsire to grandchild, as the fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding blossoms of the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which blows among those flowers, independent of all earthly rule, owns no order but the harmonious law of god. "thank god!" thought robert audley; "thank god! it is over. my poor friend must rest in his unknown grave; and i shall not be the means of bringing disgrace upon those i love. it will come, perhaps, sooner or later, but it will not come through me. the crisis is past, and i am free." he felt an unutterable relief in this thought. his generous nature revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn�the office of spy, the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible deductions. he drew a long breath�a sigh of relief at his release. it was all over now. the fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary fir-trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking, red-brick mansion. he was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand. he stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words. "is it me the flying female wants?" he exclaimed, at last. "you'd better stop, perhaps," he added, to the flyman. "it is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history. she may want me. very likely i left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and mr. talboys has sent this person with it. perhaps i'd better get out and go and meet her. it's civil to send my handkerchief." mr. robert audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly. he was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was. "good heaven!" he exclaimed, "it's miss talboys." it was miss talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown over her head. robert audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome. she had brown eyes, like george's, a pale complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. he saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with mr. talboys. there were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster�terribly bright and dry�and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him. "miss talboys," he said, "what can i�why�" she interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand�she was holding her shawl in the other. "oh, let me speak to you," she cried�"let me speak to you, or i shall go mad. i heard it all. i believe what you believe, and i shall go mad unless i can do something�something toward avenging his death." for a few moments robert audley was too much bewildered to answer her. of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus. "take my arm, miss talboys," he said. "pray calm yourself. let us walk a little way back toward the house, and talk quietly. i would not have spoken as i did before you had i known�" "had you known that i loved my brother?" she said, quickly. "how should you know that i loved him? how should any one think that i loved him, when i have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father? how should i dare to betray my love for him in that house when i knew that even a sister's affection would be turned to his disadvantage? you do not know my father, mr. audley. i do. i knew that to intercede for george would have been to ruin his cause. i knew that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to trust to time, was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again. and i waited�waited patiently, always hoping for the best; for i knew that my father loved his only son. i see your contemptuous smile, mr. audley, and i dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children�no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty. stop," she said, suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of pines; "i ran out of the house by the back way. papa must not see me talking to you, mr. audley, and he must not see the fly standing at the gate. will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a little way? i will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on, and meet you in the road." "but you will catch cold, miss talboys," remonstrated robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling. "you are shivering now." "not with cold," she answered. "i am thinking of my brother george. if you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what i ask you, mr. audley. i must speak to you�i must speak to you�calmly, if i can." she put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate. robert bowed and left her. he told the man to drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding mr. talboys' grounds. about a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it for miss talboys. she joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless. "will you walk with me inside the plantation?" she said. "we might be observed on the high-road." he bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him. when she took his offered arm he found that she was still trembling�trembling very violently. "pray, pray calm yourself, miss talboys," he said; "i may have been deceived in the opinion which i have formed; i may�" "no, no, no," she exclaimed, "you are not deceived. my brother has been murdered. tell me the name of that woman�the woman whom you suspect of being concerned in his disappearance�in his murder." "that i cannot do until�" "until when?" "until i know that she is guilty." "you told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the truth�that you would rest satisfied to leave my brother's fate a horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth; but you will not do so, mr. audley�you will not be false to the memory of your friend. you will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him. you will do this, will you not?" a gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over robert audley's handsome face. he remembered what he had said the day before at southampton: "a hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward, upon the dark road." a quarter of an hour before, he had believed that all was over, and that he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of george's death. now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had found a voice, and was urging him on toward his fate. "if you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth, miss talboys," he said, "you would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any farther?" "but i do ask you," she answered, with suppressed passion�"i do ask you. i ask you to avenge my brother's untimely death. will you do so? yes or no?" "what if i answer no?" "then i will do it myself," she exclaimed, looking at him with her bright brown eyes. "i myself will follow up the clew to this mystery; i will find this woman�though you refuse to tell me in what part of england my brother disappeared. i will travel from one end of the world to the other to find the secret of his fate, if you refuse to find it for me. i am of age; my own mistress; rich, for i have money left me by one of my aunts; i shall be able to employ those who will help me in my search, and i will make it to their interest to serve me well. choose between the two alternatives, mr. audley. shall you or i find my brother's murderer?" he looked in her face, and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty. her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her expression. the face in which he looked was the face of a woman whom death only could turn from her purpose. "i have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression," she said, quietly; "i have stifled and dwarfed the natural feelings of my heart, until they have become unnatural in their intensity; i have been allowed neither friends nor lovers. my mother died when i was very young. my father has always been to me what you saw him to-day. i have had no one but my brother. all the love that my heart can hold has been centered upon him. do you wonder, then, that when i hear that his young life has been ended by the hand of treachery, that i wish to see vengeance done upon the traitor? oh, my god," she cried, suddenly clasping her hands, and looking up at the cold winter sky, "lead me to the murderer of my brother, and let mine be the hand to avenge his untimely death." robert audley stood looking at her with awe-stricken admiration. her beauty was elevated into sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed passion. she was different to all other women that he had ever seen. his cousin was pretty, his uncle's wife was lovely, but clara talboys was beautiful. niobe's face, sublimated by sorrow, could scarcely have been more purely classical than hers. even her dress, puritan in its gray simplicity, became her beauty better than a more beautiful dress would have become a less beautiful woman. "miss talboys," said robert, after a pause, "your brother shall not be unavenged. he shall not be forgotten. i do not think that any professional aid which you could procure would lead you as surely to the secret of this mystery as i can lead you, if you are patient and trust me." "i will trust you," she answered, "for i see that you will help me." "i believe that it is my destiny to do so," he said, solemnly. in the whole course of his conversation with harcourt talboys, robert audley had carefully avoided making any deductions from the circumstances which he had submitted to george's father. he had simply told the story of the missing man's life, from the hour of his arriving in london to that of his disappearance; but he saw that clara talboys had arrived at the same conclusion as himself, and that it was tacitly understood between them. "have you any letters of your brother's, miss talboys?" he asked. "two. one written soon after his marriage, the other written at liverpool, the night before he sailed for australia." "will you let me see them?" "yes, i will send them to you if you will give me your address. you will write to me from time to time, will you not, to tell me whether you are approaching the truth. i shall be obliged to act secretly here, but i am going to leave home in two or three months, and i shall be perfectly free then to act as i please." "you are not going to leave england?" robert asked. "oh no! i am only going to pay a long-promised visit to some friends in essex." robert started so violently as clara talboys said this, that she looked suddenly at his face. the agitation visible there, betrayed a part of his secret. "my brother george disappeared in essex," she said. he could not contradict her. "i am sorry you have discovered so much," he replied. "my position becomes every day more complicated, every day more painful. good-bye." she gave him her hand mechanically, when he held out his; but it was cold as marble, and lay listlessly in his own, and fell like a log at her side when he released it. "pray lose no time in returning to the house," he said earnestly. "i fear you will suffer from this morning's work." "suffer!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "you talk to me of suffering, when the only creature in this world who ever loved me has been taken from it in the bloom of youth. what can there be for me henceforth but suffering? what is the cold to me?" she said, flinging back her shawl and baring her beautiful head to the bitter wind. "i would walk from here to london barefoot through the snow, and never stop by the way, if i could bring him back to life. what would i not do to bring him back? what would i not do?" the words broke from her in a wail of passionate sorrow; and clasping her hands before her face, she wept for the first time that day. the violence of her sobs shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to lean against the trunk of a tree for support. robert looked at her with a tender compassion in his face; she was so like the friend whom he had loved and lost, that it was impossible for him to think of her as a stranger; impossible to remember that they had met that morning for the first time. "pray, pray be calm," he said: "hope even against hope. we may both be deceived; your brother may still live." "oh! if it were so," she murmured, passionately; "if it could be so." "let us try and hope that it may be so." "no," she answered, looking at him through her tears, "let us hope for nothing but revenge. good-by, mr. audley. stop; your address." he gave her a card, which she put into the pocket of her dress. "i will send you george's letters," she said; "they may help you. good-by." she left him half bewildered by the passionate energy of her manner, and the noble beauty of her face. he watched her as she disappeared among the straight trunks of the fir-trees, and then walked slowly out of the plantation. "heaven help those who stand between me and the secret," he thought, "for they will be sacrificed to the memory of george talboys." chapter xxiv. george's letters. robert audley did not return to southampton, but took a ticket for the first up town train that left wareham, and reached waterloo bridge an hour or two after dark. the snow, which had been hard and crisp in dorsetshire, was a black and greasy slush in the waterloo road, thawed by the flaring lamps of the gin-palaces and the glaring gas in the butchers' shops. robert audley shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the dingy streets through which the hansom carried him, the cab-man choosing�with that delicious instinct which seems innate in the drivers of hackney vehicles�all those dark and hideous thoroughfares utterly unknown to the ordinary pedestrian. "what a pleasant thing life is," thought the barrister. "what an unspeakable boon�what an overpowering blessing! let any man make a calculation of his existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been thoroughly happy�really and entirely at his ease, without one arriere pensée to mar his enjoyment�without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon. let him do this, and surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount. he will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps. in thirty years of dull december, and blustering march, and showery april, and dark november weather, there may have been seven or eight glorious august days, through which the sun has blazed in cloudless radiance, and the summer breezes have breathed perpetual balm. how fondly we recollect these solitary days of pleasure, and hope for their recurrence, and try to plan the circumstances that made them bright; and arrange, and predestinate, and diplomatize with fate for a renewal of the remembered joy. as if any joy could ever be built up out of such and such constituent parts! as if happiness were not essentially accidental�a bright and wandering bird, utterly irregular in its migrations; with us one summer's day, and forever gone from us on the next! look at marriages, for instance," mused robert, who was as meditative in the jolting vehicle, for whose occupation he was to pay sixpence a mile, as if he had been riding a mustang on the wild loneliness of the prairies. "look at marriage! who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes! who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature, which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes? that girl on the curbstone yonder, waiting to cross the street when my chariot shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female creature in this vast universe who could make me a happy man. yet i pass her by�bespatter her with the mud from my wheels, in my helpless ignorance, in my blind submission to the awful hand of fatality. if that girl, clara talboys, had been five minutes later, i should have left dorsetshire thinking her cold, hard, and unwomanly, and should have gone to my grave with that mistake part and parcel of my mind. i took her for a stately and heartless automaton; i know her now to be a noble and beautiful woman. what an incalculable difference this may make in my life. when i left that house, i went out into the winter day with the determination of abandoning all further thought of the secret of george's death. i see her, and she forces me onward upon the loathsome path�the crooked by-way of watchfulness and suspicion. how can i say to this sister of my dead friend, 'i believe that your brother has been murdered! i believe that i know by whom, but i will take no step to set my doubts at rest, or to confirm my fears'? i cannot say this. this woman knows half my secret; she will soon possess herself of the rest, and then�and then�" the cab stopped in the midst of robert audley's meditation, and he had to pay the cabman, and submit to all the dreary mechanism of life, which is the same whether we are glad or sorry�whether we are to be married or hung, elevated to the woolsack, or disbarred by our brother benchers on some mysterious technical tangle of wrong-doing, which is a social enigma to those outside the forum domesticum of the middle temple. we are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life�this unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine, which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the mainspring be forever hollow, and the hands pointing to purposeless figures on a shattered dial. who has not felt, in the first madness of sorrow, an unreasoning rage against the mute propriety of chairs and tables, the stiff squareness of turkey carpets, the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of existence? we want to root up gigantic trees in a primeval forest, and to tear their huge branches asunder in our convulsive grasp; and the utmost that we can do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an easy-chair, or smash a few shillings' worth of mr. copeland's manufacture. madhouses are large and only too numerous; yet surely it is strange they are not larger, when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the riot and confusion within�when we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day. robert audley had directed the cabman to drop him at the corner of chancery lane, and he ascended the brilliantly-lighted staircase leading to the dining-saloon of the london, and seated himself at one of the snug tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weariness, rather than any agreeable sensation of healthy hunger. he had come to the luxurious eating-house to dine, because it was absolutely necessary to eat something somewhere, and a great deal easier to get a very good dinner from mr. sawyer than a very bad one from mrs. maloney, whose mind ran in one narrow channel of chops and steaks, only variable by small creeks and outlets in the way of "broiled sole" or "boiled mack'-rill." the solicitous waiter tried in vain to rouse poor robert to a proper sense of the solemnity of the dinner question. he muttered something to the effect that the man might bring him anything he liked, and the friendly waiter, who knew robert as a frequent guest at the little tables, went back to his master with a doleful face, to say that mr. audley, from figtree court, was evidently out of spirits. robert ate his dinner, and drank a pint of moselle; but he had poor appreciation of the excellence of the viands or the delicate fragrance of the wine. the mental monologue still went on, and the young philosopher of the modern school was arguing the favorite modern question of the nothingness of everything, and the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road that went nowhere, or to compass a work that meant nothing. "i accept the dominion of that pale girl, with the statuesque features and the calm brown eyes," he thought. "i recognize the power of a mind superior to my own, and i yield to it, and bow down to it. i've been acting for myself, and thinking for myself, for the last few months, and i'm tired of the unnatural business. i've been false to the leading principle of my life, and i've suffered for the folly. i found two gray hairs in my head the week before last, and an impertinent crow has planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye. yes, i'm getting old upon the right side; and why�why should it be so?" he pushed away his plate and lifted his eyebrows, staring at the crumbs upon the glistening damask, as he pondered the question. "what the devil am i doing in this galere?" he asked. "but i am in it, and i can't get out of it; so i better submit myself to the brown-eyed girl, and do what she tells me patiently and faithfully. what a wonderful solution to life's enigma there is in petticoat government! man might lie in the sunshine, and eat lotuses, and fancy it 'always afternoon,' if his wife would let him! but she won't, bless her impulsive heart and active mind! she knows better than that. who ever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken? instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. she dresses for it, and simpers and grins, and gesticulates for it. she pushes her neighbors, and struggles for a good place in the dismal march; she elbows, and writhes, and tramples, and prances to the one end of making the most of the misery. she gets up early and sits up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying. she drags her husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into parliament. she drives him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and buffets him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until somebody, for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted him to be made. that's why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places, and interpose their poor, muddled intellects between the things to be done and the people that can do them, making universal confusion in the helpless innocence of well-placed incapacity. the square men in the round holes are pushed into them by their wives. the eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. it is because women are never lazy. they don't know what it is to be quiet. they are semiramides, and cleopatras, and joans of arc, queen elizabeths, and catharines the second, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamor and desperation. if they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills, and social storms in household teacups. forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with mrs. jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. to call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. they are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. they want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? let them have it. let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators�anything they like�but let them be quiet�if they can." mr. audley pushed his hands through the thick luxuriance of his straight brown hair, and uplifted the dark mass in his despair. "i hate women," he thought, savagely. "they're bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors. look at this business of poor george's! it's all woman's work from one end to the other. he marries a woman, and his father casts him off penniless and professionless. he hears of the woman's death and he breaks his heart�his good honest, manly heart, worth a million of the treacherous lumps of self-interest and mercenary calculation which beats in women's breasts. he goes to a woman's house and he is never seen alive again. and now i find myself driven into a corner by another woman, of whose existence i had never thought until this day. and�and then," mused mr. audley, rather irrelevantly, "there's alicia, too; she's another nuisance. she'd like me to marry her i know; and she'll make me do it, i dare say, before she's done with me. but i'd much rather not; though she is a dear, bouncing, generous thing, bless her poor little heart." robert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liberally. the young barrister was very willing to distribute his comfortable little income among the people who served him, for he carried his indifference to all things in the universe, even to the matter of pounds, shillings and pence. perhaps he was rather exceptional in this, as you may frequently find that the philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty sharp in the investment of his moneys, and recognizes the tangible nature of india bonds, spanish certificates, and egyptian scrip�as contrasted with the painful uncertainty of an ego or a non-ego in metaphysics. the snug rooms in figtree court seemed dreary in their orderly quiet to robert audley upon this particular evening. he had no inclination for his french novels, though there was a packet of uncut romances, comic and sentimental, ordered a month before, waiting his pleasure upon one of the tables. he took his favorite meerschaum and dropped into his favorite chair with a sigh. "it's comfortable, but it seems so deuced lonely to-night. if poor george were sitting opposite to me, or�or even george's sister�she's very like him�existence might be a little more endurable. but when a fellow's lived by himself for eight or ten years he begins to be bad company." he burst out laughing presently as he finished his first pipe. "the idea of my thinking of george's sister," he thought; "what a preposterous idiot i am!" the next day's post brought him a letter in a firm but feminine hand, which was strange to him. he found the little packet lying on his breakfast-table, beside the warm french roll wrapped in a napkin by mrs. maloney's careful but rather dirty hands. he contemplated the envelope for some minutes before opening it�not in any wonder as to his correspondent, for the letter bore the postmark of grange heath, and he knew that there was only one person who was likely to write to him from that obscure village, but in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of his character. "from clara talboys," he murmured slowly, as he looked critically at the clearly-shaped letters of his name and address. "yes, from clara talboys, most decidedly; i recognized a feminine resemblance to poor george's hand; neater than his, and more decided than his, but very like, very like." he turned the letter over and examined the seal, which bore his friend's familiar crest. "i wonder what she says to me?" he thought. "it's a long letter, i dare say; she's the kind of woman who would write a long letter�a letter that will urge me on, drive me forward, wrench me out of myself, i've no doubt. but that can't be helped�so here goes!" he tore open the envelope with a sigh of resignation. it contained nothing but george's two letters, and a few words written on the flap: "i send the letters; please preserve and return them�c.t." the letter, written from liverpool, told nothing of the writer's life except his sudden determination of starting for a new world, to redeem the fortunes that had been ruined in the old. the letter written almost immediately after george's marriage, contained a full description of his wife�such a description as a man could only write within three weeks of a love match�a description in which every feature was minutely catalogued, every grace of form or beauty of expression fondly dwelt upon, every charm of manner lovingly depicted. robert audley read the letter three times before he laid it down. "if george could have known for what a purpose this description would serve when he wrote it," thought the young barrister, "surely his hand would have fallen paralyzed by horror, and powerless to shape one syllable of these tender words." chapter xxv. retrograde investigation. the dreary london january dragged its dull length slowly out. the last slender records of christmas time were swept away, and robert audley still lingered in town�still spent his lonely evenings in his quiet sitting-room in figtree court�still wandered listlessly in the temple gardens on sunny mornings, absently listening to the children's babble, idly watching their play. he had many friends among the inhabitants of the quaint old buildings round him; he had other friends far away in pleasant country places, whose spare bedrooms were always at bob's service, whose cheerful firesides had snugly luxurious chairs specially allotted to him. but he seemed to have lost all taste for companionship, all sympathy with the pleasures and occupations of his class, since the disappearance of george talboys. elderly benchers indulged in facetious observations upon the young man's pale face and moody manner. they suggested the probability of some unhappy attachment, some feminine ill-usage as the secret cause of the change. they told him to be of good cheer, and invited him to supper-parties, at which "lovely woman, with all her faults, god bless her," was drunk by gentlemen who shed tears as they proposed the toast, and were maudlin and unhappy in their cups toward the close of the entertainment. robert had no inclination for the wine-bibbing and the punch-making. the one idea of his life had become his master. he was the bonden slave of one gloomy thought�one horrible presentiment. a dark cloud was brooding above his uncle's house, and it was his hand which was to give the signal for the thunder-clap, and the tempest that was to ruin that noble life. "if she would only take warning and run away," he said to himself sometimes. "heaven knows, i have given her a fair chance. why doesn't she take it and run away?" he heard sometimes from sir michael, sometimes from alicia. the young lady's letter rarely contained more than a few curt lines informing him that her papa was well; and that lady audley was in very high spirits, amusing herself in her usual frivolous manner, and with her usual disregard for other people. a letter from mr. marchmont, the southampton schoolmaster, informed robert that little georgey was going on very well, but that he was behindhand in his education, and had not yet passed the intellectual rubicon of words of two syllables. captain maldon had called to see his grandson, but that privilege had been withheld from him, in accordance with mr. audley's instructions. the old man had furthermore sent a parcel of pastry and sweetmeats to the little boy, which had also been rejected on the ground of indigestible and bilious tendencies in the edibles. toward the close of february, robert received a letter from his cousin alicia, which hurried him one step further forward toward his destiny, by causing him to return to the house from which he had become in a manner exiled at the instigation of his uncle's wife. "papa is very ill," alicia wrote; "not dangerously ill, thank god; but confined to his room by an attack of low fever which has succeeded a violent cold. come and see him, robert, if you have any regard for your nearest relations. he has spoken about you several times; and i know he will be glad to have you with him. come at once, but say nothing about this letter. "from your affectionate cousin, alicia." a sick and deadly terror chilled robert audley's heart, as he read this letter�a vague yet hideous fear, which he dared not shape into any definite form. "have i done right?" he thought, in the first agony of this new horror�"have i done right to tamper with justice; and to keep the secret of my doubts in the hope that i was shielding those i love from sorrow and disgrace? what shall i do if i find him ill, very ill, dying perhaps, dying upon her breast! what shall i do?" one course lay clear before him; and the first step of that course was a rapid journey to audley court. he packed his portmanteau, jumped into a cab, and reached the railway station within an hour of his receipt of alicia's letter, which had come by the afternoon post. the dim village lights flickered faintly through the growing dusk when robert reached audley. he left his portmanteau with the station-master, and walked at a leisurely pace through the quiet lanes that led away to the still loneliness of the court. the over-arching trees stretched their leafless branches above his head, bare and weird in the dusky light. a low moaning wind swept across the flat meadow land, and tossed those rugged branches hither and thither against the dark gray sky. they looked like the ghostly arms of shrunken and withered giants, beckoning robert to his uncle's house. they looked like threatening phantoms in the chill winter twilight, gesticulating to him to hasten upon his journey. the long avenue so bright and pleasant when the perfumed limes scattered their light bloom upon the pathway, and the dog-rose leaves floated on the summer air, was terribly bleak and desolate in the cheerless interregnum that divides the homely joys of christmas from the pale blush of coming spring�a dead pause in the year, in which nature seems to lie in a tranced sleep, awaiting the wondrous signal for the budding of the flower. a mournful presentiment crept into robert audley's heart as he drew nearer to his uncle's house. every changing outline in the landscape was familiar to him; every bend of the trees; every caprice of the untrammeled branches; every undulation in the bare hawthorn hedge, broken by dwarf horse-chestnuts, stunted willows, blackberry and hazel bushes. sir michael had been a second father to the young man, a generous and noble friend, a grave and earnest adviser; and perhaps the strongest sentiment of robert's heart was his love for the gray-bearded baronet. but the grateful affection was so much a part of himself, that it seldom found an outlet in words, and a stranger would never have fathomed the depth of feeling which lay, a deep and powerful current, beneath the stagnant surface of the barrister's character. "what would become of this place if my uncle were to die?" he thought, and he drew nearer to the ivied archway, and the still water-pools, coldly gray in the twilight. "would other people live in the old house, and sit under the low oak ceilings in the homely familiar rooms?" that wonderful faculty of association, so interwoven with the inmost fibers of even the hardest nature, filled the young man's breast with a prophetic pain as he remembered that, however long or late, the day must come on which the oaken shutters would be closed for awhile, and the sunshine shut out of the house he loved. it was painful to him even to remember this; as it must always be painful to think of the narrow lease the greatest upon this earth can ever hold of its grandeurs. is it so wonderful that some wayfarers drop asleep under the hedges, scarcely caring to toil onward on a journey that leads to no abiding habitation? is it wonderful that there have been quietists in the world ever since christ's religion was first preached upon earth. is it strange that there is a patient endurance and tranquil resignation, calm expectation of that which is to come on the further shore of the dark flowing river? is it not rather to be wondered that anybody should ever care to be great for greatness' sake; for any other reason than pure conscientiousness; the simple fidelity of the servant who fears to lay his talents by in a napkin, knowing that indifference is near akin to dishonesty? if robert audley had lived in the time of thomas à kempis, he would very likely have built himself a narrow hermitage amid some forest loneliness, and spent his life in tranquil imitation of the reputed author of the imitation. as it was, figtree court was a pleasant hermitage in its way, and for breviaries and books of hours, i am ashamed to say the young barrister substituted paul de kock and dumas, fils. but his sins were of so simply negative an order, that it would have been very easy for him to have abandoned them for negative virtues. only one solitary light was visible in the long irregular range of windows facing the archway, as robert passed under the gloomy shade of the rustling ivy, restless in the chill moaning of the wind. he recognized that lighted window as the large oriel in his uncle's room. when last he had looked at the old house it had been gay with visitors, every window glittering like a low star in the dusk; now, dark and silent, it faced the winter's night like some dismal baronial habitation, deep in a woodland solitude. the man who opened the door to the unlooked-for visitor, brightened as he recognized his master's nephew. "sir michael will be cheered up a bit, sir, by the sight of you," he said, as he ushered robert audley into the fire-lit library, which seemed desolate by reason of the baronet's easy-chair standing empty on the broad hearth-rug. "shall i bring you some dinner here, sir, before you go up-stairs?" the servant asked. "my lady and miss audley have dined early during my master's illness, but i can bring you anything you would please to take, sir." "i'll take nothing until i have seen my uncle," robert answered, hurriedly; "that is to say, if i can see him at once. he is not too ill to receive me, i suppose?" he added, anxiously. "oh, no, sir�not too ill; only a little low, sir. this way, if you please." he conducted robert up the short flight of shallow oaken stairs to the octagon chamber in which george talboys had sat long five months before, staring absently at my lady's portrait. the picture was finished now, and hung in the post of honor opposite the window, amidst claudes, poussins and wouvermans, whose less brilliant hues were killed by the vivid coloring of the modern artist. the bright face looked out of that tangled glitter of golden hair, in which the pre-raphaelites delight, with a mocking smile, as robert paused for a moment to glance at the well-remembered picture. two or three moments afterward he had passed through my lady's boudoir and dressing-room and stood upon the threshold of sir michael's room. the baronet lay in a quiet sleep, his arm laying outside the bed, and his strong hand clasped in his young wife's delicate fingers. alicia sat in a low chair beside the broad open hearth, on which the huge logs burned fiercely in the frosty atmosphere. the interior of this luxurious bedchamber might have made a striking picture for an artist's pencil. the massive furniture, dark and somber, yet broken up and relieved here and there by scraps of gilding, and masses of glowing color; the elegance of every detail, in which wealth was subservient to purity of taste; and last, but greatest in importance, the graceful figures of the two women, and the noble form of the old man would have formed a worthy study for any painter. lucy audley, with her disordered hair in a pale haze of yellow gold about her thoughtful face, the flowing lines of her soft muslin dressing-gown falling in straight folds to her feet, and clasped at the waist by a narrow circlet of agate links might have served as a model for a mediaeval saint, in one of the tiny chapels hidden away in the nooks and corners of a gray old cathedral, unchanged by reformation or cromwell; and what saintly martyr of the middle ages could have borne a holier aspect than the man whose gray beard lay upon the dark silken coverlet of the stately bed? robert paused upon the threshold, fearful of awaking his uncle. the two ladies had heard his step, cautious though he had been, and lifted their heads to look at him. my lady's face, quietly watching the sick man, had worn an anxious earnestness which made it only more beautiful; but the same face recognizing robert audley, faded from its delicate brightness, and looked scared and wan in the lamplight. "mr. audley!" she cried, in a faint, tremulous voice. "hush!" whispered alicia, with a warning gesture; "you will wake papa. how good of you to come, robert," she added, in the same whispered tones, beckoning to her cousin to take an empty chair near the bed. the young man seated himself in the indicated seat at the bottom of the bed, and opposite to my lady, who sat close beside the pillows. he looked long and earnestly at the face of the sleeper; still longer, still more earnestly at the face of lady audley, which was slowly recovering its natural hues. "he has not been very ill, has he?" robert asked, in the same key as that in which alicia had spoken. my lady answered the question. "oh, no, not dangerously ill," she said, without taking her eyes from her husband's face; "but still we have been anxious, very, very anxious." robert never relaxed his scrutiny of that pale face. "she shall look at me," he thought; "i will make her meet my eyes, and i will read her as i have read her before. she shall know how useless her artifices are with me." he paused for a few minutes before he spoke again. the regular breathing of the sleeper the ticking of a gold hunting-watch at the head of the bed, and the crackling of the burning logs, were the only sounds that broke the stillness. "i have no doubt you have been anxious, lady audley," robert said, after a pause, fixing my lady's eyes as they wandered furtively to his face. "there is no one to whom my uncle's life can be of more value than to you. your happiness, your prosperity, your safety depend alike upon his existence." the whisper in which he uttered these words was too low to reach the other side of the room, where alicia sat. lucy audley's eyes met those of the speaker with some gleam of triumph in their light. "i know that," she said. "those who strike me must strike through him." she pointed to the sleeper as she spoke, still looking at robert audley. she defied him with her blue eyes, their brightness intensified by the triumph in their glance. she defied him with her quiet smile�a smile of fatal beauty, full of lurking significance and mysterious meaning�the smile which the artist had exaggerated in his portrait of sir michael's wife. robert turned away from the lovely face, and shaded his eyes with his hand; putting a barrier between my lady and himself; a screen which baffled her penetration and provoked her curiosity. was he still watching her or was he thinking? and of what was he thinking? robert had been seated at the bedside for upward of an hour before his uncle awoke. the baronet was delighted at his nephew's coming. "it was very good of you to come to me, bob," he said. "i have been thinking of you a good deal since i have been ill. you and lucy must be good friends, you know, bob; and you must learn to think of her as your aunt, sir; though she is young and beautiful; and�and�you understand, eh?" robert grasped his uncle's hand, but he looked down as he answered: "i do understand you, sir," he said, quietly; "and i give you my word of honor that i am steeled against my lady's fascinations. she knows that as well as i do." lucy audley made a little grimace with her pretty little lips. "bah, you silly robert," she exclaimed; "you take everything au serieux. if i thought you were rather too young for a nephew, it was only in my fear of other people's foolish gossip; not from any�" she hesitated for a moment, and escaped any conclusion to her sentence by the timely intervention of mr. dawson, her late employer, who entered the room upon his evening visit while she was speaking. he felt the patient's pulse; asked two or three questions; pronounced the baronet to be steadily improving; exchanged a few commonplace remarks with alicia and lady audley, and prepared to leave the room. robert rose and accompanied him to the door. "i will light you to the staircase," he said, taking a candle from one of the tables, and lighting it at the lamp. "no, no, mr. audley, pray do not trouble yourself," expostulated the surgeon; "i know my way very well indeed." robert insisted, and the two men left the room together. as they entered the octagon ante-chamber the barrister paused and shut the door behind him. "will you see that the door is closed, mr. dawson?" he said, pointing to that which opened upon the staircase. "i wish to have a few moments' private conversation with you." "with much pleasure," replied the surgeon, complying with robert's request; "but if you are at all alarmed about your uncle, mr. audley, i can set your mind at rest. there is no occasion for the least uneasiness. had his illness been at all serious i should have telegraphed immediately for the family physician." "i am sure that you would have done your duty, sir," answered robert, gravely. "but i am not going to speak of my uncle. i wish to ask you two or three questions about another person." "indeed." "the person who once lived in your family as miss lucy graham; the person who is now lady audley." mr. dawson looked up with an expression of surprise upon his quiet face. "pardon me, mr. audley," he answered; "you can scarcely expect me to answer any questions about your uncle's wife without sir michael's express permission. i can understand no motive which can prompt you to ask such questions�no worthy motive, at least." he looked severely at the young man, as much as to say: "you have been falling in love with your uncle's pretty wife, sir, and you want to make me a go-between in some treacherous flirtation; but it won't do, sir, it won't do." "i always respected the lady as miss graham, sir," he said, "and i esteem her doubly as lady audley�not on account of her altered position, but because she is the wife of one of the noblest men in christendom." "you cannot respect my uncle or my uncle's honor more sincerely than i do," answered robert. "i have no unworthy motive for the questions i am about to ask; and you must answer them." "must!" echoed mr. dawson, indignantly. "yes, you are my uncle's friend. it was at your house he met the woman who is now his wife. she called herself an orphan, i believe, and enlisted his pity as well as his admiration in her behalf. she told him that she stood alone in the world, did she not?�without a friend or relative. this was all i could ever learn of her antecedents." "what reason have you to wish to know more?" asked the surgeon. "a very terrible reason," answered robert audley. "for some months past i have struggled with doubts and suspicions which have embittered my life. they have grown stronger every day; and they will not be set at rest by the commonplace sophistries and the shallow arguments with which men try to deceive themselves rather than believe that which of all things upon earth they most fear to believe. i do not think that the woman who bears my uncle's name, is worthy to be his wife. i may wrong her. heaven grant that it is so. but if i do, the fatal chain of circumstantial evidence never yet linked itself so closely about an innocent person. i wish to set my doubts at rest or�or to confirm my fears. there is but one manner in which i can do this. i must trace the life of my uncle's wife backward, minutely and carefully, from this night to a period of six years ago. this is the twenty-fourth of february, fifty-nine. i want to know every record of her life between to-night and the february of the year fifty-three." "and your motive is a worthy one?" "yes, i wish to clear her from a very dreadful suspicion." "which exists only in your mind?" "and in the mind of one other person." "may i ask who that person is?" "no, mr. dawson," answered robert, decisively; "i cannot reveal anything more than what i have already told you. i am a very irresolute, vacillating man in most things. in this matter i am compelled to be decided. i repeat once more that i must know the history of lucy graham's life. if you refuse to help me to the small extent in your power, i will find others who will help me. painful as it would become, i will ask my uncle for the information which you would withhold, rather than be baffled in the first step of my investigation." mr. dawson was silent for some minutes. "i cannot express how much you have astonished and alarmed me, mr. audley." he said. "i can tell you so little about lady audley's antecedents, that it would be mere obstinacy to withhold the small amount of information i possess. i have always considered your uncle's wife one of the most amiable of women. i cannot bring myself to think her otherwise. it would be an uprooting of one of the strongest convictions of my life were i compelled to think her otherwise. you wish to follow her life backward from the present hour to the year fifty-three?" "i do." "she was married to your uncle last june twelvemonth, in the midsummer of fifty-seven. she had lived in my house a little more than thirteen months. she became a member of my household upon the fourteenth of may, in the year fifty-six." "and she came to you�" "from a school at brompton, a school kept by a lady of the name of vincent. it was mrs. vincent's strong recommendation that induced me to receive miss graham into my family without any more special knowledge of her antecedents." "did you see this mrs. vincent?" "i did not. i advertised for a governess, and miss graham answered my advertisement. in her letter she referred me to mrs. vincent, the proprietress of a school in which she was then residing as junior teacher. my time is always so fully occupied, that i was glad to escape the necessity of a day's loss in going from audley to london to inquire about the young lady's qualifications. i looked for mrs. vincent's name in the directory, found it, and concluded that she was a responsible person, and wrote to her. her reply was perfectly satisfactory;�miss lucy graham was assiduous and conscientious; as well as fully qualified for the situation i offered. i accepted this reference, and i had no cause to regret what may have been an indiscretion. and now, mr. audley, i have told you all that i have the power to tell." "will you be so kind as to give me the address of this mrs. vincent?" asked robert, taking out his pocketbook. "certainly; she was then living at no. crescent villas, brompton." "ah, to be sure," muttered mr. audley, a recollection of last september flashing suddenly back upon him as the surgeon spoke. "crescent villas�yes, i have heard the address before from lady audley herself. this mrs. vincent telegraphed to my uncle's wife early in last september. she was ill�dying, i believe�and sent for my lady; but had removed from her old house and was not to be found." "indeed! i never heard lady audley mention the circumstance." "perhaps not. it occurred while i was down here. thank you, mr. dawson, for the information you have so kindly and honestly given me. it takes me back two and a-half years in the history of my lady's life; but i have still a blank of three years to fill up before i can exonerate her from my terrible suspicion. good evening." robert shook hands with the surgeon and returned to his uncle's room. he had been away about a quarter of an hour. sir michael had fallen asleep once more, and my lady's loving hands had lowered the heavy curtains and shaded the lamp by the bedside. alicia and her father's wife were taking tea in lady audley's boudoir, the room next to the antechamber in which robert and mr. dawson had been seated. lucy audley looked up from her occupation among the fragile china cups and watched robert rather anxiously as he walked softly to his uncle's room and back again to the boudoir. she looked very pretty and innocent, seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering silver. surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea. the most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her every glance. the floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with gunpowder and bohea. at the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable. what do men know of the mysterious beverage? read how poor hazlitt made his tea, and shudder at the dreadful barbarism. how clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of the tea-tray; how hopelessly they hold the kettle, how continually they imperil the frail cups and saucers, or the taper hands of the priestess. to do away with the tea-table is to rob woman of her legitimate empire. to send a couple of hulking men about among your visitors, distributing a mixture made in the housekeeper's room, is to reduce the most social and friendly of ceremonies to a formal giving out of rations. better the pretty influence of the tea cups and saucers gracefully wielded in a woman's hand than all the inappropriate power snatched at the point of the pen from the unwilling sterner sex. imagine all the women of england elevated to the high level of masculine intellectuality, superior to crinoline; above pearl powder and mrs. rachael levison; above taking the pains to be pretty; above tea-tables and that cruelly scandalous and rather satirical gossip which even strong men delight in; and what a drear, utilitarian, ugly life the sterner sex must lead. my lady was by no means strong-minded. the starry diamonds upon her white fingers flashed hither and thither among the tea-things, and she bent her pretty head over the marvelous indian tea-caddy of sandal-wood and silver, with as much earnestness as if life held no higher purpose than the infusion of bohea. "you'll take a cup of tea with us, mr. audley?" she asked, pausing with the teapot in her hand to look up at robert, who was standing near the door. "if you please." "but you have not dined, perhaps? shall i ring and tell them to bring you something a little more substantial than biscuits and transparent bread and butter?" "no, thank you, lady audley. i took some lunch before i left town. i'll trouble you for nothing but a cup of tea." he seated himself at the little table and looked across it at his cousin alicia, who sat with a book in her lap, and had the air of being very much absorbed by its pages. the bright brunette complexion had lost its glowing crimson, and the animation of the young lady's manner was suppressed�on account of her father's illness, no doubt, robert thought. "alicia, my dear," the barrister said, after a very leisurely contemplation of his cousin, "you're not looking well." miss audley shrugged her shoulders, but did not condescend to lift her eyes from her book. "perhaps not," she answered, contemptuously. "what does it matter? i'm growing a philosopher of your school, robert audley. what does it matter? who cares whether i am well or ill?" "what a spitfire she is," thought the barrister. he always knew his cousin was angry with him when she addressed him as "robert audley." "you needn't pitch into a fellow because he asks you a civil question, alicia," he said, reproachfully. "as to nobody caring about your health, that's nonsense. i care." miss audley looked up with a bright smile. "sir harry towers cares." miss audley returned to her book with a frown. "what are you reading there, alicia?" robert asked, after a pause, during which he had sat thoughtfully stirring his tea. "changes and chances." "a novel?" "yes." "who is it by?" "the author of follies and faults," answered alicia, still pursuing her study of the romance upon her lap. "is it interesting?" miss audley pursed up her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. "not particularly," she said. "then i think you might have better manners than to read it while your first cousin is sitting opposite you," observed mr. audley, with some gravity, "especially as he has only come to pay you a flying visit, and will be off to-morrow morning." "to-morrow morning!" exclaimed my lady, looking up suddenly. though the look of joy upon lady audley's face was as brief as a flash of lightning on a summer sky, it was not unperceived by robert. "yes," he said; "i shall be obliged to run up to london to-morrow on business, but i shall return the next day, if you will allow me, lady audley, and stay here till my uncle recovers." "but you are not seriously alarmed about him, are you?" asked my lady, anxiously. "you do not think him very ill?" "no," answered robert. "thank heaven, i think there is not the slightest cause for apprehension." my lady sat silent for a few moments, looking at the empty teacups with a prettily thoughtful face�a face grave with the innocent seriousness of a musing child. "but you were closeted such a long time with mr. dawson, just now," she said, after this brief pause. "i was quite alarmed at the length of your conversation. were you talking of sir michael all the time?" "no; not all the time?" my lady looked down at the teacups once more. "why, what could you find to say to mr. dawson, or he to say to you?" she asked, after another pause. "you are almost strangers to each other." "suppose mr. dawson wished to consult me about some law business." "was it that?" cried lady audley, eagerly. "it would be rather unprofessional to tell you if it were so, my lady," answered robert, gravely. my lady bit her lip, and relapsed into silence. alicia threw down her book, and watched her cousin's preoccupied face. he talked to her now and then for a few minutes, but it was evidently an effort to him to arouse himself from his revery. "upon my word, robert audley, you are a very agreeable companion," exclaimed alicia at length, her rather limited stock of patience quite exhausted by two or three of these abortive attempts at conversation. "perhaps the next time you come to the court you will be good enough to bring your mind with you. by your present inanimate appearance, i should imagine that you had left your intellect, such as it is, somewhere in the temple. you were never one of the liveliest of people, but latterly you have really grown almost unendurable. i suppose you are in love, mr. audley, and are thinking of the honored object of your affections." he was thinking of clara talboys' uplifted face, sublime in its unutterable grief; of her impassioned words still ringing in his ears as clearly as when they were first spoken. again he saw her looking at him with her bright brown eyes. again he heard that solemn question: "shall you or i find my brother's murderer?" and he was in essex; in the little village from which he firmly believed george talboys had never departed. he was on the spot at which all record of his friend's life ended as suddenly as a story ends when the reader shuts the book. and could he withdraw now from the investigation in which he found himself involved? could he stop now? for any consideration? no; a thousand times no! not with the image of that grief-stricken face imprinted on his mind. not with the accents of that earnest appeal ringing on his ear. chapter xxvi. so far and no farther. robert left audley the next morning by an early train, and reached shoreditch a little after nine o'clock. he did not return to his chambers, but called a cab and drove straight to crescent villas, west brompton. he knew that he should fail in finding the lady he went to seek at this address, as his uncle had failed a few months before, but he thought it possible to obtain some clew to the schoolmistress' new residence, in spite of sir michael's ill-success. "mrs. vincent was in a dying state, according to the telegraphic message," robert thought. "if i do find her, i shall at least succeed in discovering whether that message was genuine." he found crescent villas after some difficulty. the houses were large, but they lay half imbedded among the chaos of brick and rising mortar around them. new terraces, new streets, new squares led away into hopeless masses of stone and plaster on every side. the roads were sticky with damp clay, which clogged the wheels of the cab and buried the fetlocks of the horse. the desolations�that awful aspect of incompleteness and discomfort which pervades a new and unfinished neighborhood�had set its dismal seal upon the surrounding streets which had arisen about and intrenched crescent villas; and robert wasted forty minutes by his watch, and an hour and a quarter by the cabman's reckoning, in driving up and down uninhabited streets and terraces, trying to find the villas; whose chimney-tops were frowning down upon him black and venerable, amid groves of virgin plaster, undimmed by time or smoke. but having at last succeeded in reaching his destination, mr. audley alighted from the cab, directed the driver to wait for him at a certain corner, and set out upon his voyage of discovery. "if i were a distinguished q.c., i could not do this sort of thing," he thought; "my time would be worth a guinea or so a minute, and i should be retained in the great case of hoggs vs. boggs, going forward this very day before a special jury at westminster hall. as it is, i can afford to be patient." he inquired for mrs. vincent at the number which mr. dawson had given him. the maid who opened the door had never heard that lady's name; but after going to inquire of her mistress, she returned to tell robert that mrs. vincent had lived there, but that she had left two months before the present occupants had entered the house, "and missus has been here fifteen months," the girl added emphatically. "but you cannot tell where she went on leaving here?" robert asked, despondingly. "no, sir; missus says she believes the lady failed, and that she left sudden like, and didn't want her address to be known in the neighborhood." mr. audley felt himself at a standstill once more. if mrs. vincent had left the place in debt, she had no doubt scrupulously concealed her whereabouts. there was little hope, then, of learning her address from the tradespeople; and yet, on the other hand, it was just possible that some of her sharpest creditors might have made it their business to discover the defaulter's retreat. he looked about him for the nearest shops, and found a baker's, a stationer's, and a fruiterer's a few paces from the crescent. three empty-looking, pretentious shops, with plate-glass windows, and a hopeless air of gentility. he stopped at the baker's, who called himself a pastrycook and confectioner, and exhibited some specimens of petrified sponge-cake in glass bottles, and some highly-glazed tarts, covered with green gauze. "she must have bought bread," robert thought, as he deliberated before the baker's shop; "and she is likely to have bought it at the handiest place. i'll try the baker." the baker was standing behind his counter, disputing the items of a bill with a shabby-genteel young woman. he did not trouble himself to attend to robert audley until he had settled the dispute, but he looked up as he was receipting the bill, and asked the barrister what he pleased to want. "can you tell me the address of a mrs. vincent, who lived at no. crescent villas a year and a half ago?" mr. audley inquired, mildly. "no, i can't," answered the baker, growing very red in the face, and speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice; "and what's more, i wish i could. that lady owes me upward of eleven pound for bread, and it's rather more than i can afford to lose. if anybody can tell me where she lives, i shall be much obliged to 'em for so doing." robert audley shrugged his shoulders and wished the man good-morning. he felt that his discovery of the lady's whereabouts would involve more trouble than he had expected. he might have looked for mrs. vincent's name in the post-office directory, but he thought it scarcely likely that a lady who was on such uncomfortable terms with her creditors, would afford them so easy a means of ascertaining her residence. "if the baker can't find her, how should i find her?" he thought, despairingly. "if a resolute, sanguine, active and energetic creature, such as the baker, fail to achieve this business, how can a lymphatic wretch like me hope to accomplish it? where the baker has been defeated, what preposterous folly it would be for me to try to succeed." mr. audley abandoned himself to these gloomy reflections as he walked slowly back toward the corner at which he had left the cab. about half-way between the baker's shop and this corner he was arrested by hearing a woman's step close at his side, and a woman's voice asking him to stop. he turned and found himself face to face with the shabbily-dressed woman whom he had left settling her account with the baker. "eh, what?" he asked, vaguely. "can i do anything for you, ma'am? does mrs. vincent owe you money, too?" "yes, sir," the woman answered, with a semi-genteel manner which corresponded with the shabby gentility of her dress. "mrs. vincent is in my debt; but it isn't that, sir. i�i want to know, please, what your business may be with her�because�because�" "you can give me her address if you choose, ma'am. that's what you mean to say, isn't it?" the woman hesitated a little, looking rather suspiciously at robert. "you're not connected with�with the tally business, are you, sir?" she asked, after considering mr. audley's personal appearance for a few moments. "the what, ma'am?" asked the young barrister, staring aghast at his questioner. "i'm sure i beg your pardon, sir," exclaimed the little woman, seeing that she had made some awful mistake. "i thought you might have been, you know. some of the gentlemen who collect for the tally shops do dress so very handsome; and i know mrs. vincent owes a good deal of money." robert audley laid his hand upon the speaker's arm. "my dear madam," he said, "i want to know nothing of mrs. vincent's affairs. so far from being concerned in what you call the tally business, i have not the remotest idea what you mean by that expression. you may mean a political conspiracy; you may mean some new species of taxes. mrs. vincent does not owe me any money, however badly she may stand with that awful-looking baker. i never saw her in my life; but i wish to see her to-day for the simple purpose of asking her a few very plain questions about a young lady who once resided in her house. if you know where mrs. vincent lives and will give me her address, you will be doing me a great favor." he took out his card-case and handed a card to the woman, who examined the slip of pasteboard anxiously before she spoke again. "i'm sure you look and speak like a gentleman, sir," she said, after a brief pause, "and i hope you will excuse me if i've seemed mistrustful like; but poor mrs. vincent has had dreadful difficulties, and i'm the only person hereabouts that she's trusted with her addresses. i'm a dressmaker, sir, and i've worked for her for upward of six years, and though she doesn't pay me regular, you know, sir, she gives me a little money on account now and then, and i get on as well as i can. i may tell you where she lives, then, sir? you haven't deceived me, have you?" "on my honor, no." "well, then sir," said the dressmaker, dropping her voice as if she thought the pavement beneath her feet, or the iron railings before the houses by her side, might have ears to hear her, "it's acacia cottage, peckham grove. i took a dress there yesterday for mrs. vincent." "thank you," said robert, writing the address in his pocketbook. "i am very much obliged to you, and you may rely upon it, mrs. vincent shall not suffer any inconvenience through me." he lifted his hat, bowed to the little dressmaker, and turned back to the cab. "i have beaten the baker, at any rate," he thought. "now for the second stage, traveling backward, in my lady's life." the drive from brompton to the peckham road was a very long one, and between crescent villas and acacia cottage, robert audley had ample leisure for reflection. he thought of his uncle lying weak and ill in the oak-room at audley court. he thought of the beautiful blue eyes watching sir michael's slumbers; the soft, white hands tending on his waking moments; the low musical voice soothing his loneliness, cheering and consoling his declining years. what a pleasant picture it might have been, had he been able to look upon it ignorantly, seeing no more than others saw, looking no further than a stranger could look. but with the black cloud which he saw brooding over it, what an arch mockery, what a diabolical delusion it seemed. peckham grove�pleasant enough in the summer-time�has rather a dismal aspect upon a dull february day, when the trees are bare and leafless, and the little gardens desolate. acacia cottage bore small token of the fitness of its nomenclature, and faced the road with its stuccoed walls sheltered only by a couple of attenuated poplars. but it announced that it was acacia cottage by means of a small brass plate upon one of the gate-posts, which was sufficient indication for the sharp-sighted cabman, who dropped mr. audley upon the pavement before the little gate. acacia cottage was much lower in the social scale than crescent villas, and the small maid-servant who came to the low wooden gate and parleyed with mr. audley, was evidently well used to the encounter of relentless creditors across the same feeble barricade. she murmured the familiar domestic fiction of the uncertainty regarding her mistress's whereabouts; and told robert that if he would please to state his name and business, she would go and see if mrs. vincent was at home. mr. audley produced a card, and wrote in pencil under his own name: "a connection of the late miss graham." he directed the small servant to carry his card to her mistress, and quietly awaited the result. the servant returned in about five minutes with the key of the gate. her mistress was at home, she told robert as she admitted him, and would be happy to see the gentleman. the square parlor into which robert was ushered bore in every scrap of ornament, in every article of furniture, the unmistakable stamp of that species of poverty which is most comfortless because it is never stationary. the mechanic who furnishes his tiny sitting-room with half-a-dozen cane chairs, a pembroke table, a dutch clock, a tiny looking-glass, a crockery shepherd and shepherdess, and a set of gaudily-japanned iron tea-trays, makes the most of his limited possessions, and generally contrives to get some degree of comfort out of them; but the lady who loses the handsome furniture of the house she is compelled to abandon and encamps in some smaller habitation with the shabby remainder�bought in by some merciful friend at the sale of her effects�carries with her an aspect of genteel desolation and tawdry misery not easily to be paralleled in wretchedness by any other phase which poverty can assume. the room which robert audley surveyed was furnished with the shabbier scraps snatched from the ruin which had overtaken the imprudent schoolmistress in crescent villas. a cottage piano, a chiffonier, six sizes too large for the room, and dismally gorgeous in gilded moldings that were chipped and broken; a slim-legged card-table, placed in the post of honor, formed the principal pieces of furniture. a threadbare patch of brussels carpet covered the center of the room, and formed an oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert of shabby green drugget. knitted curtains shaded the windows, in which hung wire baskets of horrible-looking plants of the cactus species, that grew downward, like some demented class of vegetation, whose prickly and spider-like members had a fancy for standing on their heads. the green-baize covered card-table was adorned with gaudily-bound annuals or books of beauty, placed at right angles; but robert audley did not avail himself of these literary distractions. he seated himself upon one of the rickety chairs, and waited patiently for the advent of the schoolmistress. he could hear the hum of half-a-dozen voices in a room near him, and the jingling harmonies of a set of variations in deh conte, upon a piano, whose every wire was evidently in the last stage of attenuation. he had waited for about a quarter of an hour, when the door was opened, and a lady, very much dressed, and with the setting sunlight of faded beauty upon her face, entered the room. "mr. audley, i presume," she said, motioning to robert to reseat himself, and placing herself in an easy-chair opposite to him. "you will pardon me, i hope, for detaining you so long; my duties�" "it is i who should apologize for intruding upon you," robert answered, politely; "but my motive for calling upon you is a very serious one, and must plead my excuse. you remember the lady whose name i wrote upon my card?" "perfectly." "may i ask how much you know of that lady's history since her departure from your house?" "very little. in point of fact, scarcely anything at all. miss graham, i believe, obtained a situation in the family of a surgeon resident in essex. indeed, it was i who recommended her to that gentleman. i have never heard from her since she left me." "but you have communicated with her?" robert asked, eagerly. "no, indeed." mr. audley was silent for a few moments, the shadow of gloomy thoughts gathering darkly on his face. "may i ask if you sent a telegraphic dispatch to miss graham early in last september, stating that you were dangerously ill, and that you wished to see her?" mrs. vincent smiled at her visitor's question. "i had no occasion to send such a message," she said; "i have never been seriously ill in my life." robert audley paused before he asked any further questions, and scrawled a few penciled words in his note-book. "if i ask you a few straightforward questions about miss lucy graham, madam," he said. "will you do me the favor to answer them without asking my motive in making such inquiries?" "most certainly," replied mrs. vincent. "i know nothing to miss graham's disadvantage, and have no justification for making a mystery of the little i do know." "then will you tell me at what date the young lady first came to you?" mrs. vincent smiled and shook her head. she had a pretty smile�the frank smile of a woman who had been admired, and who has too long felt the certainty of being able to please, to be utterly subjugated by any worldly misfortune. "it's not the least use to ask me, mr. audley," she said. "i'm the most careless creature in the world; i never did, and never could remember dates, though i do all in my power to impress upon my girls how important it is for their future welfare that they should know when william the conqueror began to reign, and all that kind of thing. but i haven't the remotest idea when miss graham came to me, although i know it was ages ago, for it was the very summer i had my peach-colored silk. but we must consult tonks�tonks is sure to be right." robert audley wondered who or what tonks could be; a diary, perhaps, or a memorandum-book�some obscure rival of letsome. mrs. vincent rung the bell, which was answered by the maid-servant who had admitted robert. "ask miss tonks to come to me," she said. "i want to see her particularly." in less than five minutes miss tonks made her appearance. she was wintry and rather frost-bitten in aspect, and seemed to bring cold air in the scanty folds of her somber merino dress. she was no age in particular, and looked as if she had never been younger, and would never grow older, but would remain forever working backward and forward in her narrow groove, like some self-feeding machine for the instruction of young ladies. "tonks, my dear," said mrs. vincent, without ceremony, "this gentleman is a relative of miss graham's. do you remember how long it is since she came to us at crescent villas?" "she came in august, ," answered miss tonks; "i think it was the eighteenth of august, but i'm not quite sure that it wasn't the seventeenth. i know it was on a tuesday." "thank you, tonks; you are a most invaluable darling," exclaimed mrs. vincent, with her sweetest smile. it was, perhaps, because of the invaluable nature of miss tonks' services that she had received no remuneration whatever from her employer for the last three or four years. mrs. vincent might have hesitated to pay from very contempt for the pitiful nature of the stipend as compared with the merits of the teacher. "is there anything else that tonks or i can tell you, mr. audley?" asked the schoolmistress. "tonks has a far better memory than i have." "can you tell me where miss graham came from when she entered your household?" robert inquired. "not very precisely," answered mrs. vincent. "i have a vague notion that miss graham said something about coming from the seaside, but she didn't say where, or if she did i have forgotten it. tonks, did miss graham tell you where she came from?" "oh, no!" replied miss tonks, shaking her grim little head significantly. "miss graham told me nothing; she was too clever for that. she knows how to keep her own secrets, in spite of her innocent ways and her curly hair," miss tonks added, spitefully. "you think she had secrets?" robert asked, rather eagerly. "i know she had," replied miss tonks, with frosty decision; "all manner of secrets. i wouldn't have engaged such a person as junior teacher in a respectable school, without so much as one word of recommendation from any living creature." "you had no reference, then, from miss graham?" asked robert, addressing mrs. vincent. "no," the lady answered, with some little embarrassment; "i waived that. miss graham waived the question of salary; i could not do less than waive the question of reference. she quarreled with her papa, she told me, and she wanted to find a home away from all the people she had ever known. she wished to keep herself quite separate from these people. she had endured so much, she said, young as she was, and she wanted to escape from her troubles. how could i press her for a reference under these circumstances, especially when i saw that she was a perfect lady. you know that lucy graham was a perfect lady, tonks, and it is very unkind for you to say such cruel things about my taking her without a reference." "when people make favorites, they are apt to be deceived in them," miss tonks answered, with icy sententiousness, and with no very perceptible relevance to the point in discussion. "i never made her a favorite, you jealous tonks," mrs. vincent answered, reproachfully. "i never said she was as useful as you, dear. you know i never did." "oh, no!" replied miss tonks, with a chilling accent, "you never said she was useful. she was only ornamental; a person to be shown off to visitors, and to play fantasias on the drawing-room piano." "then you can give me no clew to miss graham's previous history?" robert asked, looking from the schoolmistress to her teacher. he saw very clearly that miss tonks bore an envious grudge against lucy graham�a grudge which even the lapse of time had not healed. "if this woman knows anything to my lady's detriment, she will tell it," he thought. "she will tell it only too willingly." but miss tonks appeared to know nothing whatever; except that miss graham had sometimes declared herself an ill-used creature, deceived by the baseness of mankind, and the victim of unmerited sufferings, in the way of poverty and deprivation. beyond this, miss tonks could tell nothing; and although she made the most of what she did know, robert soon sounded the depth of her small stock of information. "i have only one more question to ask," he said at last. "it is this: did miss graham leave any books or knick-knacks, or any other kind of property whatever, behind her, when she left your establishment?" "not to my knowledge," mrs. vincent replied. "yes," cried miss tonks, sharply. "she did leave something. she left a box. it's up-stairs in my room. i've got an old bonnet in it. would you like to see the box?" she asked, addressing robert. "if you will be so good as to allow me," he answered, "i should very much like to see it." "i'll fetch it down," said miss tonks. "it's not very big." she ran out of the room before mr. audley had time to utter any polite remonstrance. "how pitiless these women are to each other," he thought, while the teacher was absent. "this one knows intuitively that there is some danger to the other lurking beneath my questions. she sniffs the coming trouble to her fellow female creature, and rejoices in it, and would take any pains to help me. what a world it is, and how these women take life out of her hands. helen maldon, lady audley, clara talboys, and now miss tonks�all womankind from beginning to end." miss tonks re-entered while the young barrister was meditating upon the infamy of her sex. she carried a dilapidated paper-covered bonnet-box, which she submitted to robert's inspection. mr. audley knelt down to examine the scraps of railway labels and addresses which were pasted here and there upon the box. it had been battered upon a great many different lines of railway, and had evidently traveled considerably. many of the labels had been torn off, but fragments of some of them remained, and upon one yellow scrap of paper robert read the letters, turi. "the box has been to italy," he thought. "those are the first four letters of the word turin, and the label is a foreign one." the only direction which had not been either defaced or torn away was the last, which bore the name of miss graham, passenger to london. looking very closely at this label, mr. audley discovered that it had been pasted over another. "will you be so good as to let me have a little water and a piece of sponge?" he said. "i want to get off this upper label. believe me that i am justified in what i am doing." miss tonks ran out of the room and returned immediately with a basin of water and a sponge. "shall i take off the label?" she asked. "no, thank you," robert answered, coldly. "i can do it very well myself." he damped the upper label several times before he could loosen the edges of the paper; but after two or three careful attempts the moistened surface peeled off, without injury to the underneath address. miss tonks could not contrive to read this address across robert's shoulder, though she exhibited considerable dexterity in her endeavors to accomplish that object. mr. audley repeated his operations upon the lower label, which he removed from the box, and placed very carefully between two blank leaves of his pocket-book. "i need intrude upon you no longer, ladies," he said, when he had done this. "i am extremely obliged to you for having afforded me all the information in your power. i wish you good-morning." mrs. vincent smiled and bowed, murmuring some complacent conventionality about the delight she had felt in mr. audley's visit. miss tonks, more observant, stared at the white change, which had come over the young man's face since he had removed the upper label from the box. robert walked slowly away from acacia cottage. "if that which i have found to-day is no evidence for a jury," he thought, "it is surely enough to convince my uncle that he has married a designing and infamous woman." chapter xxvii. beginning at the other end. robert audley walked slowly through the leafless grove, under the bare and shadowless trees in the gray february atmosphere, thinking as he went of the discovery he had just made. "i have that in my pocket-book," he pondered, "which forms the connecting link between the woman whose death george talboys read of in the times newspaper and the woman who rules in my uncle's house. the history of lucy graham ends abruptly on the threshold of mrs. vincent's school. she entered that establishment in august, . the schoolmistress and her assistant can tell me this but they cannot tell me whence she came. they cannot give me one clew to the secrets of her life from the day of her birth until the day she entered that house. i can go no further in this backward investigation of my lady's antecedents. what am i to do, then, if i mean to keep my promise to clara talboys?" he walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind, with a darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face, and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down his heart. "my duty is clear enough," he thought�"not the less clear because it leads me step by step, carrying ruin and desolation with me, to the home i love. i must begin at the other end�i must begin at the other end, and discover the history of helen talboys from the hour of george's departure until the day of the funeral in the churchyard at ventnor." mr. audley hailed a passing hansom, and drove back to his chambers. he reached figtree court in time to write a few lines to miss talboys, and to post his letter at st. martin's-le-grand off before six o'clock. "it will save me a day," he thought, as he drove to the general post office with this brief epistle. he had written to clara talboys to inquire the name of the little seaport town in which george had met captain maldon and his daughter; for in spite of the intimacy between the two young men, robert audley knew very few particulars of his friend's brief married life. from the hour in which george talboys had read the announcement of his wife's death in the columns of the times, he had avoided all mention of the tender history which had been so cruelly broken, the familiar record which had been so darkly blotted out. there was so much that was painful in that brief story! there was such bitter self-reproach involved in the recollection of that desertion which must have seemed so cruel to her who waited and watched at home! robert audley comprehended this, and he did not wonder at his friend's silence. the sorrowful story had been tacitly avoided by both, and robert was as ignorant of the unhappy history of this one year in his schoolfellow's life as if they had never lived together in friendly companionship in those snug temple chambers. the letter, written to miss talboys by her brother george, within a month of his marriage, was dated harrowgate. it was at harrowgate, therefore, robert concluded, the young couple spent their honeymoon. robert audley had requested clara talboys to telegraph an answer to his question, in order to avoid the loss of a day in the accomplishment of the investigation he had promised to perform. the telegraphic answer reached figtree court before twelve o'clock the next day. the name of the seaport town was wildernsea, yorkshire. within an hour of the receipt of this message, mr. audley arrived at the king's-cross station, and took his ticket for wildernsea by an express train that started at a quarter before two. the shrieking engine bore him on the dreary northward journey, whirling him over desert wastes of flat meadow-land and bare cornfields, faintly tinted with fresh sprouting green. this northern road was strange and unfamiliar to the young barrister, and the wide expanse of the wintry landscape chilled him by its aspect of bare loneliness. the knowledge of the purpose of his journey blighted every object upon which his absent glances fixed themselves for a moment, only to wander wearily away; only to turn inward upon that far darker picture always presenting itself to his anxious mind. it was dark when the train reached the hull terminus, but mr. audley's journey was not ended. amidst a crowd of porters and scattered heaps of that incongruous and heterogeneous luggage with which travelers incumber themselves, he was led, bewildered and half asleep, to another train which was to convey him along the branch line that swept past wildernsea, and skirted the border of the german ocean. half an hour after leaving hull, robert felt the briny freshness of the sea upon the breeze that blew in at the open window of the carriage, and an hour afterward the train stopped at a melancholy station, built amid a sandy desert, and inhabited by two or three gloomy officials, one of whom rung a terrific peal upon a harshly clanging bell as the train approached. mr. audley was the only passenger who alighted at the dismal station. the train swept on to the gayer scenes before the barrister had time to collect his senses, or to pick up the portmanteau which had been discovered with some difficulty amid a black cavern of baggage only illuminated by one lantern. "i wonder whether settlers in the backwoods of america feel as solitary and strange as i feel to-night?" he thought, as he stared hopelessly about him in the darkness. he called to one of the officials, and pointed to his portmanteau. "will you carry that to the nearest hotel for me?" he asked�"that is to say, if i can get a good bed there." the man laughed as he shouldered the portmanteau. "you can get thirty beds, i dare say, sir, if you wanted 'em," he said. "we ain't over busy at wildernsea at this time o' year. this way, sir." the porter opened a wooden door in the station wall, and robert audley found himself upon a wide bowling-green of smooth grass, which surrounded a huge, square building, that loomed darkly on him through the winter's night, its black solidity only relieved by two lighted windows, far apart from each other, and glimmering redly like beacons on the darkness. "this is the victoria hotel, sir," said the porter. "you wouldn't believe the crowds of company we have down here in the summer." in the face of the bare grass-plat, the tenantless wooden alcoves, and the dark windows of the hotel, it was indeed rather difficult to imagine that the place was ever gay with merry people taking pleasure in the bright summer weather; but robert audley declared himself willing to believe anything the porter pleased to tell him, and followed his guide meekly to a little door at the side of the big hotel, which led into a comfortable bar, where the humbler classes of summer visitors were accommodated with such refreshments as they pleased to pay for, without running the gantlet of the prim, white-waistcoated waiters on guard at the principal entrance. but there were very few attendants retained at the hotel in the bleak february season, and it was the landlord himself who ushered robert into a dreary wilderness of polished mahogany tables and horsehair cushioned chairs, which he called the coffee-room. mr. audley seated himself close to the wide steel fender, and stretched his cramped legs upon the hearth-rug, while the landlord drove the poker into the vast pile of coal, and sent a ruddy blaze roaring upward through the chimney. "if you would prefer a private room, sir�" the man began. "no, thank you," said robert, indifferently; "this room seems quite private enough just now. if you will order me a mutton chop and a pint of sherry, i shall be obliged." "certainly, sir." "and i shall be still more obliged if you will favor me with a few minutes' conversation before you do so." "with very great pleasure, sir," the landlord answered, good-naturedly. "we see so very little company at this season of the year, that we are only too glad to oblige those gentlemen who do visit us. any information which i can afford you respecting the neighborhood of wildernsea and its attractions," added the landlord, unconsciously quoting a small hand-book of the watering-place which he sold in the bar, "i shall be most happy to�" "but i don't want to know anything about the neighborhood of wildernsea," interrupted robert, with a feeble protest against the landlord's volubility. "i want to ask you a few questions about some people who once lived here." the landlord bowed and smiled, with an air which implied his readiness to recite the biographies of all the inhabitants of the little seaport, if required by mr. audley to do so. "how many years have you lived here?" robert asked, taking his memorandum book from his pocket. "will it annoy you if i make notes of your replies to my questions?" "not at all, sir," replied the landlord, with a pompous enjoyment of the air of solemnity and importance which pervaded this business. "any information which i can afford that is likely to be of ultimate value�" "yes, thank you," robert murmured, interrupting the flow of words. "you have lived here�" "six years, sir." "since the year fifty-three?" "since november, in the year fifty-two, sir. i was in business at hull prior to that time. this house was only completed in the october before i entered it." "do you remember a lieutenant in the navy, on half-pay, i believe, at that time, called maldon?" "captain maldon, sir?" "yes, commonly called captain maldon. i see you do remember him." "yes, sir. captain maldon was one of our best customers. he used to spend his evenings in this very room, though the walls were damp at that time, and we weren't able to paper the place for nearly a twelvemonth afterward. his daughter married a young officer that came here with his regiment, at christmas time in fifty-two. they were married here, sir, and they traveled on the continent for six months, and came back here again. but the gentleman ran away to australia, and left the lady, a week or two after her baby was born. the business made quite a sensation in wildernsea, sir, and mrs.�mrs.�i forgot the name�" "mrs. talboys," suggested robert. "to be sure, sir, mrs. talboys. mrs. talboys was very much pitied by the wildernsea folks, sir, i was going to say, for she was very pretty, and had such nice winning ways that she was a favorite with everybody who knew her." "can you tell me how long mr. maldon and his daughter remained at wildernsea after mr. talboys left them?" robert asked. "well�no, sir," answered the landlord, after a few moments' deliberation. "i can't say exactly how long it was. i know mr. maldon used to sit here in this very parlor, and tell people how badly his daughter had been treated, and how he'd been deceived by a young man he'd put so much confidence in; but i can't say how long it was before he left wildernsea. but mrs. barkamb could tell you, sir," added the landlord, briskly. "mrs. barkamb." "yes, mrs. barkamb is the person who owns no. north cottages, the house in which mr. maldon and his daughter lived. she's a nice, civil spoken, motherly woman, sir, and i'm sure she'll tell you anything you may want to know." "thank you, i will call upon mrs. barkamb to-morrow. stay�one more question. should you recognize mrs. talboys if you were to see her?" "certainly, sir. as sure as i should recognize one of my own daughters." robert audley wrote mrs. barkamb's address in his pocket-book, ate his solitary dinner, drank a couple of glasses of sherry, smoked a cigar, and then retired to the apartment in which a fire had been lighted for his comfort. he soon fell asleep, worn out with the fatigue of hurrying from place to place during the last two days; but his slumber was not a heavy one, and he heard the disconsolate moaning of the wind upon the sandy wastes, and the long waves rolling in monotonously upon the flat shore. mingling with these dismal sounds, the melancholy thoughts engendered by his joyless journey repeated themselves in never-varying succession in the chaos of his slumbering brain, and made themselves into visions of things that never had been and never could be upon this earth, but which had some vague relation to real events remembered by the sleeper. in those troublesome dreams he saw audley court, rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of essex, standing bare and unprotected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea, whose waves seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the house he loved. as the hurrying waves rolled nearer and nearer to the stately mansion, the sleeper saw a pale, starry face looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, transformed into a mermaid, beckoning his uncle to destruction. beyond that rising sea great masses of cloud, blacker than the blackest ink, more dense than the darkest night, lowered upon the dreamer's eye; but as he looked at the dismal horizon the storm-clouds slowly parted, and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the hideous waves, which slowly, very slowly, receded, leaving the old mansion safe and firmly rooted on the shore. robert awoke with the memory of this dream in his mind, and a sensation of physical relief, as if some heavy weight, which had oppressed him all the night, had been lifted from his breast. he fell asleep again, and did not awake until the broad winter sunlight shone upon the window-blind, and the shrill voice of the chambermaid at his door announced that it was half-past eight o'clock. at a quarter-before ten he had left victoria hotel, and was making his way along the lonely platform in front of a row of shadowless houses that faced the sea. this row of hard, uncompromising, square-built habitations stretched away to the little harbor, in which two or three merchant vessels and a couple of colliers were anchored. beyond the harbor there loomed, gray and cold upon the wintry horizon, a dismal barrack, parted from the wildernsea houses by a narrow creek, spanned by an iron drawbridge. the scarlet coat of the sentinel who walked backward and forward between two cannons, placed at remote angles before the barrack wall, was the only scrap of color that relieved the neutral-tinted picture of the gray stone houses and the leaden sea. on one side of the harbor a long stone pier stretched out far away into the cruel loneliness of the sea, as if built for the especial accommodation of some modern timon, too misanthropical to be satisfied even with the solitude of wildernsea, and anxious to get still further away from his fellow-creatures. it was on that pier george talboys had first met his wife, under the blazing glory of a midsummer sky, and to the music of a braying band. it was there that the young cornet had first yielded to that sweet delusion, that fatal infatuation which had exercised so dark an influence upon his after-life. robert looked savagely at this solitary watering-place�the shabby seaport. "it is such a place as this," he thought, "that works a strong man's ruin. he comes here, heart whole and happy, with no better experience of women than is to be learned at a flower-show or in a ball-room; with no more familiar knowledge of the creature than he has of the far-away satellites or the remoter planets; with a vague notion that she is a whirling teetotum in pink or blue gauze, or a graceful automaton for the display of milliners' manufacture. he comes to some place of this kind, and the universe is suddenly narrowed into about half a dozen acres; the mighty scheme of creation is crushed into a bandbox. the far-away creatures whom he had seen floating about him, beautiful and indistinct, are brought under his very nose; and before he has time to recover his bewilderment, hey presto, the witchcraft has begun; the magic circle is drawn around him! the spells are at work, the whole formula of sorcery is in full play, and the victim is as powerless to escape as the marble-legged prince in the eastern story." ruminating in this wise, robert audley reached the house to which he had been directed as the residence of mrs. barkamb. he was admitted immediately by a prim, elderly servant, who ushered him into a sitting-room as prim and elderly-looking as herself. mrs. barkamb, a comfortable matron of about sixty years of age, was sitting in an arm-chair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate. an elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly sprinkled with gray, reposed in mrs. barkamb's lap. every object in the quiet sitting-room had an elderly aspect of simple comfort and precision, which is the evidence of outward repose. "i should like to live here," robert thought, "and watch the gray sea slowly rolling over the gray sand under the still, gray sky. i should like to live here, and tell the beads upon my rosary, and repent and rest." he seated himself in the arm-chair opposite mrs. barkamb, at that lady's invitation, and placed his hat upon the ground. the elderly terrier descended from his mistress' lap to bark at and otherwise take objection to this hat. "you were wishing, i suppose, sir, to take one�be quiet, dash�one of the cottages," suggested mrs. barkamb, whose mind ran in one narrow groove, and whose life during the last twenty years had been an unvarying round of house-letting. robert audley explained the purpose of his visit. "i come to ask one simple question," he said, in conclusion, "i wish to discover the exact date of mrs. talboys' departure from wildernsea. the proprietor of the victoria hotel informed me that you were the most likely person to afford me that information." mrs. barkamb deliberated for some moments. "i can give you the date of captain maldon's departure," she said, "for he left no. considerably in my debt, and i have the whole business in black and white; but with regard to mrs. talboys�" mrs. barkamb paused for a few moments before resuming. "you are aware that mrs. talboys left rather abruptly?" she asked. "i was not aware of that fact." "indeed! yes, she left abruptly, poor little woman! she tried to support herself after her husband's desertion by giving music lessons; she was a very brilliant pianist, and succeeded pretty well, i believe. but i suppose her father took her money from her, and spent it in public houses. however that might be, they had a very serious misunderstanding one night; and the next morning mrs. talboys left wildernsea, leaving her little boy, who was out at nurse in the neighborhood." "but you cannot tell me the date of her leaving?" "i'm afraid not," answered mrs. barkamb; "and yet, stay. captain maldon wrote to me upon the day his daughter left. he was in very great distress, poor old gentleman, and he always came to me in his troubles. if i could find that letter, it might be dated, you know�mightn't it, now?" mr. audley said that it was only probable the letter was dated. mrs. barkamb retired to a table in the window on which stood an old-fashioned mahogany desk, lined with green baize, and suffering from a plethora of documents, which oozed out of it in every direction. letters, receipts, bills, inventories and tax-papers were mingled in hopeless confusion; and among these mrs. barkamb set to work to search for captain maldon's letter. mr. audley waited very patiently, watching the gray clouds sailing across the gray sky, the gray vessels gliding past upon the gray sea. after about ten minutes' search, and a great deal of rustling, crackling, folding and unfolding of the papers, mrs. barkamb uttered an exclamation of triumph. "i've got the letter," she said; "and there's a note inside it from mrs. talboys." robert audley's pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out his hand to receive the papers. "the persons who stole helen maldon's love-letters from george's trunk in my chambers might have saved themselves the trouble," he thought. the letter from the old lieutenant was not long, but almost every other word was underscored. "my generous friend," the writer began�mr. maldon had tried the lady's generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house, rarely paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the broker's man�"i am in the depths of despair. my daughter has left me! you may imagine my feelings! we had a few words last night upon the subject of money matters, which subject has always been a disagreeable one between us, and on rising this morning i found i was deserted! the enclosed from helen was waiting for me on the parlor table. "yours in distraction and despair, "henry maldon. "north cottages, august th, ." the note from mrs. talboys was still more brief. it began abruptly thus: "i am weary of my life here, and wish, if i can, to find a new one. i go out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune. forgive me if i have been fretful, capricious, changeable. you should forgive me, for you know why i have been so. you know the secret which is the key to my life. "helen talboys." these lines were written in a hand that robert audley knew only too well. he sat for a long time pondering silently over the letter written by helen talboys. what was the meaning of those two last sentences�"you should forgive me, for you know why i have been so. you know the secret which is the key to my life?" he wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clew to the signification of these two sentences. he could remember nothing, nor could he imagine anything that would throw a light upon their meaning. the date of helen's departure, according to mr. maldon's letter, was the th of august, . miss tonks had declared that lucy graham entered the school at crescent villas upon the th or th of august in the same year. between the departure of helen talboys from the yorkshire watering-place and the arrival of lucy graham at the brompton school, not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed. this made a very small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence, perhaps; but it was a link, nevertheless, and it fitted neatly into its place. "did mr. maldon hear from his daughter after she had left wildernsea?" robert asked. "well, i believe he did hear from her," mrs. barkamb answered; "but i didn't see much of the old gentleman after that august. i was obliged to sell him up in november, poor fellow, for he owed me fifteen months' rent; and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that i could get him out of my place. we parted very good friends, in spite of my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman went to london with the child, who was scarcely a twelvemonth old." mrs. barkamb had nothing more to tell, and robert had no further questions to ask. he requested permission to retain the two letters written by the lieutenant and his daughter, and left the house with them in his pocket-book. he walked straight back to the hotel, where he called for a time-table. an express for london left wildernsea at a quarter past one. robert sent his portmanteau to the station, paid his bill, and walked up and down the stone terrace fronting the sea, waiting for the starting of the train. "i have traced the histories of lucy graham and helen talboys to a vanishing point," he thought; "my next business is to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in ventnor churchyard." chapter xxviii. hidden in the grave. upon his return from wildernsea, robert audley found a letter from his cousin alicia, awaiting him at his chambers. "papa is much better," the young lady wrote, "and is very anxious to have you at the court. for some inexplicable reason, my stepmother has taken it into her head that your presence is extremely desirable, and worries me with her frivolous questions about your movements. so pray come without delay, and set these people at rest. your affectionate cousin, a.a." "so my lady is anxious to know my movements," thought robert audley, as he sat brooding and smoking by his lonely fireside. "she is anxious; and she questions her step-daughter in that pretty, childlike manner which has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity. poor little creature; poor unhappy little golden-haired sinner; the battle between us seems terribly unfair. why doesn't she run away while there is still time? i have given her fair warning, i have shown her my cards, and worked openly enough in this business, heaven knows. why doesn't she run away?" he repeated this question again and again as he filled and emptied his meerschaum, surrounding himself with the blue vapor from his pipe until he looked like some modern magician seated in his laboratory. "why doesn't she run away? i would bring no needless shame upon that house, of all other houses upon this wide earth. i would only do my duty to my missing friend, and to that brave and generous man who has pledged his faith to a worthless woman. heaven knows i have no wish to punish. heaven knows i was never born to be the avenger of guilt or the persecutor of the guilty. i only wish to do my duty. i will give her one more warning, a full and fair one, and then�" his thoughts wandered away to that gloomy prospect in which he saw no gleam of brightness to relieve the dull, black obscurity that encompassed the future, shutting in his pathway on every side, and spreading a dense curtain around and about him, which hope was powerless to penetrate. he was forever haunted by the vision of his uncle's anguish, forever tortured by the thought of that ruin and desolation which, being brought about by his instrumentality, would seem in a manner his handiwork. but amid all, and through all, clara talboys, with an imperious gesture, beckoned him onward to her brother's unknown grave. "shall i go down to southampton," he thought, "and endeavor to discover the history of the woman who died at ventnor? shall i work underground, bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy, until i find my way to the thrice guilty principal? no! not till i have tried other means of discovering the truth. shall i go to that miserable old man, and charge him with his share in the shameful trick which i believe to have been played upon my poor friend? no; i will not torture that terror-stricken wretch as i tortured him a few weeks ago. i will go straight to that arch-conspirator, and will tear away the beautiful veil under which she hides her wickedness, and will wring from her the secret of my friend's fate, and banish her forever from the house which her presence has polluted." he started early the next morning for essex, and reached audley before eleven o'clock. early as it was, my lady was out. she had driven to chelmsford upon a shopping expedition with her step-daughter. she had several calls to make in the neighborhood of the town, and was not likely to return until dinner-time. sir michael's health was very much improved, and he would come down stairs in the afternoon. would mr. audley go to his uncle's room? no; robert had no wish to meet that generous kinsman. what could he say to him? how could he smooth the way to the trouble that was to come?�how soften the cruel blow of the great grief that was preparing for that noble and trusting heart? "if i could forgive her the wrong done to my friend," robert thought, "i should still abhor her for the misery her guilt must bring upon the man who has believed in her." he told his uncle's servant that he would stroll into the village, and return before dinner. he walked slowly away from the court, wandering across the meadows between his uncle's house and the village, purposeless and indifferent, with the great trouble and perplexity of his life stamped upon his face and reflected in his manner. "i will go into the churchyard," he thought, "and stare at the tombstones. there is nothing i can do that will make me more gloomy than i am." he was in those very meadows through which he had hurried from audley court to the station upon the september day in which george talboys had disappeared. he looked at the pathway by which he had gone upon that day, and remembered his unaccustomed hurry, and the vague feeling of terror which had taken possession of him immediately upon losing sight of his friend. "why did that unaccountable terror seize upon me," he thought. "why was it that i saw some strange mystery in my friend's disappearance? was it a monition, or a monomania? what if i am wrong after all? what if this chain of evidence which i have constructed link by link, is woven out of my own folly? what if this edifice of horror and suspicion is a mere collection of crotchets�the nervous fancies of a hypochondriacal bachelor? mr. harcourt talboys sees no meaning in the events out of which i have made myself a horrible mystery. i lay the separate links of the chain before him, and he cannot recognize their fitness. he is unable to put them together. oh, my god, if it should be in myself all this time that the misery lies; if�" he smiled bitterly, and shook his head. "i have the handwriting in my pocket-book which is the evidence of the conspiracy," he thought. "it remains for me to discover the darker half of my lady's secret." he avoided the village, still keeping to the meadows. the church lay a little way back from the straggling high street, and a rough wooden gate opened from the churchyard into a broad meadow, that was bordered by a running stream, and sloped down into a grassy valley dotted by groups of cattle. robert slowly ascended the narrow hillside pathway leading up to the gate in the churchyard. the quiet dullness of the lonely landscape harmonized with his own gloom. the solitary figure of an old man hobbling toward a stile at the further end of the wide meadow was the only human creature visible upon the area over which the young barrister looked. the smoke slowly ascending from the scattered houses in the long high street was the only evidence of human life. the slow progress of the hands of the old clock in the church steeple was the only token by which a traveler could perceive that a sluggish course of rustic life had not come to a full stop in the village of audley. yes, there was one other sign. as robert opened the gate of the churchyard, and strolled listessly into the little inclosure, he became aware of the solemn music of an organ, audible through a half-open window in the steeple. he stopped and listened to the slow harmonies of a dreamy melody that sounded like an extempore composition of an accomplished player. "who would have believed that audley church could boast such an organ?" thought robert. "when last i was here, the national schoolmaster used to accompany his children by a primitive performance of common chords. i didn't think the old organ had such music in it." he lingered at the gate, not caring to break the lazy spell woven about him by the monotonous melancholy of the organist's performance. the tones of the instrument, now swelling to their fullest power, now sinking to a low, whispering softness, floated toward him upon the misty winter atmosphere, and had a soothing influence, that seemed to comfort him in his trouble. he closed the gate softly, and crossed the little patch of gravel before the door of the church. the door had been left ajar�by the organist, perhaps. robert audley pushed it open, and walked into the square porch, from which a flight of narrow stone steps wound upward to the organ-loft and the belfry. mr. audley took off his hat, and opened the door between the porch and the body of the church. he stepped softly into the holy edifice, which had a damp, moldy smell upon week-days. he walked down the narrow aisle to the altar-rails, and from that point of observation took a survey of the church. the little gallery was exactly opposite to him, but the scanty green curtains before the organ were closely drawn, and he could not get a glimpse of the player. the music still rolled on. the organist had wandered into a melody of mendelssohn's, a strain whose dreamy sadness went straight to robert's heart. he loitered in the nooks and corners of the church, examining the dilapidated memorials of the well-nigh forgotten dead, and listening to the music. "if my poor friend, george talboys, had died in my arms, and i had buried him in this quiet church, in one corner of the vaults over which i tread to-day, how much anguish of mind, vacillation and torment i might have escaped," thought robert audley, as he read the faded inscriptions upon tablets of discolored marble; "i should have known his fate�i should have known his fate! ah, how much there would have been in that. it is this miserable uncertainty, this horrible suspicion which has poisoned my very life." he looked at his watch. "half-past one," he muttered. "i shall have to wait four or five dreary hours before my lady comes home from her morning calls�her pretty visits of ceremony or friendliness. good heaven! what an actress this woman is. what an arch trickster�what an all-accomplished deceiver. but she shall play her pretty comedy no longer under my uncle's roof. i have diplomatized long enough. she has refused to accept an indirect warning. to-night i will speak plainly." the music of the organ ceased, and robert heard the closing of the instrument. "i'll have a look at this new organist," he thought, "who can afford to bury his talents at audley, and play mendelssohn's finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year." he lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. in the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, mr. audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. he therefore freely indulged his curiosity about the new organist. the first person who appeared upon the steep stone steps was a boy in corduroy trousers and a dark linen smock-frock, who shambled down the stairs with a good deal of unnecessary clatter of his hobnailed shoes, and who was red in the face from the exertion of blowing the bellows of the old organ. close behind this boy came a young lady, very plainly dressed in a black silk gown and a large gray shawl, who started and turned pale at sight of mr. audley. this young lady was clara talboys. of all people in the world she was the last whom robert either expected or wished to see. she had told him that she was going to pay a visit to some friends who lived in essex; but the county is a wide one, and the village of audley one of the most obscure and least frequented spots in the whole of its extent. that the sister of his lost friend should be here�here where she could watch his every action, and from those actions deduce the secret workings of his mind, tracing his doubts home to their object, made a complication of his difficulties that he could never have anticipated. it brought him back to that consciousness of his own helplessness, in which he had exclaimed: "a hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward on the dark road that leads to my lost friend's unknown grave." clara talboys was the first to speak. "you are surprised to see me here, mr. audley," she said. "very much surprised." "i told you that i was coming to essex. i left home day before yesterday. i was leaving home when i received your telegraphic message. the friend with whom i am staying is mrs. martyn, the wife of the new rector of mount stanning. i came down this morning to see the village and church, and as mrs. martyn had to pay a visit to the school with the curate and his wife, i stopped here and amused myself by trying the old organ. i was not aware till i came here that there was a village called audley. the place takes its name from your family, i suppose?" "i believe so," robert answered, wondering at the lady's calmness, in contradistinction to his own embarrassment. "i have a vague recollection of hearing the story of some ancestor who was called audley of audley in the reign of edward the fourth. the tomb inside the rails near the altar belongs to one of the knights of audley, but i have never taken the trouble to remember his achievements. are you going to wait here for your friends, miss talboys?" "yes; they are to return here for me after they have finished their rounds." "and you go back to mount stanning with them this afternoon?" "yes." robert stood with his hat in his hand, looking absently out at the tombstones and the low wall of the church yard. clara talboys watched his pale face, haggard under the deepening shadow that had rested upon it so long. "you have been ill since i saw you last, mr. audley," she said, in a low voice, that had the same melodious sadness as the notes of the old organ under her touch. "no, i have not been ill; i have been only harassed, wearied by a hundred doubts and perplexities." he was thinking as he spoke to her: "how much does she guess? how much does she suspect?" he had told the story of george's disappearance and of his own suspicions, suppressing only the names of those concerned in the mystery; but what if this girl should fathom this slender disguise, and discover for herself that which he had chosen to withhold. her grave eyes were fixed upon his face, and he knew that she was trying to read the innermost secrets of his mind. "what am i in her hands?" he thought. "what am i in the hands of this woman, who has my lost friend's face and the manner of pallas athene. she reads my pitiful, vacillating soul, and plucks the thoughts out of my heart with the magic of her solemn brown eyes. how unequal the fight must be between us, and how can i ever hope to conquer against the strength of her beauty and her wisdom?" mr. audley was clearing his throat preparatory to bidding his beautiful companion good-morning, and making his escape from the thraldom of her presence into the lonely meadow outside the churchyard, when clara talboys arrested him by speaking upon that very subject which he was most anxious to avoid. "you promised to write to me, mr. audley," she said, "if you made any discovery which carried you nearer to the mystery of my brother's disappearance. you have not written to me, and i imagine, therefore, that you have discovered nothing." robert audley was silent for some moments. how could he answer this direct question? "the chain of circumstantial evidence which unites the mystery of your brother's fate with the person whom i suspect," he said, after a pause, "is formed of very slight links. i think that i have added another link to that chain since i saw you in dorsetshire." "and you refuse to tell me what it is that you have discovered?" "only until i have discovered more." "i thought from your message that you were going to wildernsea." "i have been there." "indeed! it was there that you made some discovery, then?" "it was," answered robert. "you must remember, miss talboys that the sole ground upon which my suspicions rest is the identity of two individuals who have no apparent connection�the identity of a person who is supposed to be dead with one who is living. the conspiracy of which i believe your brother to have been the victim hinges upon this. if his wife, helen talboys, died when the papers recorded her death�if the woman who lies buried in ventnor churchyard was indeed the woman whose name is inscribed on the headstone of the grave�i have no case, i have no clew to the mystery of your brother's fate. i am about to put this to the test. i believe that i am now in a position to play a bold game, and i believe that i shall soon arrive at the truth." he spoke in a low voice, and with a solemn emphasis that betrayed the intensity of his feeling. miss talboys stretched out her ungloved hand, and laid it in his own. the cold touch of that slender hand sent a shivering thrill through his frame. "you will not suffer my brother's fate to remain a mystery, mr. audley," she said, quietly. "i know that you will do your duty to your friend." the rector's wife and her two companions entered the churchyard as clara talboys said this. robert audley pressed the hand that rested in his own, and raised it to his lips. "i am a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, miss talboys," he said; "but if i could restore your brother george to life and happiness, i should care very little for any sacrifice of my own feeling, fear that the most i can do is to fathom the secret of his fate and in doing that i must sacrifice those who are dearer to me than myself." he put on his hat, and hurried through the gateway leading into the field as mrs. martyn came up to the porch. "who is that handsome young man i caught tête-a-tête with you, clara?" she asked, laughing. "he is a mr. audley, a friend of my poor brother's." "indeed! he is some relation of sir michael audley, i suppose?" "sir michael audley!" "yes, my dear; the most important personage in the parish of audley. but we'll call at the court in a day or two, and you shall see the baronet and his pretty young wife." "his young wife!" replied clara talboys, looking earnestly at her friend. "has sir michael audley lately married, then?" "yes. he was a widower for sixteen years, and married a penniless young governess about a year and a half ago. the story is quite romantic, and lady audley is considered the belle of the county. but come, my dear clara, the pony is tired of waiting for us, and we've a long drive before dinner." clara talboys took her seat in the little basket-carriage which was waiting at the principal gate of the churchyard, in the care of the boy who had blown the organ-bellows. mrs. martyn shook the reins, and the sturdy chestnut cob trotted off in the direction of mount stanning. "will you tell me more about this lady audley, fanny?" miss talboys said, after a long pause. "i want to know all about her. have you heard her maiden name?" "yes; she was a miss graham." "and she is very pretty?" "yes, very, very pretty. rather a childish beauty though, with large, clear blue eyes, and pale golden ringlets, that fall in a feathery shower over her throat and shoulders." clara talboys was silent. she did not ask any further questions about my lady. she was thinking of a passage in that letter which george had written to her during his honeymoon�a passage in which he said: "my childish little wife is watching me as i write this�ah! how i wish you could see her, clara! her eyes are as blue and as clear as the skies on a bright summer's day, and her hair falls about her face like the pale golden halo you see round the head of a madonna in an italian picture." chapter xxix. in the lime-walk. robert audley was loitering upon the broad grass-plat in front of the court as the carriage containing my lady and alicia drove under the archway, and drew up at the low turret-door. mr. audley presented himself in time to hand the ladies out of the vehicle. my lady looked very pretty in a delicate blue bonnet and the sables which her nephew had bought for her at st. petersburg. she seemed very well pleased to see robert, and smiled most bewitchingly as she gave him her exquisitely gloved little hand. "so you have come back to us, truant?" she said, laughing. "and now that you have returned, we shall keep you prisoner. we won't let him run away again, will we, alicia?" miss audley gave her head a scornful toss that shook the heavy curls under her cavalier hat. "i have nothing to do with the movements of so erratic an individual," she said. "since robert audley has taken it into his head to conduct himself like some ghost-haunted hero in a german story, i have given up attempting to understand him." mr. audley looked at his cousin with an expression of serio-comic perplexity. "she's a nice girl," he thought, "but she's a nuisance. i don't know how it is, but she seems more a nuisance than she used to be." he pulled his mustaches reflectively as he considered this question. his mind wandered away for a few moments from the great trouble of his life to dwell upon this minor perplexity. "she's a dear girl," he thought; "a generous-hearted, bouncing, noble english lassie; and yet�" he lost himself in a quagmire of doubt and difficulty. there was some hitch in his mind which he could not understand; some change in himself, beyond the change made in him by his anxiety about george talboys, which mystified and bewildered him. "and pray where have you been wandering during the last day or two, mr. audley?" asked my lady, as she lingered with her step-daughter upon the threshold of the turret-door, waiting until robert should be pleased to stand aside and allow them to pass. the young man started as she asked this question and looked up at her suddenly. something in the aspect of her bright young beauty, something in the childish innocence of her expression, seemed to smite him to the heart, and his face grew ghastly pale as he looked at her. "i have been�in yorkshire," he said; "at the little watering place where my poor friend george talboys lived at the time of his marriage." the white change in my lady's face was the only sign of her having heard these words. she smiled, a faint, sickly smile, and tried to pass her husband's nephew. "i must dress for dinner," she said. "i am going to a dinner-party, mr. audley; please let me go in." "i must ask you to spare me half an hour, lady audley," robert answered, in a low voice. "i came down to essex on purpose to speak to you." "what about?" asked my lady. she had recovered herself from any shock which she might have sustained a few moments before, and it was in her usual manner that she asked this question. her face expressed the mingled bewilderment and curiosity of a puzzled child, rather than the serious surprise of a woman. "what can you want to talk to me about, mr. audley?" she repeated. "i will tell you when we are alone," robert said, glancing at his cousin, who stood a little way behind my lady, watching this confidential little dialogue. "he is in love with my step-mother's wax-doll beauty," thought alicia, "and it is for her sake he has become such a disconsolate object. he's just the sort of person to fall in love with his aunt." miss audley walked away to the grass-plat, turning her back upon robert and my lady. "the absurd creature turned as white as a sheet when he saw her," she thought. "so he can be in love, after all. that slow lump of torpidity he calls his heart can beat, i suppose, once in a quarter of a century; but it seems that nothing but a blue-eyed wax-doll can set it going. i should have given him up long ago if i'd known that his idea of beauty was to be found in a toy-shop." poor alicia crossed the grass-plat and disappeared upon the opposite side of the quadrangle, where there was a gothic gate that communicated with the stables. i am sorry to say that sir michael audley's daughter went to seek consolation from her dog caesar and her chestnut mare atalanta, whose loose box the young lady was in the habit of visiting every day. "will you come into the lime-walk, lady audley?" said robert, as his cousin left the garden. "i wish to talk to you without fear of interruption or observation. i think we could choose no safer place than that. will you come there with me?" "if you please," answered my lady. mr. audley could see that she was trembling, and that she glanced from side to side as if looking for some outlet by which she might escape him. "you are shivering, lady audley," he said. "yes, i am very cold. i would rather speak to you some other day, please. let it be to-morrow, if you will. i have to dress for dinner, and i want to see sir michael; i have not seen him since ten o'clock this morning. please let it be to-morrow." there was a painful piteousness in her tone. heaven knows how painful to robert's heart. heaven knows what horrible images arose in his mind as he looked down at that fair young face and thought of the task that lay before him. "i must speak to you, lady audley," he said. "if i am cruel, it is you who have made me cruel. you might have escaped this ordeal. you might have avoided me. i gave you fair warning. but you have chosen to defy me, and it is your own folly which is to blame if i no longer spare you. come with me. i tell you again i must speak to you." there was a cold determination in his tone which silenced my lady's objections. she followed him submissively to the little iron gate which communicated with the long garden behind the house�the garden in which a little rustic wooden bridge led across the quiet fish-pond into the lime-walk. the early winter twilight was closing in, and the intricate tracery of the leafless branches that overarched the lonely pathway looked black against the cold gray of the evening sky. the lime-walk seemed like some cloister in this uncertain light. "why do you bring me to this horrible place to frighten me out of my poor wits?" cried my lady, peevishly. "you ought to know how nervous i am." "you are nervous, my lady?" "yes, dreadfully nervous. i am worth a fortune to poor mr. dawson. he is always sending me camphor, and sal volatile, and red lavender, and all kinds of abominable mixtures, but he can't cure me." "do you remember what macbeth tells his physician, my lady?" asked robert, gravely. "mr. dawson may be very much more clever than the scottish leech, but i doubt if even he can minister to the mind that is diseased." "who said that my mind was diseased?" exclaimed lady audley. "i say so, my lady," answered robert. "you tell me that you are nervous, and that all the medicines your doctor can prescribe are only so much physic that might as well be thrown to the dogs. let me be the physician to strike to the root of your malady, lady audley. heaven knows that i wish to be merciful�that i would spare you as far as it is in my power to spare you in doing justice to others�but justice must be done. shall i tell you why you are nervous in this house, my lady?" "if you can," she answered, with a little laugh. "because for you this house is haunted." "haunted?" "yes, haunted by the ghost of george talboys." robert audley heard my lady's quickened breathing, he fancied he could almost hear the loud beating of her heart as she walked by his side, shivering now and then, and with her sable cloak wrapped tightly around her. "what do you mean?" she cried suddenly, after a pause of some moments. "why do you torment me about this george talboys, who happens to have taken it into his head to keep out of your way for a few months? are you going mad, mr. audley, and do you select me as the victim of your monomania? what is george talboys to me that you should worry me about him?" "he was a stranger to you, my lady, was he not?" "of course!" answered lady audley. "what should he be but a stranger?" "shall i tell you the story of my friend's disappearance as i read that story, my lady?" asked robert. "no," cried lady audley; "i wish to know nothing of your friend. if he is dead, i am sorry for him. if he lives, i have no wish either to see him or to hear of him. let me go in to see my husband, if you please, mr. audley, unless you wish to detain me in this gloomy place until i catch my death of cold." "i wish to detain you until you have heard what i have to say, lady audley," answered robert, resolutely. "i will detain you no longer than is necessary, and when you have heard me you shall take your own course of action." "very well, then; pray lose no time in saying what you have to say," replied my lady, carelessly. "i promise you to attend very patiently." "when my friend, george talboys, returned to england," robert began, gravely, "the thought which was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife." "whom he had deserted," said my lady, quickly. "at least," she added, more deliberately, "i remember your telling us something to that effect when you first told us your friend's story." robert audley did not notice this observation. "the thought that was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife," he repeated. "his fairest hope in the future was the hope of making her happy, and lavishing upon her the pittance which he had won by the force of his own strong arm in the gold-fields of australia. i saw him within a few hours of his reaching england, and i was a witness to the joyful pride with which he looked forward to his re-union with his wife. i was also a witness to the blow which struck him to the very heart�which changed him from the man he had been to a creature as unlike that former self as one human being can be unlike another. the blow which made that cruel change was the announcement of his wife's death in the times newspaper. i now believe that that announcement was a black and bitter lie." "indeed!" said my lady; "and what reason could any one have for announcing the death of mrs. talboys, if mrs. talboys had been alive?" "the lady herself might have had a reason," robert answered, quietly. "what reason?" "how if she had taken advantage of george's absence to win a richer husband? how if she had married again, and wished to throw my poor friend off the scent by this false announcement?" lady audley shrugged her shoulders. "your suppositions are rather ridiculous, mr. audley," she said; "it is to be hoped that you have some reasonable grounds for them." "i have examined a file of each of the newspapers published in chelmsford and colchester," continued robert, without replying to my lady's last observation, "and i find in one of the colchester papers, dated july the d, , a brief paragraph among numerous miscellaneous scraps of information copied from other newspapers, to the effect that a mr. george talboys, an english gentleman, had arrived at sydney from the gold-fields, carrying with him nuggets and gold-dust to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, and that he had realized his property and sailed for liverpool in the fast-sailing clipper argus. this is a very small fact, of course, lady audley, but it is enough to prove that any person residing in essex in the july of the year fifty-seven, was likely to become aware of george talboys' return from australia. do you follow me?" "not very clearly," said my lady. "what have the essex papers to do with the death of mrs. talboys?" "we will come to that by-and-by, lady audley. i say that i believe the announcement in the times to have been a false announcement, and a part of the conspiracy which was carried out by helen talboys and lieutenant maldon against my poor friend." "a conspiracy!" "yes, a conspiracy concocted by an artful woman, who had speculated upon the chances of her husband's death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime; a bold woman, my lady, who thought to play her comedy out to the end without fear of detection; a wicked woman, who did not care what misery she might inflict upon the honest heart of the man she betrayed; but a foolish woman, who looked at life as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to hold the winning cards, forgetting that there is a providence above the pitiful speculators, and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long hidden. if this woman of whom i speak had never been guilty of any blacker sin than the publication of that lying announcement in the times newspaper, i should still hold her as the most detestable and despicable of her sex�the most pitiless and calculating of human creatures. that cruel lie was a base and cowardly blow in the dark; it was the treacherous dagger-thrust of an infamous assassin." "but how do you know that the announcement was a false one?" asked my lady. "you told us that you had been to ventnor with mr. talboys to see his wife's grave. who was it who died at ventnor if it was not mrs. talboys?" "ah, lady audley," said robert, "that is a question which only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. i tell you, my lady, that i am determined to unravel the mystery of george talboy's death. do you think i am to be put off by feminine prevarication�by womanly trickery? no! link by link i have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. do you think i will suffer myself to be baffled? do you think i shall fail to discover those missing links? no, lady audley, i shall not fail, for i know where to look for them! there is a fair-haired woman at southampton�a woman called plowson, who has some share in the secrets of the father of my friend's wife. i have an idea that she can help me to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in ventnor churchyard, and i will spare no trouble in making that discovery, unless�" "unless what?" asked my lady, eagerly. "unless the woman i wish to save from degradation and punishment accepts the mercy i offer her, and takes warning while there is still time." my lady shrugged her graceful shoulders, and flashed bright defiance out of her blue eyes. "she would be a very foolish woman if she suffered herself to be influenced by any such absurdity," she said. "you are hypochondriacal, mr. audley, and you must take camphor, or red lavender, or sal volatile. what can be more ridiculous than this idea which you have taken into your head? you lose your friend george talboys in rather a mysterious manner�that is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave england without giving you due notice. what of that? you confess that he became an altered man after his wife's death. he grew eccentric and misanthropical; he affected an utter indifference as to what became of him. what more likely, then, than that he grew tired of the monotony of civilized life, and ran away to those savage gold-fields to find a distraction for his grief? it is rather a romantic story, but by no means an uncommon one. but you are not satisfied with this simple interpretation of your friend's disappearance, and you build up some absurd theory of a conspiracy which has no existence except in your own overheated brain. helen talboys is dead. the times newspaper declares she is dead. her own father tells you that she is dead. the headstone of the grave in ventnor churchyard bears record of her death. by what right," cried my lady, her voice rising to that shrill and piercing tone peculiar to her when affected by any intense agitation�"by what right, mr. audley, do you come to me, and torment me about george talboys�by what right do you dare to say that his wife is still alive?" "by the right of circumstantial evidence, lady audley," answered robert�"by the right of that circumstantial evidence which will sometimes fix the guilt of a man's murder upon that person who, on the first hearing of the case, seems of all other men the most unlikely to be guilty." "what circumstantial evidence?" "the evidence of time and place. the evidence of handwriting. when helen talboys left her father's at wildernsea, she left a letter behind her�a letter in which she declared that she was weary of her old life, and that she wished to seek a new home and a new fortune. that letter is in my possession." "indeed." "shall i tell you whose handwriting resembles that of helen talboys so closely, that the most dexterous expert could perceive no distinction between the two?" "a resemblance between the handwriting of two women is no very uncommon circumstance now-a-days," replied my lady carelessly. "i could show you the caligraphies of half-a-dozen female correspondents, and defy you to discover any great difference in them." "but what if the handwriting is a very uncommon one, presenting marked peculiarities by which it may be recognized among a hundred?" "why, in that case the coincidence is rather curious," answered my lady; "but it is nothing more than a coincidence. you cannot deny the fact of helen talboys death on the ground that her handwriting resembles that of some surviving person." "but if a series of such coincidences lead up to the same point," said robert. "helen talboys left her father's house, according to the declaration in her own handwriting, because she was weary of her old life, and wished to begin a new one. do you know what i infer from this?" my lady shrugged her shoulders. "i have not the least idea," she said; "and as you have detained me in this gloomy place nearly half-an-hour, i must beg that you will release me, and let me go and dress for dinner." "no, lady audley," answered robert, with a cold sternness that was so strange to him as to transform him into another creature�a pitiless embodiment of justice, a cruel instrument of retribution�"no, lady audley," he repeated, "i have told you that womanly prevarication will not help you; i tell you now that defiance will not serve you. i have dealt fairly with you, and have given you fair warning. i gave you indirect notice of your danger two months ago." "what do you mean?" asked my lady, suddenly. "you did not choose to take that warning, lady audley," pursued robert, "and the time has come in which i must speak very plainly to you. do you think the gifts which you have played against fortune are to hold you exempt from retribution? no, my lady, your youth and beauty, your grace and refinement, only make the horrible secret of your life more horrible. i tell you that the evidence against you wants only one link to be strong enough for your condemnation, and that link shall be added. helen talboys never returned to her father's house. when she deserted that poor old father, she went away from his humble shelter with the declared intention of washing her hands of that old life. what do people generally do when they wish to begin a new existence�to start for a second time in the race of life, free from the incumbrances that had fettered their first journey. they change their names, lady audley. helen talboys deserted her infant son�she went away from wildernsea with the predetermination of sinking her identity. she disappeared as helen talboys upon the th of august, , and upon the th of that month she reappeared as lucy graham, the friendless girl who undertook a profitless duty in consideration of a home in which she was asked no questions." "you are mad, mr. audley!" cried my lady. "you are mad, and my husband shall protect me from your insolence. what if this helen talboys ran away from her home upon one day, and i entered my employer's house upon the next, what does that prove?" "by itself, very little," replied robert audley; "but with the help of other evidence�" "what evidence?" "the evidence of two labels, pasted one over the other, upon a box left by you in possession of mrs. vincent, the upper label bearing the name of miss graham, the lower that of mrs. george talboys." my lady was silent. robert audley could not see her face in the dusk, but he could see that her two small hands were clasped convulsively over her heart, and he knew that the shot had gone home to its mark. "god help her, poor, wretched creature," he thought. "she knows now that she is lost. i wonder if the judges of the land feel as i do now when they put on the black cap and pass sentence of death upon some poor, shivering wretch, who has never done them any wrong. do they feel a heroic fervor of virtuous indignation, or do they suffer this dull anguish which gnaws my vitals as i talk to this helpless woman?" he walked by my lady's side, silently, for some minutes. they had been pacing up and down the dim avenue, and they were now drawing near the leafless shrubbery at one end of the lime-walk�the shrubbery in which the ruined well sheltered its unheeded decay among the tangled masses of briery underwood. a winding pathway, neglected and half-choked with weeds, led toward this well. robert left the lime-walk, and struck into this pathway. there was more light in the shrubbery than in the avenue, and mr. audley wished to see my lady's face. he did not speak until they reached the patch of rank grass beside the well. the massive brickwork had fallen away here and there, and loose fragments of masonry lay buried amidst weeds and briars. the heavy posts which had supported the wooden roller still remained, but the iron spindle had been dragged from its socket and lay a few paces from the well, rusty, discolored, and forgotten. robert audley leaned against one of the moss-grown posts and looked down at my lady's face, very pale in the chill winter twilight. the moon had newly risen, a feebly luminous crescent in the gray heavens, and a faint, ghostly light mingled with the misty shadows of the declining day. my lady's face seemed like that face which robert audley had seen in his dreams looking out of the white foam-flakes on the green sea waves and luring his uncle to destruction. "those two labels are in my possession, lady audley," he resumed. "i took them from the box left by you at crescent villas. i took them in the presence of mrs. vincent and miss tonks. have you any proofs to offer against this evidence? you say to me, 'i am lucy graham and i have nothing whatever to do with helen talboys.' in that case you will produce witnesses who will declare your antecedents. where had you been living prior to your appearance at crescent villas? you must have friends, relations, connections, who can come forward to prove as much as this for you? if you were the most desolate creature upon this earth, you would be able to point to someone who could identify you with the past." "yes," cried my lady, "if i were placed in a criminal dock i could, no doubt, bring forward witnesses to refute your absurd accusation. but i am not in a criminal dock, mr. audley, and i do not choose to do anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly. i tell you that you are mad! if you please to say that helen talboys is not dead, and that i am helen talboys, you may do so. if you choose to go wandering about in the places in which i have lived, and to the places in which this mrs. talboys has lived, you must follow the bent of your own inclination, but i would warn you that such fancies have sometimes conducted people, as apparently sane as yourself, to the life-long imprisonment of a private lunatic-asylum." robert audley started and recoiled a few paces among the weeds and brushwood as my lady said this. "she would be capable of any new crime to shield her from the consequences of the old one," he thought. "she would be capable of using her influence with my uncle to place me in a mad-house." i do not say that robert audley was a coward, but i will admit that a shiver of horror, something akin to fear, chilled him to the heart as he remembered the horrible things that have been done by women since that day upon which eve was created to be adam's companion and help-meet in the garden of eden. "what if this woman's hellish power of dissimulation should be stronger than the truth, and crush him? she had not spared george talboys when he stood in her way and menaced her with a certain peril; would she spare him who threatened her with a far greater danger? are women merciful, or loving, or kind in proportion to their beauty and grace? was there not a certain monsieur mazers de latude, who had the bad fortune to offend the all-accomplished madam de pompadour, who expiated his youthful indiscretion by a life-long imprisonment; who twice escaped from prison, to be twice cast back into captivity; who, trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe, betrayed himself to an implacable fiend? robert audley looked at the pale face of the woman standing by his side; that fair and beautiful face, illumined by starry-blue eyes, that had a strange and surely a dangerous light in them; and remembering a hundred stories of womanly perfidy, shuddered as he thought how unequal the struggle might be between himself and his uncle's wife. "i have shown her my cards," he thought, "but she has kept hers hidden from me. the mask that she wears is not to be plucked away. my uncle would rather think me mad than believe her guilty." the pale face of clara talboys�that grave and earnest face, so different in its character to my lady's fragile beauty�arose before him. "what a coward i am to think of myself or my own danger," he thought. "the more i see of this woman the more reason i have to dread her influence upon others; the more reason to wish her far away from this house." he looked about him in the dusky obscurity. the lonely garden was as quiet as some solitary grave-yard, walled in and hidden away from the world of the living. "it was somewhere in this garden that she met george talboys upon the day of his disappearance," he thought. "i wonder where it was they met; i wonder where it was that he looked into her cruel face and taxed her with her falsehood?" my lady, with her little hand resting lightly upon the opposite post to that against which robert leaned, toyed with her pretty foot among the long weeds, but kept a furtive watch upon her enemy's face. "it is to be a duel to the death, then, my lady," said robert audley, solemnly. "you refuse to accept my warning. you refuse to run away and repent of your wickedness in some foreign place, far from the generous gentleman you have deceived and fooled by your false witcheries. you choose to remain here and defy me." "i do," answered lady audley, lifting her head and looking full at the young barrister. "it is no fault of mine if my husband's nephew goes mad, and chooses me for the victim of his monomania." "so be it, then, my lady," answered robert. "my friend george talboys was last seen entering these gardens by the little iron gate by which we came in to-night. he was last heard inquiring for you. he was seen to enter these gardens, but he was never seen to leave them. i believe that he met his death within the boundary of these grounds; and that his body lies hidden below some quiet water, or in some forgotten corner of this place. i will have such a search made as shall level that house to the earth and root up every tree in these gardens, rather than i will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend." lucy audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of despair, but she made no answer to the ghastly charge of her accuser. her arms slowly dropped, and she stood staring at robert audley, her white face gleaming through the dusk, her blue eyes glittering and dilated. "you shall never live to do this," she said. "i will kill you first. why have you tormented me so? why could you not let me alone? what harm had i ever done you that you should make yourself my persecutor, and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the spy upon me? do you want to drive me mad? do you know what it is to wrestle with a mad-woman? no," cried my lady, with a laugh, "you do not, or you would never�" she stopped abruptly and drew herself suddenly to her fullest hight. it was the same action which robert had seen in the old half-drunken lieutenant; and it had that same dignity�the sublimity of extreme misery. "go away, mr. audley," she said. "you are mad, i tell you, you are mad." "i am going, my lady," answered robert, quietly. "i would have condoned your crimes out of pity to your wretcheness. you have refused to accept my mercy. i wished to have pity upon the living. i shall henceforth only remember my duty to the dead." he walked away from the lonely well under the shadow of the limes. my lady followed him slowly down that long, gloomy avenue, and across the rustic bridge to the iron gate. as he passed through the gate, alicia came out of a little half-glass door that opened from an oak-paneled breakfast-room at one angle of the house, and met her cousin upon the threshold of the gateway. "i have been looking for you everywhere, robert," she said. "papa has come down to the library, and will be glad to see you." the young man started at the sound of his cousin's fresh young voice. "good heaven!" he thought, "can these two women be of the same clay? can this frank, generous-hearted girl, who cannot conceal any impulse of her innocent nature, be of the same flesh and blood as that wretched creature whose shadow falls upon the path beside me!" he looked from his cousin to lady audley, who stood near the gateway, waiting for him to stand aside and let her pass him. "i don't know what has come to your cousin, my dear alicia," said my lady. "he is so absent-minded and eccentric as to be quite beyond my comprehension." "indeed," exclaimed miss audley; "and yet i should imagine, from the length of your tête-a-tête, that you had made some effort to understand him." "oh, yes," said robert, quietly, "my lady and i understand each other very well; but as it is growing late i will wish you good-evening, ladies. i shall sleep to-night at mount stanning, as i have some business to attend to up there, and i will come down and see my uncle to-morrow." "what, robert," cried alicia, "you surely won't go away without seeing papa?" "yes, my dear," answered the young man. "i am a little disturbed by some disagreeable business in which i am very much concerned, and i would rather not see my uncle. good-night, alicia. i will come or write to-morrow." he pressed his cousin's hand, bowed to lady audley, and walked away under the black shadows of the archway, and out into the quiet avenue beyond the court. my lady and alicia stood watching him until he was out of sight. "what in goodness' name is the matter with my cousin robert?" exclaimed miss audley, impatiently, as the barrister disappeared. "what does he mean by these absurd goings-on? some disagreeable business that disturbs him, indeed! i suppose the unhappy creature has had a brief forced upon him by some evil-starred attorney, and is sinking into a state of imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own incompetence." "have you ever studied your cousin's character, alicia?" asked my lady, very seriously, after a pause. "studied his character! no, lady audley. why should i study his character?" said alicia. "there is very little study required to convince anybody that he is a lazy, selfish sybarite, who cares for nothing in the world except his own ease and comfort." "but have you never thought him eccentric?" "eccentric!" repeated alicia, pursing up her red lips and shrugging up her shoulders. "well, yes�i believe that is the excuse generally made for such people. i suppose bob is eccentric." "i have never heard you speak of his father and mother," said my lady, thoughtfully. "do you remember them?" "i never saw his mother. she was a miss dalrymple, a very dashing girl, who ran away with my uncle, and lost a very handsome fortune in consequence. she died at nice when poor bob was five years old." "did you ever hear anything particular about her?" "how do you mean 'particular?'" asked alicia. "did you ever hear that she was eccentric�what people call 'odd?'" "oh, no," said alicia, laughing. "my aunt was a very reasonable woman, i believe, though she did marry for love. but you must remember that she died before i was born, and i have not, therefore, felt very much curiosity about her." "but you recollect your uncle, i suppose." "my uncle robert?" said alicia. "oh, yes, i remember him very well, indeed." "was he eccentric�i mean to say, peculiar in his habits, like your cousin?" "yes, i believe robert inherits all his absurdities from his father. my uncle expressed the same indifference for his fellow-creatures as my cousin, but as he was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a kind master, nobody ever challenged his opinions." "but he was eccentric?" "yes; i suppose he was generally thought a little eccentric." "ah," said my lady, gravely, "i thought as much. do you know, alicia, that madness is more often transmitted from father to daughter, and from mother to daughter than from mother to son? your cousin, robert audley, is a very handsome young man, and i believe, a very good-hearted young man, but he must be watched, alicia, for he is mad!" "mad!" cried miss audley, indignantly; "you are dreaming, my lady, or�or�you are trying to frighten me," added the young lady, with considerable alarm. "i only wish to put you on your guard, alicia," answered my lady. "mr. audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and i believe that he is going mad. i shall speak very seriously to sir michael this very night." "speak to papa," exclaimed alicia; "you surely won't distress papa by suggesting such a possibility!" "i shall only put him on his guard, my dear alicia." "but he'll never believe you," said miss audley; "he will laugh at such an idea." "no, alicia; he will believe anything that i tell him," answered my lady, with a quiet smile. chapter xxx. preparing the ground. lady audley went from the garden to the library, a pleasant, oak-paneled, homely apartment in which sir michael liked to sit reading or writing, or arranging the business of his estate with his steward, a stalwart countryman, half agriculturalist, half lawyer, who rented a small farm a few miles from the court. the baronet was seated in a capacious easy-chair near the hearth. the bright blaze of the fire rose and fell, flashing now upon the polished carvings of the black-oak bookcase, now upon the gold and scarlet bindings of the books; sometimes glimmering upon the athenian helmet of a marble pallas, sometimes lighting up the forehead of sir robert peel. the lamp upon the reading-table had not yet been lighted, and sir michael sat in the firelight waiting for the coming of his young wife. it is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of his generous love�it is impossible to describe that affection which was as tender as the love of a young mother for her first born, as brave and chivalrous as the heroic passion of a bayard for his liege mistress. the door opened while he was thinking of this fondly-loved wife, and looking up, the baronet saw the slender form standing in the doorway. "why, my darling!" he exclaimed, as my lady closed the door behind her, and came toward his chair, "i have been thinking of you and waiting for you for an hour. where have you been, and what have you been doing?" my lady, standing in the shadow rather than the light, paused a few moments before replying to this question. "i have been to chelmsford," she said, "shopping; and�" she hesitated�twisting her bonnet strings in her thin white fingers with an air of pretty embarrassment. "and what, my dear?" asked the baronet�"what have you been doing since you came from chelmsford? i heard a carriage stop at the door an hour ago. it was yours, was it not?" "yes, i came home an hour ago," answered my lady, with the same air of embarrassment. "and what have you been doing since you came home?" sir michael audley asked this question with a slightly reproachful accent. his young wife's presence made the sunshine of his life; and though he could not bear to chain her to his side, it grieved him to think that she could willingly remain unnecessarily absent from him, frittering away her time in some childish talk or frivolous occupation. "what have you been doing since you came home, my dear?" he repeated. "what has kept you so long away from me?" "i have been�talking�to�mr. robert audley." she still twisted her bonnet-string round and round her fingers. she still spoke with the same air of embarrassment. "robert!" exclaimed the baronet; "is robert here?" "he was here a little while ago." "and is here still, i suppose?" "no, he has gone away." "gone away!" cried sir michael. "what do you mean, my darling?" "i mean that your nephew came to the court this afternoon. alicia and i found him idling about the gardens. he stayed here till about a quarter of an hour ago talking to me, and then he hurried off without a word of explanation; except, indeed, some ridiculous excuse about business at mount stanning." "business at mount stanning! why, what business can he possibly have in that out-of-the-way place? he has gone to sleep at mount stanning, then, i suppose? "yes; i think he said something to that effect." "upon my word," exclaimed the baronet, "i think that boy is half mad." my lady's face was so much in shadow, that sir michael audley was unaware of the bright change that came over its sickly pallor as he made this very commonplace observation. a triumphant smile illuminated lucy audley's countenance, a smile that plainly said, "it is coming�it is coming; i can twist him which way i like. i can put black before him, and if i say it is white, he will believe me." but sir michael audley in declaring that his nephew's wits were disordered, merely uttered that commonplace ejaculation which is well-known to have very little meaning. the baronet had, it is true, no very great estimate of robert's faculty for the business of this everyday life. he was in the habit of looking upon his nephew as a good-natured nonentity�a man whose heart had been amply stocked by liberal nature with all the best things the generous goddess had to bestow, but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked in the distribution of intellectual gifts. sir michael audley made that mistake which is very commonly made by easy-going, well-to-do-observers, who have no occasion to look below the surface. he mistook laziness for incapacity. he thought because his nephew was idle, he must necessarily be stupid. he concluded that if robert did not distinguish himself, it was because he could not. he forgot the mute inglorious miltons, who die voiceless and inarticulate for want of that dogged perseverance, that blind courage, which the poet must possess before he can find a publisher; he forgot the cromwells, who see the noble vessels of the state floundering upon a sea of confusion, and going down in a tempest of noisy bewilderment, and who yet are powerless to get at the helm; forbidden even to send out a life-boat to the sinking ship. surely it is a mistake to judge of what a man can do by that which he has done. the world's valhalla is a close borough, and perhaps the greatest men may be those who perish silently far away from the sacred portal. perhaps the purest and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the turmoil of the race-course�the tumult and confusion of the struggle. the game of life is something like the game of écarte, and it may be that the very best cards are sometimes left in the pack. my lady threw off her bonnet, and seated herself upon a velvet-covered footstool at sir michael's feet. there was nothing studied or affected in this girlish action. it was so natural to lucy audley to be childish, that no one would have wished to see her otherwise. it would have seemed as foolish to expect dignified reserve or womanly gravity from this amber-haired siren, as to wish for rich basses amid the clear treble of a sky-lark's song. she sat with her pale face turned away from the firelight, and with her hands locked together upon the arm of her husband's easy-chair. they were very restless, these slender white hands. my lady twisted the jeweled fingers in and out of each other as she talked to her husband. "i wanted to come to you, you know, dear," said she�"i wanted to come to you directly i got home, but mr. audley insisted upon my stopping to talk to him." "but what about, my love?" asked the baronet. "what could robert have to say to you?" my lady did not answer this question. her fair head dropped upon her husband's knee, her rippling, yellow curls fell over her face. sir michael lifted that beautiful head with his strong hands, and raised my lady's face. the firelight shining on that pale face lit up the large, soft blue eyes and showed them drowned in tears. "lucy, lucy!" cried the baronet, "what is the meaning of this? my love, my love! what has happened to distress you in this manner?" lady audley tried to speak, but the words died inarticulately upon her trembling lips. a choking sensation in her throat seemed to strangle those false and plausible words, her only armor against her enemies. she could not speak. the agony she had endured silently in the dismal lime-walk had grown too strong for her, and she broke into a tempest of hysterical sobbing. it was no simulated grief that shook her slender frame and tore at her like some ravenous beast that would have rent her piecemeal with its horrible strength. it was a storm of real anguish and terror, of remorse and misery. it was the one wild outcry, in which the woman's feebler nature got the better of the siren's art. it was not thus that she had meant to fight her terrible duel with robert audley. those were not the weapons which she had intended to use; but perhaps no artifice which she could have devised would have served her so well as this one outburst of natural grief. it shook her husband to the very soul. it bewildered and terrified him. it reduced the strong intellect of the man to helpless confusion and perplexity. it struck at the one weak point in a good man's nature. it appealed straight to sir michael audley's affection for his wife. ah, heaven help a strong man's tender weakness for the woman he loves! heaven pity him when the guilty creature has deceived him and comes with her tears and lamentations to throw herself at his feet in self-abandonment and remorse; torturing him with the sight of her agony; rending his heart with her sobs, lacerating his breast with her groans�multiplying her sufferings into a great anguish for him to bear! multiplying them by twenty-fold; multiplying them in a ratio of a brave man's capacity for endurance. heaven forgive him, if maddened by that cruel agony, the balance wavers for a moment, and he is ready to forgive anything; ready to take this wretched one to the shelter of his breast, and to pardon that which the stern voice of manly honor urges must not be pardoned. pity him, pity him! the wife's worst remorse when she stands without the threshold of the home she may never enter more is not equal to the agony of the husband who closes the portal on that familiar and entreating face. the anguish of the mother who may never look again upon her children is less than the torment of the father who has to say to those little ones, "my darlings, you are henceforth motherless." sir michael audley rose from his chair, trembling with indignation, and ready to do immediate battle with the person who had caused his wife's grief. "lucy," he said, "lucy, i insist upon your telling me what and who has distressed you. i insist upon it. whoever has annoyed you shall answer to me for your grief. come, my love, tell me directly what it is." he seated himself and bent over the drooping figure at his feet, calming his own agitation in his desire to soothe his wife's distress. "tell me what it is, my dear," he whispered, tenderly. the sharp paroxysm had passed away, and my lady looked up. a glittering light shone through the tears in her eyes, and the lines about her pretty rosy mouth, those hard and cruel lines which robert audley had observed in the pre-raphaelite portrait, were plainly visible in the firelight. "i am very silly," she said; "but really he has made me quite hysterical." "who�who has made you hysterical?" "your nephew�mr. robert audley." "robert," cried the baronet. "lucy, what do you mean?" "i told you that mr. audley insisted upon my going into the lime-walk, dear," said my lady. "he wanted to talk to me, he said, and i went, and he said such horrible things that�" "what horrible things, lucy?" lady audley shuddered, and clung with convulsive fingers to the strong hand that had rested caressingly upon her shoulder. "what did he say, lucy?" "oh, my dear love, how can i tell you?" cried my lady. "i know that i shall distress you�or you will laugh at me, and then�" "laugh at you? no, lucy." lady audley was silent for a moment. she sat looking straight before her into the fire, with her fingers still locked about her husband's hand. "my dear," she said, slowly, hesitating now and then between her words, as if she almost shrunk from uttering them, "have you ever�i am so afraid of vexing you�have you ever thought mr. audley a little�a little�" "a little what, my darling?" "a little out of his mind?" faltered lady audley. "out of his mind!" cried sir michael. "my dear girl, what are you thinking of?" "you said just now, dear, that you thought he was half mad." "did i, my love?" said the baronet, laughing. "i don't remember saying it, and it was a mere façon de parler, that meant nothing whatever. robert may be a little eccentric�a little stupid, perhaps�he mayn't be overburdened with wits, but i don't think he has brains enough for madness. i believe it's generally your great intellects that get out of order." "but madness is sometimes hereditary," said my lady. "mr. audley may have inherited�" "he has inherited no madness from his father's family," interrupted sir michael. "the audleys have never peopled private lunatic asylums or fed mad doctors." "nor from his mother's family?" "not to my knowledge." "people generally keep these things a secret," said my lady, gravely. "there may have been madness in your sister-in-law's family." "i don't think so, my dear," replied sir michael. "but, lucy, tell me what, in heaven's name, has put this idea into your head." "i have been trying to account for your nephew's conduct. i can account for it in no other manner. if you had heard the things he said to me to-night, sir michael, you too might have thought him mad." "but what did he say, lucy?" "i can scarcely tell you. you can see how much he has stupefied and bewildered me. i believe he has lived too long alone in those solitary temple chambers. perhaps he reads too much, or smokes too much. you know that some physicians declare madness to be a mere illness of the brain�an illness to which any one is subject, and which may be produced by given causes, and cured by given means." lady audley's eyes were still fixed upon the burning coals in the wide grate. she spoke as if she had been discussing a subject that she had often heard discussed before. she spoke as if her mind had almost wandered away from the thought of her husband's nephew to the wider question of madness in the abstract. "why should he not be mad?" resumed my lady. "people are insane for years and years before their insanity is found out. they know that they are mad, but they know how to keep their secret; and, perhaps, they may sometimes keep it till they die. sometimes a paroxysm seizes them, and in an evil hour they betray themselves. they commit a crime, perhaps. the horrible temptation of opportunity assails them; the knife is in their hand, and the unconscious victim by their side. they may conquer the restless demon and go away and die innocent of any violent deed; but they may yield to the horrible temptation�the frightful, passionate, hungry craving for violence and horror. they sometimes yield and are lost." lady audley's voice rose as she argued this dreadful question, the hysterical excitement from which she had only just recovered had left its effects upon her, but she controlled herself, and her tone grew calmer as she resumed: "robert audley is mad," she said, decisively. "what is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness�what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? the mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. as the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania. robert audley is a monomaniac. the disappearance of his friend, george talboys, grieved and bewildered him. he dwelt upon this one idea until he lost the power of thinking of anything else. the one idea looked at perpetually became distorted to his mental vision. repeat the commonest word in the english language twenty times, and before the twentieth repetition you will have begun to wonder whether the word which you repeat is really the word you mean to utter. robert audley has thought of his friend's disappearance until the one idea has done its fatal and unhealthy work. he looks at a common event with a vision that is diseased, and he distorts it into a gloomy horror engendered of his own monomania. if you do not want to make me as mad as he is, you must never let me see him again. he declared to-night that george talboys was murdered in this place, and that he will root up every tree in the garden, and pull down every brick in the house in search for�" my lady paused. the words died away upon her lips. she had exhausted herself by the strange energy with which she had spoken. she had been transformed from a frivolous, childish beauty into a woman, strong to argue her own cause and plead her own defense. "pull down this house?" cried the baronet. "george talboys murdered at audley court! did robert say this, lucy?" "he said something of that kind�something that frightened me very much." "then he must be mad," said sir michael, gravely. "i'm bewildered by what you tell me. did he really say this, lucy, or did you misunderstand him?" "i�i�don't think i did," faltered my lady. "you saw how frightened i was when i first came in. i should not have been so much agitated if he hadn't said something horrible." lady audley had availed herself of the very strongest arguments by which she could help her cause. "to be sure, my darling, to be sure," answered the baronet. "what could have put such a horrible fancy into the unhappy boy's head. this mr. talboys�a perfect stranger to all of us�murdered at audley court! i'll go to mount stanning to-night, and see robert. i have known him ever since he was a baby, and i cannot be deceived in him. if there is really anything wrong, he will not be able to conceal it from me." my lady shrugged her shoulders. "that is rather an open question," she said. "it is generally a stranger who is the first to observe any psychological peculiarity." the big words sounded strange from my lady's rosy lips; but her newly-adopted wisdom had a certain quaint prettiness about it, which charmed and bewildered her husband. "but you must not go to mount stanning, my dear darling," she said, tenderly. "remember that you are under strict orders to stay in doors until the weather is milder, and the sun shines upon this cruel ice-bound country." sir michael audley sank back in his capacious chair with a sigh of resignation. "that's true, lucy," he said; "we must obey mr. dawson. i suppose robert will come to see me to-morrow." "yes, dear. i think he said he would." "then we must wait till to-morrow, my darling. i can't believe that there really is anything wrong with the poor boy�i can't believe it, lucy." "then how do you account for this extraordinary delusion about this mr. talboys?" asked my lady. sir michael shook his head. "i don't know, lucy�i don't know," he answered. "it is always so difficult to believe that any one of the calamities that continually befall our fellow-men will ever happen to us. i can't believe that my nephew's mind is impaired�i can't believe it. i�i'll get him to stop here, lucy, and i'll watch him closely. i tell you, my love, if there is anything wrong i am sure to find it out. i can't be mistaken in a young man who has always been the same to me as my own son. but, my darling, why were you so frightened by robert's wild talk? it could not affect you." my lady sighed piteously. "you must think me very strong-minded, sir michael," she said, with rather an injured air, "if you imagine i can hear of these sort of things indifferently. i know i shall never be able to see mr. audley again." "and you shall not, my dear�you shall not." "you said just now you would have him here," murmured lady audley. "but i will not, my darling girl, if his presence annoys you. good heaven! lucy, can you imagine for a moment that i have any higher wish than to promote your happiness? i will consult some london physician about robert, and let him discover if there is really anything the matter with my poor brother's only son. you shall not be annoyed, lucy." "you must think me very unkind, dear," said my lady, "and i know i ought not to be annoyed by the poor fellow; but he really seems to have taken some absurd notion into his head about me." "about you, lucy!" cried sir michael. "yes, dear. he seems to connect me in some vague manner�which i cannot quite understand�with the disappearance of this mr. talboys." "impossible, lucy! you must have misunderstood him." "i don't think so." "then he must be mad," said the baronet�"he must be mad. i will wait till he goes back to town, and then send some one to his chambers to talk to him. good heaven! what a mysterious business this is." "i fear i have distressed you, darling," murmured lady audley. "yes, my dear, i am very much distressed by what you have told me; but you were quite right to talk to me frankly about this dreadful business. i must think it over, dearest, and try and decide what is best to be done." my lady rose from the low ottoman on which she had been seated. the fire had burned down, and there was only a faint glow of red light in the room. lucy audley bent over her husband's chair, and put her lips to his broad forehead. "how good you have always been to me, dear," she whispered softly. "you would never let any one influence you against me, would you, dear?" "influence me against you?" repeated the baronet. "no, my love." "because you know, dear," pursued my lady, "there are wicked people as well as mad people in the world, and there may be some persons to whose interest it would be to injure me." "they had better not try it, then, my dear," answered sir michael; "they would find themselves in rather a dangerous position if they did." lady audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant, silvery peal of laughter that vibrated through the quiet room. "my own dear darling," she said, "i know you love me. and now i must run away, dear, for it's past seven o'clock. i was engaged to dine at mrs. montford's, but i must send a groom with a message of apology, for mr. audley has made me quite unfit for company. i shall stay at home and nurse you, dear. you'll go to bed very early, won't you, and take great care of yourself?" "yes, dear." my lady tripped out of the room to give her orders about the message that was to be carried to the house at which she was to have dined. she paused for a moment as she closed the library door�she paused, and laid her hand upon her breast to check the rapid throbbing of her heart. "i have been afraid of you, mr. robert audley," she thought; "but perhaps the time may come in which you will have cause to be afraid of me." chapter xxxi. phoebe's petition. the division between lady audley and her step-daughter had not become any narrower in the two months which had elapsed since the pleasant christmas holiday time had been kept at audley court. there was no open warfare between the two women; there was only an armed neutrality, broken every now and then by brief feminine skirmishes and transient wordy tempests. i am sorry to say that alicia would very much have preferred a hearty pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative disunion; but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady. she had soft answers for the turning away of wrath. she could smile bewitchingly at her step-daughter's open petulance, and laugh merrily at the young lady's ill-temper. perhaps had she been less amiable, had she been more like alicia in disposition, the two ladies might have expended their enmity in one tremendous quarrel, and might ever afterward have been affectionate and friendly. but lucy audley would not make war. she carried forward the sum of her dislike, and put it out at a steady rate of interest, until the breach between her step-daughter and herself, widening a little every day, became a great gulf, utterly impassable by olive-branch-bearing doves from either side of the abyss. there can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. there must be a battle, a brave, boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands. perhaps the union between france and england owes its greatest force to the recollection of cressy and waterloo, navarino and trafalgar. we have hated each other and licked each other and had it out, as the common phrase goes; and we can afford now to fall into each others' arms and vow eternal friendship and everlasting brotherhood. let us hope that when northern yankeedom has decimated and been decimated, blustering jonathan may fling himself upon his southern brother's breast, forgiving and forgiven. alicia audley and her father's pretty wife had plenty of room for the comfortable indulgence of their dislike in the spacious old mansion. my lady had her own apartments, as we know�luxurious chambers, in which all conceivable elegancies had been gathered for the comfort of their occupant. alicia had her own rooms in another part of the large house. she had her favorite mare, her newfoundland dog, and her drawing materials, and she made herself tolerably happy. she was not very happy, this frank, generous-hearted girl, for it was scarcely possible that she could be altogether at ease in the constrained atmosphere of the court. her father was changed; that dear father over whom she had once reigned supreme with the boundless authority of a spoiled child, had accepted another ruler and submitted to a new dynasty. little by little my lady's petty power made itself felt in that narrow household; and alicia saw her father gradually lured across the gulf that divided lady audley from her step-daughter, until he stood at last quite upon the other side of the abyss, and looked coldly upon his only child across that widening chasm. alicia felt that he was lost to her. my lady's beaming smiles, my lady's winning words, my lady's radiant glances and bewitching graces had done their work of enchantment, and sir michael had grown to look upon his daughter as a somewhat wilful and capricious young person who had behaved with determined unkindness to the wife he loved. poor alicia saw all this, and bore her burden as well as she could. it seemed very hard to be a handsome, gray-eyed heiress, with dogs and horses and servants at her command, and yet to be so much alone in the world as to know of not one friendly ear into which she might pour her sorrows. "if bob was good for anything i could have told him how unhappy i am," thought miss audley; "but i may just as well tell caesar my troubles for any consolation i should get from cousin robert." sir michael audley obeyed his pretty nurse, and went to bed a little after nine o'clock upon this bleak march evening. perhaps the baronet's bedroom was about the pleasantést retreat that an invalid could have chosen in such cold and cheerless weather. the dark-green velvet curtains were drawn before the windows and about the ponderous bed. the wood fire burned redly upon the broad hearth. the reading lamp was lighted upon a delicious little table close to sir michael's pillow, and a heap of magazines and newspapers had been arranged by my lady's own fair hands for the pleasure of the invalid. lady audley sat by the bedside for about ten minutes, talking to her husband, talking very seriously, about this strange and awful question�robert audley's lunacy; but at the end of that time she rose and bade her husband good-night. she lowered the green silk shade before the reading lamp, adjusting it carefully for the repose of the baronet's eyes. "i shall leave you, dear," she said. "if you can sleep, so much the better. if you wish to read, the books and papers are close to you. i will leave the doors between the rooms open, and i shall hear your voice if you call me." lady audley went through her dressing-room into the boudoir, where she had sat with her husband since dinner. every evidence of womanly refinement was visible in the elegant chamber. my lady's piano was open, covered with scattered sheets of music and exquisitely-bound collections of scenas and fantasias which no master need have disdained to study. my lady's easel stood near the window, bearing witness to my lady's artistic talent, in the shape of a water-colored sketch of the court and gardens. my lady's fairy-like embroideries of lace and muslin, rainbow-hued silks, and delicately-tinted wools littered the luxurious apartment; while the looking-glasses, cunningly placed at angles and opposite corners by an artistic upholsterer, multiplied my lady's image, and in that image reflected the most beautiful object in the enchanted chamber. amid all this lamplight, gilding, color, wealth, and beauty, lucy audley sat down on a low seat by the fire to think. if mr. holman hunt could have peeped into the pretty boudoir, i think the picture would have been photographed upon his brain to be reproduced by-and-by upon a bishop's half-length for the glorification of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood. my lady in that half-recumbent attitude, with her elbow resting on one knee, and her perfect chin supported by her hand, the rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating lines from the exquisite outline of her figure, and the luminous, rose-colored firelight enveloping her in a soft haze, only broken by the golden glitter of her yellow hair�beautiful in herself, but made bewilderingly beautiful by the gorgeous surroundings which adorn the shrine of her loveliness. drinking-cups of gold and ivory, chiseled by benvenuto cellini; cabinets of buhl and porcelain, bearing the cipher of austrian marie-antoinette, amid devices of rosebuds and true-lovers' knots, birds and butterflies, cupidons and shepherdesses, goddesses, courtiers, cottagers, and milkmaids; statuettes of parian marble and biscuit china; gilded baskets of hothouse flowers; fantastical caskets of indian filigree-work; fragile tea-cups of turquoise china, adorned by medallion miniatures of louis the great and louis the well-beloved, louise de la valliere, athenais de montespan, and marie jeanne gomard de vaubernier: cabinet pictures and gilded mirrors, shimmering satin and diaphanous lace; all that gold can buy or art devise had been gathered together for the beautification of this quiet chamber in which my lady sat listening to the mourning of the shrill march wind, and the flapping of the ivy leaves against the casements, and looking into the red chasms in the burning coals. i should be preaching a very stale sermon, and harping upon a very familiar moral, if i were to seize this opportunity of declaiming against art and beauty, because my lady was more wretched in this elegant apartment than many a half-starved seamstress in her dreary garret. she was wretched by reason of a wound which lay too deep for the possibility of any solace from such plasters as wealth and luxury; but her wretchedness was of an abnormal nature, and i can see no occasion for seizing upon the fact of her misery as an argument in favor of poverty and discomfort as opposed to opulence. the benvenuto cellini carvings and the sevres porcelain could not give her happiness, because she had passed out of their region. she was no longer innocent; and the pleasure we take in art and loveliness being an innocent pleasure, had passed beyond her reach. six or seven years before, she would have been happy in the possession of this little aladdin's palace; but she had wandered out of the circle of careless, pleasure seeking creatures, she had strayed far away into a desolate labyrinth of guilt and treachery, terror and crime, and all the treasures that had been collected for her could have given her no pleasure but one, the pleasure of flinging them into a heap beneath her feet and trampling upon them and destroying them in her cruel despair. there were some things that would have inspired her with an awful joy, a horrible rejoicing. if robert audley, her pitiless enemy, her unrelenting pursuer, had lain dead in the adjoining chamber, she would have exulted over his bier. what pleasures could have remained for lucretia borgia and catharine de medici, when the dreadful boundary line between innocence and guilt was passed, and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side? only horrible, vengeful joys, and treacherous delights were left for these miserable women. with what disdainful bitterness they must have watched the frivolous vanities, the petty deceptions, the paltry sins of ordinary offenders. perhaps they took a horrible pride in the enormity of their wickedness; in this "divinity of hell," which made them greatest among sinful creatures. my lady, brooding by the fire in her lonely chamber, with her large, clear blue eyes fixed upon the yawning gulfs of lurid crimson in the burning coals, may have thought of many things very far away from the terribly silent struggle in which she was engaged. she may have thought of long-ago years of childish innocence, childish follies and selfishness, of frivolous, feminine sins that had weighed very lightly upon her conscience. perhaps in that retrospective revery she recalled that early time in which she had first looked in the glass and discovered that she was beautiful; that fatal early time in which she had first begun to look upon her loveliness as a right divine, a boundless possession which was to be a set-off against all girlish shortcomings, a counterbalance of every youthful sin. did she remember the day in which that fairy dower of beauty had first taught her to be selfish and cruel, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, cold-hearted and capricious, greedy of admiration, exacting and tyrannical with that petty woman's tyranny which is the worst of despotism? did she trace every sin of her life back to its true source? and did she discover that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated estimate of the value of a pretty face? surely, if her thoughts wandered so far along the backward current of her life, she must have repented in bitterness and despair of that first day in which the master-passions of her life had become her rulers, and the three demons of vanity, selfishness, and ambition, had joined hands and said, "this woman is our slave, let us see what she will become under our guidance." how small those first youthful errors seemed as my lady looked back upon them in that long revery by the lonely hearth! what small vanities, what petty cruelties! a triumph over a schoolfellow; a flirtation with the lover of a friend; an assertion of the right divine invested in blue eyes and shimmering golden-tinted hair. but how terribly that narrow pathway had widened out into the broad highroad of sin, and how swift the footsteps had become upon the now familiar way! my lady twisted her fingers in her loose amber curls, and made as if she would have torn them from her head. but even in that moment of mute despair the unyielding dominion of beauty asserted itself, and she released the poor tangled glitter of ringlets, leaving them to make a halo round her head in the dim firelight. "i was not wicked when i was young," she thought, as she stared gloomingly at the fire, "i was only thoughtless. i never did any harm�at least, wilfully. have i ever been really wicked, i wonder?" she mused. "my worst wickednesses have been the result of wild impulses, and not of deeply-laid plots. i am not like the women i have read of, who have lain night after night in the horrible darkness and stillness, planning out treacherous deeds, and arranging every circumstance of an appointed crime. i wonder whether they suffered�those women�whether they ever suffered as�" her thoughts wandered away into a weary maze of confusion. suddenly she drew herself up with a proud, defiant gesture, and her eyes glittered with a light that was not entirely reflected from the fire. "you are mad, mr. robert audley," she said, "you are mad, and your fancies are a madman's fancies. i know what madness is. i know its signs and tokens, and i say that you are mad." she put her hand to her head, as if thinking of something which confused and bewildered her, and which she found it difficult to contemplate with calmness. "dare i defy him?" she muttered. "dare i? dare i? will he stop, now that he has once gone so far? will he stop for fear of me? will he stop for fear of me, when the thought of what his uncle must suffer has not stopped him? will anything stop him�but death?" she pronounced the last words in an awful whisper; and with her head bent forward, her eyes dilated, and her lips still parted as they had been parted in her utterance of that final word "death," she sat blankly staring at the fire. "i can't plot horrible things," she muttered, presently; "my brain isn't strong enough, or i'm not wicked enough, or brave enough. if i met robert audley in those lonely gardens, as i�" the current of her thoughts was interrupted by a cautious knocking at her door. she rose suddenly, startled by any sound in the stillness of her room. she rose, and threw herself into a low chair near the fire. she flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions, and took a book from the table near her. insignificant as this action was, it spoke very plainly. it spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears�of fatal necessities for concealment�of a mind that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the importance of outward effect. it told more plainly than anything else could have told how complete an actress my lady had been made by the awful necessity of her life. the modest rap at the door was repeated. "come in," cried lady audley, in her liveliest tone. the door was opened with that respectful noiselessness peculiar to a well-bred servant, and a young woman, plainly dressed, and carrying some of the cold march winds in the folds of her garments, crossed the threshold of the apartment and lingered near the door, waiting permission to approach the inner regions of my lady's retreat. it was phoebe marks, the pale-faced wife of the mount stanning innkeeper. "i beg pardon, my lady, for intruding without leave," she said; "but i thought i might venture to come straight up without waiting for permission." "yes, yes, phoebe, to be sure. take off your bonnet, you wretched, cold-looking creature, and come sit down here." lady audley pointed to the low ottoman upon which she had herself been seated a few minutes before. the lady's maid had often sat upon it listening to her mistress' prattle in the old days, when she had been my lady's chief companion and confidante. "sit down here, phoebe," lady audley repeated; "sit down here and talk to me; i'm very glad you came here to-night. i was horribly lonely in this dreary place." my lady shivered and looked round at the bright collection of bric-a-brac, as if the sevres and bronze, the buhl and ormolu, had been the moldering adornments of some ruined castle. the dreary wretchedness of her thoughts had communicated itself to every object about her, and all outer things took their color from that weary inner life which held its slow course of secret anguish in her breast. she had spoken the entire truth in saying that she was glad of her lady's maid's visit. her frivolous nature clung to this weak shelter in the hour of her fear and suffering. there were sympathies between her and this girl, who was like herself, inwardly as well as outwardly�like herself, selfish, and cold, and cruel, eager for her own advancement, and greedy of opulence and elegance; angry with the lot that had been cast her, and weary of dull dependence. my lady hated alicia for her frank, passionate, generous, daring nature; she hated her step-daughter, and clung to this pale-faced, pale-haired girl, whom she thought neither better nor worse than herself. phoebe marks obeyed her late mistress' commands, and took off her bonnet before seating herself on the ottoman at lady audley's feet. her smooth bands of light hair were unruffled by the march winds; her trimly-made drab dress and linen collar were as neatly arranged as they could have been had she only that moment completed her toilet. "sir michael is better, i hope, my lady," she said. "yes, phoebe, much better. he is asleep. you may close that door," added lady audley, with a motion of her head toward the door of communication between the rooms, which had been left open. mrs. marks obeyed submissively, and then returned to her seat. "i am very, very unhappy, phoebe," my lady said, fretfully; "wretchedly miserable." "about the�secret?" asked mrs. marks, in a half whisper. my lady did not notice that question. she resumed in the same complaining tone. she was glad to be able to complain even to this lady's maid. she had brooded over her fears, and had suffered in secret so long, that it was an inexpressible relief to her to bemoan her fate aloud. "i am cruelly persecuted and harassed, phoebe marks," she said. "i am pursued and tormented by a man whom i never injured, whom i have never wished to injure. i am never suffered to rest by this relentless tormentor, and�" she paused, staring at the fire again, as she had done in her loneliness. lost again in the dark intricacies of thoughts which wandered hither and thither in a dreadful chaos of terrified bewilderments, she could not come to any fixed conclusion. phoebe marks watched my lady's face, looking upward at her late mistress with pale, anxious eyes, that only relaxed their watchfulness when lady audley's glance met that of her companion. "i think i know whom you mean, my lady," said the innkeeper's wife, after a pause; "i think i know who it is who is so cruel to you." "oh, of course," answered my lady, bitterly; "my secrets are everybody's secrets. you know all about it, no doubt." "the person is a gentleman�is he not, my lady?" "yes." "a gentleman who came to the castle inn two months ago, when i warned you�" "yes, yes," answered my lady, impatiently. "i thought so. the same gentleman is at our place to-night, my lady." lady audley started up from her chair�started up as if she would have done something desperate in her despairing fury; but she sank back again with a weary, querulous sigh. what warfare could such a feeble creature wage against her fate? what could she do but wind like a hunted hare till she found her way back to the starting-point of the cruel chase, to be there trampled down by her pursuers? "at the castle inn?" she cried. "i might have known as much. he has gone there to wring my secrets from your husband. fool!" she exclaimed, suddenly turning upon phoebe marks in a transport of anger, "do you want to destroy me that you have left those two men together?" mrs. marks clasped her hands piteously. "i didn't come away of my own free will, my lady," she said; "no one could have been more unwilling to leave the house than i was this night. i was sent here." "who sent you here?" "luke, my lady. you can't tell how hard he can be upon me if i go against him." "why did he send you?" the innkeeper's wife dropped her eyelids under lady audley's angry glances, and hesitated confusedly before she answered this question. "indeed, my lady," she stammered, "i didn't want to come. i told luke that it was too bad for us to worry you, first asking this favor, and then asking that, and never leaving you alone for a month together; but�but�he bore me down with his loud, blustering talk, and he made me come." "yes, yes," cried lady audley, impatiently. "i know that. i want to know why you have come." "why, you know, my lady," answered phoebe, half reluctantly, "luke is very extravagant; and all i can say to him, i can't get him to be careful or steady. he's not sober; and when he's drinking with a lot of rough countrymen, and drinking, perhaps even more than they do, it isn't likely that his head can be very clear for accounts. if it hadn't been for me we should have been ruined before this; and hard as i've tried, i haven't been able to keep the ruin off. you remember giving me the money for the brewer's bill, my lady?" "yes, i remember very well," answered lady audley, with a bitter laugh, "for i wanted that money to pay my own bills." "i know you did, my lady, and it was very, very hard for me to have to come and ask you for it, after all that we'd received from you before. but that isn't the worst: when luke sent me down here to beg the favor of that help he never told me that the christmas rent was still owing; but it was, my lady, and it's owing now, and�and there's a bailiff in the house to-night, and we're to be sold up to-morrow unless�" "unless i pay your rent, i suppose," cried lucy audley. "i might have guessed what was coming." "indeed, indeed, my lady, i wouldn't have asked it," sobbed phoebe marks, "but he made me come." "yes," answered my lady, bitterly, "he made you come; and he will make you come whenever he pleases, and whenever he wants money for the gratification of his low vices; and you and he are my pensioners as long as i live, or as long as i have any money to give; for i suppose when my purse is empty and my credit ruined, you and your husband will turn upon me and sell me to the highest bidder. do you know, phoebe marks, that my jewel-case has been half emptied to meet your claims? do you know that my pin-money, which i thought such a princely allowance when my marriage settlement was made, and when i was a poor governess at mr. dawson's, heaven help me! my pin-money has been overdrawn half a year to satisfy your demands? what can i do to appease you? shall i sell my marie antoinette cabinet, or my pompadour china, leroy's and benson's ormolu clocks, or my gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans? how shall i satisfy you next?" "oh, my lady, my lady," cried phoebe, piteously, "don't be so cruel to me; you know, you know that it isn't i who want to impose upon you." "i know nothing," exclaimed lady audley, "except that i am the most miserable of women. let me think," she cried, silencing phoebe's consolatory murmurs with an imperious gesture. "hold your tongue, girl, and let me think of this business, if i can." she put her hands to her forehead, clasping her slender fingers across her brow, as if she would have controlled the action of her brain by their convulsive pressure. "robert audley is with your husband," she said, slowly, speaking to herself rather than to her companion. "these two men are together, and there are bailiffs in the house, and your brutal husband is no doubt brutally drunk by this time, and brutally obstinate and ferocious in his drunkenness. if i refuse to pay this money his ferocity will be multiplied by a hundredfold. there's little use in discussing that matter. the money must be paid." "but if you do pay it," said phoebe, earnestly, "i hope you will impress upon luke that it is the last money you will ever give him while he stops in that house." "why?" asked lady audley, letting her hands fall on her lap, and looking inquiringly at mrs. marks. "because i want luke to leave the castle." "but why do you want him to leave?" "oh, for ever so many reasons, my lady," answered phoebe. "he's not fit to be the landlord of a public-house. i didn't know that when i married him, or i would have gone against the business, and tried to persuade him to take to the farming line. not that i suppose he'd have given up his own fancy, either; for he's obstinate enough, as you know, my lady. he's not fit for his present business. he's scarcely ever sober after dark; and when he's drunk he gets almost wild, and doesn't seem to know what he does. we've had two or three narrow escapes with him already." "narrow escapes!" repeated lady audley. "what do you mean?" "why, we've run the risk of being burnt in our beds through his carelessness." "burnt in your beds through his carelessness! why, how was that?" asked my lady, rather listlessly. she was too selfish, and too deeply absorbed in her own troubles to take much interest in any danger which had befallen her some-time lady's-maid. "you know what a queer old place the castle is, my lady; all tumble-down wood-work, and rotten rafters, and such like. the chelmsford insurance company won't insure it; for they say if the place did happen to catch fire of a windy night it would blaze away like so much tinder, and nothing in the world could save it. well, luke knows this; and the landlord has warned him of it times and often, for he lives close against us, and he keeps a pretty sharp eye upon all my husband's goings on; but when luke's tipsy he doesn't know what he's about, and only a week ago he left a candle burning in one of the out-houses, and the flame caught one of the rafters of the sloping roof, and if it hadn't been for me finding it out when i went round the house the last thing, we should have all been burnt to death, perhaps. and that's the third time the same kind of thing has happened in the six months we've had the place, and you can't wonder that i'm frightened, can you, my lady?" my lady had not wondered, she had not thought about the business at all. she had scarcely listened to these commonplace details; why should she care for this low-born waiting-woman's perils and troubles? had she not her own terrors, her own soul-absorbing perplexities to usurp every thought of which her brain was capable? she did not make any remark upon that which poor phoebe just told her; she scarcely comprehended what had been said, until some moments after the girl had finished speaking, when the words assumed their full meaning, as some words do after they have been heard without being heeded. "burnt in your beds," said the young lady, at last. "it would have been a good thing for me if that precious creature, your husband, had been burnt in his bed before to-night." a vivid picture had flashed upon her as she spoke. the picture of that frail wooden tenement, the castle inn, reduced to a roofless chaos of lath and plaster, vomiting flames from its black mouth, and spitting blazing sparks upward toward the cold night sky. she gave a weary sigh as she dismissed this image from her restless brain. she would be no better off even if this enemy should be for ever silenced. she had another and far more dangerous foe�a foe who was not to be bribed or bought off, though she had been as rich as an empress. "i'll give you the money to send this bailiff away," my lady said, after a pause. "i must give you the last sovereign in my purse, but what of that? you know as well as i do that i dare not refuse you." lady audley rose and took the lighted lamp from her writing-table. "the money is in my dressing-room," she said; "i will go and fetch it." "oh, my lady," exclaimed phoebe, suddenly, "i forgot something; i was in such a way about this business that i quite forgot it." "quite forgot what?" "a letter that was given me to bring to you, my lady, just before i left home." "what letter?" "a letter from mr. audley. he heard my husband mention that i was coming down here, and he asked me to carry this letter." lady audley set the lamp down upon the table nearest to her, and held out her hand to receive the letter. phoebe marks could scarcely fail to observe that the little jeweled hand shook like a leaf. "give it me�give it me," she cried; "let me see what more he has to say." lady audley almost snatched the letter from phoebe's hand in her wild impatience. she tore open the envelope and flung it from her; she could scarcely unfold the sheet of note-paper in her eager excitement. the letter was very brief. it contained only these words: "should mrs. george talboys really have survived the date of her supposed death, as recorded in the public prints, and upon the tombstone in ventnor churchyard, and should she exist in the person of the lady suspected and accused by the writer of this, there can be no great difficulty in finding some one able and willing to identify her. mrs. barkamb, the owner of north cottages, wildernsea, would no doubt consent to throw some light upon this matter; either to dispel a delusion or to confirm a suspicion. "robert audley. "march , . "the castle inn, mount stanning." chapter xxxii. the red light in the sky. my lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand, and flung it from her into the flames. "if he stood before me now, and i could kill him," she muttered in a strange, inward whisper, "i would do it�i would do it!" she snatched up the lamp and rushed into the adjoining room. she shut the door behind her. she could not endure any witness of her horrible despair�she could endure nothing, neither herself nor her surroundings. the door between my lady's dressing-room and the bed-chamber in which sir michael lay, had been left open. the baronet slept peacefully, his noble face plainly visible in the subdued lamplight. his breathing was low and regular, his lips curved into a half smile�a smile of tender happiness which he often wore when he looked at his beautiful wife, the smile of an all-indulgent father, who looks admiringly at his favorite child. some touch of womanly feeling, some sentiment of compassion softened lady audley's glance as it fell upon that noble, reposing figure. for a moment the horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her pitying tenderness for another. it was perhaps only a semi-selfish tenderness after all, in which pity for herself was as powerful as pity for her husband; but for once in a way, her thoughts ran out of the narrow groove of her own terrors and her own troubles to dwell with prophetic grief upon the coming sorrows of another. "if they make him believe, how wretched he will be," she thought. but intermingled with that thought there was another�there was the thought of her lovely face, her bewitching manner, her arch smile, her low, musical laugh, which was like a peal of silvery bells ringing across a broad expanse of flat meadow-land and a rippling river in the misty summer evening. she thought of all these things with a transient thrill of triumph, which was stronger even than her terror. if sir michael audley lived to be a hundred years old, whatever he might learn to believe of her, however he might grow to despise her, would he ever be able to disassociate her from these attributes? no; a thousand times no. to the last hour of his life his memory would present her to him invested with the loveliness that had first won his enthusiastic admiration, his devoted affection. her worst enemies could not rob her of that fairy dower which had been so fatal in its influence upon her frivolous mind. she paced up and down the dressing-room in the silvery lamplight, pondering upon the strange letter which she had received from robert audley. she walked backward and forward in that monotonous wandering for some time before she was able to steady her thoughts�before she was able to bring the scattered forces of her narrow intellect to bear upon the one all-important subject of the threat contained in the barrister's letter. "he will do it," she said, between her set teeth�"he will do it, unless i get him into a lunatic-asylum first; or unless�" she did not finish the thought in words. she did not even think out the sentence; but some new and unnatural impulse in her heart seemed to beat each syllable against her breast. the thought was this: "he will do it, unless some strange calamity befalls him, and silences him for ever." the red blood flashed up into my lady's face with as sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering flame of a fire, and died as suddenly away, leaving her more pale than winter snow. her hands, which had before been locked convulsively together, fell apart and dropped heavily at her sides. she stopped in her rapid pacing to and fro�stopped as lot's wife may have stopped, after that fatal backward glance at the perishing city�with every pulse slackening, with every drop of blood congealing in her veins, in the terrible process that was to transform her from a woman into a statue. lady audley stood still for about five minutes in that strangely statuesque attitude, her head erect, her eyes staring straight before her�staring far beyond the narrow boundary of her chamber wall, into dark distances of peril and horror. but by-and-by she started from that rigid attitude almost as abruptly as she had fallen into it. she roused herself from that semi-lethargy. she walked rapidly to her dressing-table, and, seating herself before it, pushed away the litter of golden-stoppered bottles and delicate china essence-boxes, and looked at her reflection in the large, oval glass. she was very pale; but there was no other trace of agitation visible in her girlish face. the lines of her exquisitely molded lips were so beautiful, that it was only a very close observer who could have perceived a certain rigidity that was unusual to them. she saw this herself, and tried to smile away that statue-like immobility: but to-night the rosy lips refused to obey her; they were firmly locked, and were no longer the slaves of her will and pleasure. all the latent forces of her character concentrated themselves in this one feature. she might command her eyes, but she could not control the muscles of her mouth. she rose from before her dressing-table, and took a dark velvet cloak and bonnet from the recesses of her wardrobe, and dressed herself for walking. the little ormolu clock on the chimney-piece struck the quarter after eleven while lady audley was employed in this manner; five minutes afterward she re-entered the room in which she had left phoebe marks. the innkeeper's wife was sitting before the low fender very much in the same attitude as that in which her late mistress had brooded over that lonely hearth earlier in the evening. phoebe had replenished the fire, and had reassumed her bonnet and shawl. she was anxious to get home to that brutal husband, who was only too apt to fall into some mischief in her absence. she looked up as lady audley entered the room, and uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing her late mistress in a walking-costume. "my lady," she cried, "you are not going out to-night?" "yes, i am, phoebe," lady audley answered, very quietly. "i am going to mount stanning with you to see this bailiff, and to pay and dismiss him myself." "but, my lady, you forget what the time is; you can't go out at such an hour." lady audley did not answer. she stood with her finger resting lightly upon the handle of the bell, meditating quietly. "the stables are always locked, and the men in bed by ten o'clock," she murmured, "when we are at home. it will make a terrible hubbub to get a carriage ready; but yet i dare say one of the servants could manage the matter quietly for me." "but why should you go to-night, my lady?" cried phoebe marks. "to-morrow will do quite as well. a week hence will do as well. our landlord would take the man away if he had your promise to settle the debt." lady audley took no notice of this interruption. she went hastily into the dressing-room, and flung off her bonnet and cloak, and then returned to the boudoir, in her simple dinner-costume, with her curls brushed carelessly away from her face. "now, phoebe marks, listen to me," she said, grasping her confidante's wrist, and speaking in a low, earnest voice, but with a certain imperious air that challenged contradiction and commanded obedience. "listen to me, phoebe," she repeated. "i am going to the castle inn to-night; whether it is early or late is of very little consequence to me; i have set my mind upon going, and i shall go. you have asked me why, and i have told you. i am going in order that i may pay this debt myself; and that i may see for myself that the money i give is applied to the purpose for which i give it. there is nothing out of the common course of life in my doing this. i am going to do what other women in my position very often do. i am going to assist a favorite servant." "but it's getting on for twelve o'clock, my lady," pleaded phoebe. lady audley frowned impatiently at this interruption. "if my going to your house to pay this man should be known," she continued, still retaining her hold of phoebe's wrist, "i am ready to answer for my conduct; but i would rather that the business should be kept quiet. i think that i can leave this house without being seen by any living creature, if you will do as i tell you." "i will do anything you wish, my lady," answered phoebe, submissively. "then you will wish me good-night presently, when my maid comes into the room, and you will suffer her to show you out of the house. you will cross the courtyard and wait for me in the avenue upon the other side of the archway. it may be half an hour before i am able to join you, for i must not leave my room till the servants have all gone to bed, but you may wait for me patiently, for come what may i will join you." lady audley's face was no longer pale. an unnatural luster gleamed in her great blue eyes. she spoke with an unnatural rapidity. she had altogether the appearance and manner of a person who has yielded to the dominant influence of some overpowering excitement. phoebe marks stared at her late mistress in mute bewilderment. she began to fear that my lady was going mad. the bell which lady audley rang was answered by the smart lady's-maid who wore rose-colored ribbons, and black silk gowns, and other adornments which were unknown to the humble people who sat below the salt in the good old days when servants wore linsey-woolsey. "i did not know that it was so late, martin," said my lady, in that gentle tone which always won for her the willing service of her inferiors. "i have been talking with mrs. marks and have let the time slip by me. i sha'n't want anything to-night, so you may go to bed when you please." "thank you, my lady," answered the girl, who looked very sleepy, and had some difficulty in repressing a yawn even in her mistress' presence, for the audley household usually kept very early hours. "i'd better show mrs. marks out, my lady, hadn't i?" asked the maid, "before i go to bed?" "oh, yes, to be sure; you can let phoebe out. all the other servants have gone to bed, then, i suppose?" "yes, my lady." lady audley laughed as she glanced at the timepiece. "we have been terrible dissipated up here, phoebe," she said. "good-night. you may tell your husband that his rent shall be paid." "thank you very much, my lady, and good-night," murmured phoebe as she backed out of the room, followed by the lady's maid. lady audley listened at the door, waiting till the muffled sounds of their footsteps died away in the octagon chamber and on the carpeted staircase. "martin sleeps at the top of the house," she said, "half a mile away from this room. in ten minutes i may safely make my escape." she went back into her dressing-room, and put on her cloak and bonnet for the second time. the unnatural color still burnt like a flame in her cheeks; the unnatural light still glittered in her eyes. the excitement which she was under held her in so strong a spell that neither her mind nor her body seemed to have any consciousness of fatigue. however verbose i may be in my description of her feelings, i can never describe a tithe of her thoughts or her sufferings. she suffered agonies that would fill closely printed volumes, bulky with a thousand pages, in that one horrible night. she underwent volumes of anguish, and doubt, and perplexity; sometimes repeating the same chapters of her torments over and over again; sometimes hurrying through a thousand pages of her misery without one pause, without one moment of breathing time. she stood by the low fender in her boudoir, watching the minute-hand of the clock, and waiting till it should be time for her to leave the house in safety. "i will wait ten minutes," she said, "not a moment beyond, before i enter on my new peril." she listened to the wild roaring of the march wind, which seemed to have risen with the stillness and darkness of the night. the hand slowly made its inevitable way to the figures which told that the ten minutes were past. it was exactly a quarter to twelve when my lady took her lamp in her hand, and stole softly from the room. her footfall was as light as that of some graceful wild animal, and there was no fear of that airy step awakening any echo upon the carpeted stone corridors and staircase. she did not pause until she reached the vestibule upon the ground floor. several doors opened out of the vestibule, which was octagon, like my lady's ante-chamber. one of these doors led into the library, and it was this door which lady audley opened softly and cautiously. to have attempted to leave the house secretly by any of the principal outlets would have been simple madness, for the housekeeper herself superintended the barricading of the great doors, back and front. the secrets of the bolts, and bars, and chains, and bells which secured these doors, and provided for the safety of sir michael audley's plate-room, the door of which was lined with sheet-iron, were known only to the servants who had to deal with them. but although all these precautions were taken with the principal entrances to the citadel, a wooden shutter and a slender iron bar, light enough to be lifted by a child, were considered sufficient safeguard for the half-glass door which opened out of the breakfast-room into the graveled pathway and smooth turf in the courtyard. it was by this outlet that lady audley meant to make her escape. she could easily remove the bar and unfasten the shutter, and she might safely venture to leave the window ajar while she was absent. there was little fear of sir michael's awaking for some time, as he was a heavy sleeper in the early part of the night, and had slept more heavily than usual since his illness. lady audley crossed the library, and opened the door of the breakfast-room, which communicated with it. this latter apartment was one of the later additions to the court. it was a simple, cheerful chamber, with brightly papered walls and pretty maple furniture, and was more occupied by alicia than any one else. the paraphernalia of that young lady's favorite pursuits were scattered about the room�drawing-materials, unfinished scraps of work, tangled skeins of silk, and all the other tokens of a careless damsel's presence; while miss audley's picture�a pretty crayon sketch of a rosy-faced hoyden in a riding-habit and hat�hung over the quaint wedgewood ornaments on the chimneypiece. my lady looked upon these familiar objects with scornful hatred flaming in her blue eyes. "how glad she will be if any disgrace befalls me," she thought; "how she will rejoice if i am driven out of this house!" lady audley set the lamp upon a table near the fireplace, and went to the window. she removed the iron-bar and the light wooden shutter, and then opened the glass-door. the march night was black and moonless, and a gust of wind blew in upon her as she opened this door, and filled the room with its chilly breath, extinguishing the lamp upon the table. "no matter," my lady muttered, "i could not have left it burning. i shall know how to find my way through the house when i come back. i have left all the doors ajar." she stepped quickly out upon the smooth gravel, and closed the glass-door behind her. she was afraid lest that treacherous wind should blow-to the door opening into the library, and thus betray her. she was in the quadrangle now, with that chill wind sweeping against her, and swirling her silken garments round her with a shrill, rustling noise, like the whistling of a sharp breeze against the sails of a yacht. she crossed the quadrangle and looked back�looked back for a moment at the firelight gleaming between the rosy-tinted curtains in her boudoir, and the dim gleam of the lamp through the mullioned windows in the room where sir michael audley lay asleep. "i feel as if i were running away," she thought; "i feel as if i were running away secretly in the dead of the night, to lose myself and be forgotten. perhaps it would be wiser in me to run away, to take this man's warning, and escape out of his power forever. if i were to run away and disappear as�as george talboys disappeared. but where could i go? what would become of me? i have no money; my jewels are not worth a couple of hundred pounds, now that i have got rid of the best part of them. what could i do? i must go back to the old life, the old, hard, cruel, wretched life�the life of poverty, and humiliation, and vexation, and discontent. i should have to go back and wear myself out in that long struggle, and die�as my mother died, perhaps!" my lady stood still for a moment on the smooth lawn between the quadrangle and the archway, with her head drooping upon her breast and her hands locked together, debating this question in the unnatural activity of her mind. her attitude reflected the state of that mind�it expressed irresolution and perplexity. but presently a sudden change came over her; she lifted her head�lifted it with an action of defiance and determination. "no! mr. robert audley," she said, aloud, in a low, clear voice; "i will not go back�i will not go back. if the struggle between us is to be a duel to the death, you shall not find me drop my weapon." she walked with a firm and rapid step under the archway. as she passed under that massive arch, it seemed as if she disappeared into some black gulf that had waited open to receive her. the stupid clock struck twelve, and the whole archway seemed to vibrate under its heavy strokes, as lady audley emerged upon the other side and joined phoebe marks, who had waited for her late mistress very near the gateway of the court. "now, phoebe," she said, "it is three miles from here to mount stanning, isn't it?" "yes, my lady." "then we can walk the distance in an hour and a half." lady audley had not stopped to say this; she was walking quickly along the avenue with her humble companion by her side. fragile and delicate as she was in appearance, she was a very good walker. she had been in the habit of taking long country rambles with mr. dawson's children in her old days of dependence, and she thought very little of a distance of three miles. "your beautiful husband will sit up for you, i suppose, phoebe?" she said, as they struck across an open field that was used as a short cut from audley court to the high-road. "oh, yes, my lady; he's sure to sit up. he'll be drinking with the man, i dare say." "the man! what man?" "the man that's in possession, my lady." "ah, to be sure," said lady audley, indifferently. it was strange that phoebe's domestic troubles should seem so very far away from her thoughts at the time she was taking such an extraordinary step toward setting things right at the castle inn. the two women crossed the field and turned into the high road. the way to mount stanning was all up hill, and the long road looked black and dreary in the dark night; but my lady walked on with a desperate courage, which was no common constituent in her selfish sensuous nature, but a strange faculty born out of her great despair. she did not speak again to her companion until they were close upon the glimmering lights at the top of the hill. one of these village lights, glaring redly through a crimson curtain, marked out the particular window behind which it was likely that luke marks sat nodding drowsily over his liquor, and waiting for the coming of his wife. "he has not gone to bed, phoebe," said my lady, eagerly. "but there is no other light burning at the inn. i suppose mr. audley is in bed and asleep." "yes, my lady, i suppose so." "you are sure he was going to stay at the castle to night?" "oh, yes, my lady. i helped the girl to get his room ready before i came away." the wind, boisterous everywhere, was even shriller and more pitiless in the neighborhood of that bleak hill-top upon which the castle inn reared its rickety walls. the cruel blasts raved wildly round that frail erection. they disported themselves with the shattered pigeon-house, the broken weathercock, the loose tiles, and unshapely chimneys; they rattled at the window-panes, and whistled in the crevices; they mocked the feeble building from foundation to roof, and battered, and banged, and tormented it in their fierce gambols, until it trembled and rocked with the force of their rough play. mr. luke marks had not troubled himself to secure the door of his dwelling-house before sitting down to booze with the man who held provisional possession of his goods and chattels. the landlord of the castle inn was a lazy, sensual brute, who had no thought higher than a selfish concern for his own enjoyments, and a virulent hatred for anybody who stood in the way of his gratification. phoebe pushed open the door with her hand, and went into the house, followed by my lady. the gas was flaring in the bar, and smoking the low plastered ceiling. the door of the bar-parlor was half open, and lady audley heard the brutal laughter of mr. marks as she crossed the threshold of the inn. "i'll tell him you're here, my lady," whispered phoebe to her late mistress. "i know he'll be tipsy. you�you won't be offended, my lady, if he should say anything rude? you know it wasn't my wish that you should come." "yes, yes," answered lady audley, impatiently, "i know that. what should i care for his rudeness! let him say what he likes." phoebe marks pushed open the parlor door, leaving my lady in the bar close behind her. luke sat with his clumsy legs stretched out upon the hearth. he held a glass of gin-and-water in one hand and the poker in the other. he had just thrust the poker into a heap of black coals, and was scattering them to make a blaze, when his wife appeared upon the threshold of the room. he snatched the poker from between the bars, and made a half drunken, half threatening motion with it as he saw her. "so you've condescended to come home at last, ma'am," he said; "i thought you was never coming no more." he spoke in a thick and drunken voice, and was by no means too intelligible. he was steeped to the very lips in alcohol. his eyes were dim and watery; his hands were unsteady; his voice was choked and muffled with drink. a brute, even when most sober; a brute, even on his best behavior, he was ten times more brutal in his drunkenness, when the few restraints which held his ignorant, every day brutality in check were flung aside in the indolent recklessness of intoxication. "i�i've been longer than i intended to be, luke," phoebe answered, in her most conciliatory manner; "but i've seen my lady, and she's been very kind, and�and she'll settle this business for us." "she's been very kind, has she?" muttered mr. marks, with a drunken laugh; "thank her for nothing. i know the vally of her kindness. she'd be oncommon kind, i dessay, if she warn't obligated to be it." the man in possession, who had fallen into a maudlin and semi-unconscious state of intoxication upon about a third of the liquor that mr. marks had consumed, only stared in feeble wonderment at his host and hostess. he sat near the table. indeed, he had hooked himself on to it with his elbows, as a safeguard against sliding under it, and he was making imbecile attempts to light his pipe at the flame of a guttering tallow candle near him. "my lady has promised to settle the business for us, luke," phoebe repeated, without noticing luke's remarks. she knew her husband's dogged nature well enough by this time to know that it was worse than useless to try to stop him from doing or saying anything which his own stubborn will led him to do or say. "my lady will settle it," she said, "and she's come down here to see about it to-night," she added. the poker dropped from the landlord's hand, and fell clattering among the cinders on the hearth. "my lady audley come here to-night!" he said. "yes, luke." my lady appeared upon the threshold of the door as phoebe spoke. "yes, luke marks," she said, "i have come to pay this man, and to send him about his business." lady audley said these words in a strange, semi-mechanical manner; very much as if she had learned the sentence by rote, and were repeating it without knowing what she said. mr. marks gave a discontented growl, and set his empty glass down upon the table with an impatient gesture. "you might have given the money to phoebe," he said, "as well as have brought it yourself. we don't want no fine ladies up here, pryin' and pokin' their precious noses into everythink." "luke, luke!" remonstrated phoebe, "when my lady has been so kind!" "oh, damn her kindness!" cried mr. marks; "it ain't her kindness as we want, gal, it's her money. she won't get no snivelin' gratitood from me. whatever she does for us she does because she is obliged; and if she wasn't obliged she wouldn't do it�" heaven knows how much more luke marks might have said, had not my lady turned upon him suddenly and awed him into silence by the unearthly glitter of her beauty. her hair had been blown away from her face, and being of a light, feathery quality, had spread itself into a tangled mass that surrounded her forehead like a yellow flame. there was another flame in her eyes�a greenish light, such as might flash from the changing-hued orbs of an angry mermaid. "stop," she cried. "i didn't come up here in the dead of night to listen to your insolence. how much is this debt?" "nine pound." lady audley produced her purse�a toy of ivory, silver, and turquoise�she took from it a note and four sovereigns. she laid these upon the table. "let that man give me a receipt for the money," she said, "before i go." it was some time before the man could be roused into sufficient consciousness for the performance of this simple duty, and it was only by dipping a pen into the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers, that he was at last made to comprehend that his autograph was wanted at the bottom of the receipt which had been made out by phoebe marks. lady audley took the document as soon as the ink was dry, and turned to leave the parlor. phoebe followed her. "you mustn't go home alone, my lady," she said. "you'll let me go with you?" "yes, yes; you shall go home with me." the two women were standing near the door of the inn as my lady said this. phoebe stared wonderingly at her patroness. she had expected that lady audley would be in a hurry to return home after settling this business which she had capriciously taken upon herself; but it was not so; my lady stood leaning against the inn door and staring into vacancy, and again mrs. marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late mistress mad. a little dutch clock in the bar struck two while lady audley lingered in this irresolute, absent manner. she started at the sound and began to tremble violently. "i think i am going to faint, phoebe," she said; "where can i get some cold water?" "the pump is in the wash-house, my lady; i'll run and get you a glass of cold water." "no, no, no," cried my lady, clutching phoebe's arm as she was about to run away upon this errand; "i'll get it myself. i must dip my head in a basin of water if i want to save myself from fainting. in which room does mr. audley sleep?" there was something so irrelevant in this question that phoebe marks stared aghast at her mistress before she answered it. "it was number three that i got ready, my lady�the front room�the room next to ours," she replied, after that pause of astonishment. "give me a candle," said my lady. "i'll go into your room, and get some water for my head; stay where you are, and see that that brute of a husband of yours does not follow me!" she snatched the candle which phoebe had lighted from the girl's hand and ran up the rickety, winding staircase which led to the narrow corridor upon the upper floor. five bed-rooms opened out of this low-ceilinged, close-smelling corridor; the numbers of these rooms were indicated by squat black figures painted upon the panels of the doors. lady audley had driven up to mount stanning to inspect the house when she bought the business for her servant's bridegroom, and she knew her way about the dilapidated old place; she knew where to find phoebe's bedroom, but she stopped before the door of that other chamber which had been prepared for mr. robert audley. she stopped and looked at the number on the door. the key was in the lock, and her hand dropped upon it as if unconsciously. but presently she suddenly began to tremble again, as she had trembled a few minutes before at the striking of the clock. she stood for a few moments trembling thus, with her hand still upon the key; then a horrible expression came over her face, and she turned the key in the lock. she turned it twice, double locking the door. there was no sound from within; the occupant of the chamber made no sign of having heard that ominous creaking of the rusty key in the rusty lock. lady audley hurried into the next room. she set the candle on the dressing-table, flung off her bonnet and slung it loosely across her arm; then she went to the wash-stand and filled the basin with water. she plunged her golden hair into this water, and then stood for a few moments in the center of the room looking about her, with a white, earnest face, and an eager gaze that seemed to take in every object in the poorly furnished chamber. phoebe's bedroom was certainly very shabbily furnished; she had been compelled to select all the most decent things for those best bedrooms which were set apart for any chance traveler who might stop for a night's lodging at the castle inn; but phoebe marks had done her best to atone for the lack of substantial furniture in her apartment by a superabundance of drapery. crisp curtains of cheap chintz hung from the tent-bedstead; festooned drapery of the same material shrouded the narrow window shutting out the light of day, and affording a pleasant harbor for tribes of flies and predatory bands of spiders. even the looking-glass, a miserably cheap construction which distorted every face whose owner had the hardihood to look into it, stood upon a draperied altar of starched muslin and pink glazed calico, and was adorned with frills of lace and knitted work. my lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and furbelows which met her eyes upon every side. she had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the costly elegance of her own apartments; but there was something in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural contempt for phoebe's attempts at decoration. she went to the dressing-table and, smoothed her wet hair before the looking-glass, and then put on her bonnet. she was obliged to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the lace furbelows about the glass; so close that the starched muslin seemed to draw the flame toward it by some power of attraction in its fragile tissue. phoebe waited anxiously by the inn door for my lady's coming she watched the minute hand of the little dutch clock, wondering at the slowness of its progress. it was only ten minutes past two when lady audley came down-stairs, with her bonnet on and her hair still wet, but without the candle. phoebe was immediately anxious about this missing candle. "the light, my lady," she said, "you have left it up-stairs!" "the wind blew it out as i was leaving your room," lady audley answered, quietly. "i left it there." "in my room, my lady?" "yes." "and it was quite out?" "yes, i tell you; why do you worry me about your candle? it is past two o'clock. come." she took the girl's arm, and half led, half dragged her from the house. the convulsive pressure of her slight hand held her firmly as an iron vise could have held her. the fierce march wind banged to the door of the house, and left the two women standing outside it. the long, black road lay bleak and desolate before them, dimly visible between straight lines of leafless hedges. a walk of three miles' length upon a lonely country road, between the hours of two and four on a cold winter's morning, is scarcely a pleasant task for a delicate woman�a woman whose inclinations lean toward ease and luxury. but my lady hurried along the hard, dry highway, dragging her companion with her as if she had been impelled by some horrible demoniac force which knew no abatement. with the black night above them�with the fierce wind howling around them, sweeping across a broad expanse of hidden country, blowing as if it had arisen simultaneously from every point of the compass, and making those wanderers the focus of its ferocity�the two women walked through the darkness down the hill upon which mount stanning stood, along a mile and a half of flat road, and then up another hill, on the western side of which audley court lay in that sheltered valley, which seemed to shut in the old house from all the clamor and hubbub of the everyday world. my lady stopped upon the summit of this hill to draw breath and to clasp her hands upon her heart, in the vain hope that she might still its cruel beating. they were now within three-quarters of a mile of the court, and they had been walking for nearly an hour since they had left the castle inn. lady audley stopped to rest, with her face still turned toward the place of her destination. phoebe marks, stopping also, and very glad of a moment's pause in that hurried journey, looked back into the far darkness beneath which lay that dreary shelter that had given her so much uneasiness. and she did so, she uttered a shrill cry of horror, and clutched wildly at her companion's cloak. the night sky was no longer all dark. the thick blackness was broken by one patch of lurid light. "my lady, my lady!" cried phoebe, pointing to this lurid patch; "do you see?" "yes, child, i see," answered lady audley, trying to shake the clinging hands from her garments. "what's the matter?" "it's a fire�a fire, my lady!" "yes, i am afraid it is a fire. at brentwood, most likely. let me go, phoebe; it's nothing to us." "yes, yes, my lady; it's nearer than brentwood�much nearer; it's at mount stanning." lady audley did not answer. she was trembling again, with the cold perhaps, for the wind had torn her heavy cloak from her shoulders, and had left her slender figure exposed to the blast. "it's at mount stanning, my lady!" cried phoebe marks. "it's the castle that's on fire�i know it is, i know it is! i thought of fire to-night, and i was fidgety and uneasy, for i knew this would happen some day. i wouldn't mind if it was only the wretched place, but there'll be life lost, there'll be life lost!" sobbed the girl, distractedly. "there's luke, too tipsy to help himself, unless others help him; there's mr. audley asleep�" phoebe marks stopped suddenly at the mention of robert's name, and fell upon her knees, clasping her uplifted hands, and appealing wildly to lady audley. "oh, my god!" she cried. "say it's not true, my lady, say it's not true! it's too horrible, it's too horrible, it's too horrible!" "what's too horrible?" "the thought that's in my mind; the terrible thought that's in my mind." "what do you mean, girl?" cried my lady, fiercely. "oh, god forgive me if i'm wrong!" the kneeling woman gasped in detached sentences, "and god grant i may be. why did you go up to the castle, my lady? why were you so set on going against all i could say�you who are so bitter against mr. audley and against luke, and who knew they were both under that roof? oh, tell me that i do you a cruel wrong, my lady; tell me so�tell me! for as there is a heaven above me i think that you went to that place to-night on purpose to set fire to it. tell me that i'm wrong, my lady; tell me that i'm doing you a wicked wrong." "i will tell you nothing, except that you are a mad woman," answered lady audley; in a cold, hard voice. "get up; fool, idiot, coward! is your husband such a precious bargain that you should be groveling there, lamenting and groaning for him? what is robert audley to you, that you behave like a maniac, because you think he is in danger? how do you know the fire is at mount stanning? you see a red patch in the sky, and you cry out directly that your own paltry hovel is in flames, as if there were no place in the world that could burn except that. the fire may be at brentwood, or further away�at romford, or still further away, on the eastern side of london, perhaps. get up, mad woman, and go back and look after your goods and chattels, and your husband and your lodger. get up and go: i don't want you." "oh! my lady, my lady, forgive me," sobbed phoebe; "there's nothing you can say to me that's hard enough for having done you such a wrong, even in my thoughts. i don't mind your cruel words�i don't mind anything if i'm wrong." "go back and see for yourself," answered lady audley, sternly. "i tell you again, i don't want you." she walked away in the darkness, leaving phoebe marks still kneeling upon the hard road, where she had cast herself in that agony of supplication. sir michael's wife walked toward the house in which her husband slept with the red blaze lighting up the skies behind her, and with nothing but the blackness of the night before. chapter xxxiii. the bearer of the tidings. it was very late the next morning when lady audley emerged from her dressing-room, exquisitely dressed in a morning costume of delicate muslin, delicate laces, and embroideries; but with a very pale face, and with half-circles of purple shadow under her eyes. she accounted for this pale face and these hollow eyes by declaring that she had sat up reading until a very late hour on the previous night. sir michael and his young wife breakfasted in the library at a comfortable round table, wheeled close to the blazing fire; and alicia was compelled to share this meal with her step-mother, however she might avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast and dinner. the march morning was bleak and dull, and a drizzling rain fell incessantly, obscuring the landscape and blotting out the distance. there were very few letters by the morning post; the daily newspapers did not arrive until noon; and such aids to conversation being missing, there was very little talk at the breakfast table. alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting against the broad window-panes. "no riding to-day," she said; "and no chance of any callers to enliven us, unless that ridiculous bob comes crawling through the wet from mount stanning." have you ever heard anybody, whom you knew to be dead, alluded to in a light, easy going manner by another person who did not know of his death�alluded to as doing that or this, as performing some trivial everyday operation�when you know that he has vanished away from the face of this earth, and separated himself forever from all living creatures and their commonplace pursuits in the awful solemnity of death? such a chance allusion, insignificant though it may be, is apt to send a strange thrill of pain through the mind. the ignorant remark jars discordantly upon the hyper-sensitive brain; the king of terrors is desecrated by that unwitting disrespect. heaven knows what hidden reason my lady may have had for experiencing some such revulsion of feeling on the sudden mention of mr. audley's name, but her pale face blanched to a sickly white as alicia audley spoke of her cousin. "yes, he will come down here in the wet, perhaps," the young lady continued, "with his hat sleek and shining as if it had been brushed with a pat of fresh butter, and with white vapors steaming out of his clothes, and making him look like an awkward genie just let out of his bottle. he will come down here and print impressions of his muddy boots all over the carpet, and he'll sit on your gobelin tapestry, my lady, in his wet overcoat; and he'll abuse you if you remonstrate, and will ask why people have chairs that are not to be sat upon, and why you don't live in figtree court, and�" sir michael audley watched his daughter with a thoughtful countenance as she talked of her cousin. she very often talked of him, ridiculing him and inveighing against him in no very measured terms. but perhaps the baronet thought of a certain signora beatrice who very cruelly entreated a gentleman called benedick, but who was, it may be, heartily in love with him at the same time. "what do you think major melville told me when he called here yesterday, alicia?" sir michael asked, presently. "i haven't the remotest idea," replied alicia, rather disdainfully. "perhaps he told you that we should have another war before long, by ged, sir; or perhaps he told you that we should have a new ministry, by ged, sir, for that those fellows are getting themselves into a mess, sir; or that those other fellows were reforming this, and cutting down that, and altering the other in the army, until, by ged, sir, we shall have no army at all, by-and-by�nothing but a pack of boys, sir, crammed up to the eyes with a lot of senseless schoolmasters' rubbish, and dressed in shell-jackets and calico helmets. yes, sir, they're fighting in oudh in calico helmets at this very day, sir." "you're an impertinent minx, miss," answered the baronet. "major melville told me nothing of the kind; but he told me that a very devoted admirer of you, a certain sir harry towers, has forsaken his place in hertfordshire, and his hunting stable, and has gone on the continent for a twelvemonths' tour." miss audley flushed up suddenly at the mention of her old adorer, but recovered herself very quickly. "he has gone on the continent, has he?" she said indifferently. "he told me that he meant to do so�if�if he didn't have everything his own way. poor fellow! he's a dear, good-hearted, stupid creature, and twenty times better than that peripatetic, patent refrigerator, mr. robert audley." "i wish, alicia, you were not so fond of ridiculing bob," sir michael said, gravely. "bob is a good fellow, and i'm as fond of him as if he'd been my own son; and�and�i've been very uncomfortable about him lately. he has changed very much within the last few days, and he has taken all sorts of absurd ideas into his head, and my lady has alarmed me about him. she thinks�" lady audley interrupted her husband with a grave shake of her head. "it is better not to say too much about it as yet awhile," she said; "alicia knows what i think." "yes," replied miss audley, "my lady thinks that bob is going mad, but i know better than that. he's not at all the sort of person to go mad. how should such a sluggish ditch-pond of an intellect as his ever work itself into a tempest? he may move about for the rest of his life, perhaps, in a tranquil state of semi-idiotcy, imperfectly comprehending who he is, and where he's going, and what he's doing�but he'll never go mad." sir michael did not reply to this. he had been very much disturbed by his conversation with my lady on the previous evening, and had silently debated the painful question, in his mind ever since. his wife�the woman he best loved and most believed in�had told him, with all appearance of regret and agitation, her conviction of his nephew's insanity. he tried in vain to arrive at the conclusion he wished most ardently to attain; he tried in vain to think that my lady was misled by her own fancies, and had no foundation for what she said. but then, again, it suddenly flashed upon him, that to think this was to arrive at a worse conclusion; it was to transfer the horrible suspicion from his nephew to his wife. she appeared to be possessed with an actual conviction of robert's insanity. to imagine her wrong was to imagine some weakness in her own mind. the longer he thought of the subject the more it harassed and perplexed him. it was most certain that the young man had always been eccentric. he was sensible, he was tolerably clever, he was honorable and gentlemanlike in feeling, though perhaps a little careless in the performance of certain minor social duties; but there were some slight differences, not easily to be defined, that separated him from other men of his age and position. then, again, it was equally true that he had very much changed within the period that had succeeded the disappearance of george talboys. he had grown moody and thoughtful, melancholy and absent-minded. he had held himself aloof from society, had sat for hours without speaking; had talked at other points by fits and starts; and had excited himself unusually in the discussion of subjects which apparently lay far out of the region of his own life and interests. then there was even another region which seemed to strengthen my lady's case against this unhappy young man. he had been brought up in the frequent society of his cousin, alicia�his pretty, genial cousin�to whom interest, and one would have thought affection, naturally pointed as his most fitting bride. more than this, the girl had shown him, in the innocent guilelessness of a transparent nature, that on her side at least, affection was not wanting; and yet, in spite of all this, he had held himself aloof, and had allowed others to propose for her hand, and to be rejected by her, and had still made no sign. now love is so very subtle an essence, such an indefinable metaphysical marvel, that its due force, though very cruelly felt by the sufferer himself, is never clearly understood by those who look on at its torments and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly. sir michael argued that because alicia was a pretty girl and an amiable girl it was therefore extraordinary and unnatural in robert audley not to have duly fallen in love with her. this baronet, who close upon his sixtieth birthday, had for the first time encountered that one woman who out of all the women in the world had power to quicken the pulses of his heart, wondered why robert failed to take the fever from the first breath of contagion that blew toward him. he forgot that there are men who go their ways unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women, to succumb at last before some harsh-featured virago, who knows the secret of that only philter which can intoxicate and bewitch him. he had forgot that there are certain jacks who go through life without meeting the jill appointed for them by nemesis, and die old bachelors, perhaps, with poor jill pining an old maid upon the other side of the party-wall. he forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures. jones, who is wildly enamored of miss brown, and who lies awake at night until he loathes his comfortable pillow and tumbles his sheets into two twisted rags of linen in his agonies, as if he were a prisoner and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes; this same jones who thinks russell square a magic place because his divinity inhabits it, who thinks the trees in that inclosure and the sky above it greener and bluer than other trees or sky, and who feels a pang, yes, an actual pang, of mingled hope, and joy, and expectation, and terror, when he emerges from guilford street, descending from the hights of islington, into those sacred precincts; this very jones is hard and callous toward the torments of smith, who adores miss robinson, and cannot imagine what the infatuated fellow can see in the girl. so it was with sir michael audley. he looked at his nephew as a sample of a very large class of young men, and his daughter as a sample of an equally extensive class of feminine goods, and could not see why the two samples should not make a very respectable match. he ignored all those infinitesimal differences in nature which make the wholesome food of one man the deadly poison of another. how difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man doesn't like such and such a favorite dish. if at a dinner-party, a meek looking guest refuses early salmon and cucumbers, or green peas in february, we set him down as a poor relation whose instincts warn him off those expensive plates. if an alderman were to declare that he didn't like green fat, he would be looked upon as a social martyr, a marcus curtius of the dinner-table, who immolated himself for the benefit of his kind. his fellow-aldermen would believe in anything rather than an heretical distaste for the city ambrosia of the soup tureen. but there are people who dislike salmon, and white-bait, and spring ducklings, and all manner of old-established delicacies, and there are other people who affect eccentric and despicable dishes, generally stigmatized as nasty. alas, my pretty alicia, your cousin did not love you! he admired your rosy english face, and had a tender affection for you which might perhaps have expanded by-and-by into something warm enough for matrimony, that every-day jog-trot species of union which demands no very passionate devotion, but for a sudden check which it had received in dorsetshire. yes, robert audley's growing affection for his cousin, a plant of very slow growth, i am fain to confess, had been suddenly dwarfed and stunted upon that bitter february day on which he had stood beneath the pine-trees talking to clara talboys. since that day the young man had experienced an unpleasant sensation in thinking of poor alicia. he looked at her as being in some vague manner an incumbrance upon the freedom of his thoughts; he had a haunting fear that he was in some tacit way pledged to her; that she had a species of claim upon him, which forbade to him the right of thinking of another woman. i believe it was the image of miss audley presented to him in this light that goaded the young barrister into those outbursts of splenetic rage against the female sex which he was liable to at certain times. he was strictly honorable, so honorable that he would rather have immolated himself upon the altar of truth and alicia than have done her the remotest wrong, though by so doing he might have secured his own comfort and happiness. "if the poor little girl loves me," he thought, "and if she thinks that i love her, and has been led to think so by any word or act of mine, i'm in duty bound to let her think so to the end of time, and to fulfill any tacit promise which i may have unconsciously made. i thought once�i meant once to�to make her an offer by-and-by when this horrible mystery about george talboys should have been cleared up and everything peacefully settled�but now�" his thoughts would ordinarily wander away at this point of his reflections, carrying him where he never had intended to go; carrying him back under the pine-trees in dorsetshire, and setting him once more face to face with the sister of his missing friend, and it was generally a very laborious journey by which he traveled back to the point from which he strayed. it was so difficult for him to tear himself away from the stunted turf and the pine-trees. "poor little girl!" he would think on coming back to alicia. "how good it is of her to love me, and how grateful ought i to be for her tenderness. how many fellows would think such a generous, loving heart the highest boon that earth could give them. there's sir harry towers stricken with despair at his rejection. he would give me half his estate, all his estate, twice his estate, if he had it, to be in the shoes which i am anxious to shake off my ungrateful feet. why don't i love her? why is it that although i know her to be pretty, and pure, and good, and truthful, i don't love her? her image never haunts me, except reproachfully. i never see her in my dreams. i never wake up suddenly in the dead of the night with her eyes shining upon me and her warm breath upon my cheek, or with the fingers of her soft hand clinging to mine. no, i'm not in love with her, i can't fall in love with her." he raged and rebelled against his ingratitude. he tried to argue himself into a passionate attachment for his cousin, but he failed ignominiously, and the more he tried to think of alicia the more he thought of clara talboys. i am speaking now of his feelings in the period that elapsed between his return from dorsetshire and his visit to grange heath. sir michael sat by the library fire after breakfast upon this wretched rainy morning, writing letters and reading the newspapers. alicia shut herself in her own apartment to read the third volume of a novel. lady audley locked the door of the octagon ante-chamber, and roamed up and down the suite of rooms from the bedroom to the boudoir all through that weary morning. she had locked the door to guard against the chance of any one coming in suddenly and observing her before she was aware�before she had had sufficient warning to enable her to face their scrutiny. her pale face seemed to grow paler as the morning advanced. a tiny medicine-chest was open upon the dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red lavender, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were scattered about. once my lady paused before this medicine-chest, and took out the remaining bottles, half-absently, perhaps, until she came to one which was filled with a thick, dark liquid, and labeled "opium�poison." she trifled a long time with this last bottle; holding it up to the light, and even removing the stopper and smelling the sickly liquid. but she put it from her suddenly with a shudder. "if i could!" she muttered, "if i could only do it! and yet why should i now?" she clinched her small hands as she uttered the last words, and walked to the window of the dressing-room, which looked straight toward that ivied archway under which any one must come who came from mount stanning to the court. there were smaller gates in the gardens which led into the meadows behind the court, but there was no other way of coming from mount stanning or brentwood than by the principal entrance. the solitary hand of the clock over the archway was midway between one and two when my lady looked at it. "how slow the time is," she said, wearily; "how slow, how slow! shall i grow old like this, i wonder, with every minute of my life seeming like an hour?" she stood for a few minutes watching the archway, but no one passed under it while she looked, and she turned impatiently away from the window to resume her weary wandering about the rooms. whatever fire that had been which had reflected itself vividly in the black sky, no tidings of it had as yet come to audley court. the day was miserably wet and windy, altogether the very last day upon which even the most confirmed idler and gossip would care to venture out. it was not a market-day, and there were therefore very few passengers upon the road between brentwood and chelmsford, so that as yet no news of the fire, which had occurred in the dead of the wintry night, had reached the village of audley, or traveled from the village to the court. the girl with the rose-colored ribbons came to the door of the anteroom to summon her mistress to luncheon, but lady audley only opened the door a little way, and intimated her intention of taking no luncheon. "my head aches terribly, martin," she said; "i shall go and lie down till dinner-time. you may come at five to dress me." lady audley said this with the predetermination of dressing at four, and thus dispensing with the services of her attendant. among all privileged spies, a lady's-maid has the highest privileges; it is she who bathes lady theresa's eyes with eau-de-cologne after her ladyship's quarrel with the colonel; it is she who administers sal-volatile to miss fanny when count beaudesert, of the blues, has jilted her. she has a hundred methods for the finding out of her mistress' secrets. she knows by the manner in which her victim jerks her head from under the hair-brush, or chafes at the gentlest administration of the comb, what hidden tortures are racking her breast�what secret perplexities are bewildering her brain. that well-bred attendant knows how to interpret the most obscure diagnosis of all mental diseases that can afflict her mistress; she knows when the ivory complexion is bought and paid for�when the pearly teeth are foreign substances fashioned by the dentist�when the glossy plaits are the relics of the dead, rather than the property of the living; and she knows other and more sacred secrets than these; she knows when the sweet smile is more false than madame levison's enamel, and far less enduring�when the words that issue from between gates of borrowed pearl are more disguised and painted than the lips which help to shape them�when the lovely fairy of the ball-room re-enters the dressing-room after the night's long revelry, and throws aside her voluminous burnous and her faded bouquet, and drops her mask, and like another cinderella loses the glass-slipper, by whose glitter she has been distinguished, and falls back into her rags and dirt, the lady's maid is by to see the transformation. the valet who took wages from the prophet of korazin must have seen his master sometimes unveiled, and must have laughed in his sleeve at the folly of the monster's worshipers. lady audley had made no confidante of her new maid, and on this day of all others she wished to be alone. she did lie down; she cast herself wearily upon the luxurious sofa in the dressing-room, and buried her face in the down pillows and tried to sleep. sleep!�she had almost forgotten what it was, that tender restorer of tired nature, it seemed so long now since she had slept. it was only about eight-and-forty hours perhaps, but it appeared an intolerable time. her fatigue of the night before, and her unnatural excitement, had worn her out at last. she did fall asleep; she fell into a heavy slumber that was almost like stupor. she had taken a few drops out of the opium bottle in a glass of water before lying down. the clock over the mantelpiece chimed the quarter before four as she woke suddenly and started up, with the cold perspiration breaking out in icy drops upon her forehead. she had dreamt that every member of the household was clamoring at the door, eager to tell her of a dreadful fire that had happened in the night. there was no sound but the flapping of the ivy-leaves against the glass, the occasional falling of a cinder, and the steady ticking of the clock. "perhaps i shall be always dreaming these sort of dreams," my lady thought, "until the terror of them kills me!" the rain had ceased, and the cold spring sunshine was glittering upon the windows. lady audley dressed herself rapidly but carefully. i do not say that even in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her pride in her beauty. it was not so; she looked upon that beauty as a weapon, and she felt that she had now double need to be well armed. she dressed herself in her most gorgeous silk, a voluminous robe of silvery, shimmering blue, that made her look as if she had been arrayed in moonbeams. she shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold, and, with a cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders, went down-stairs into the vestibule. she opened the door of the library and looked in. sir michael audley was asleep in his easy-chair. as my lady softly closed this door alicia descended the stairs from her own room. the turret door was open, and the sun was shining upon the wet grass-plat in the quadrangle. the firm gravel-walks were already very nearly dry, for the rain had ceased for upward of two hours. "will you take a walk with me in the quadrangle?" lady audley asked as her step-daughter approached. the armed neutrality between the two women admitted of any chance civility such as this. "yes, if you please, my lady," alicia answered, rather listlessly. "i have been yawning over a stupid novel all the morning, and shall be very glad of a little fresh air." heaven help the novelist whose fiction miss audley had been perusing, if he had no better critics than that young lady. she had read page after page without knowing what she had been reading, and had flung aside the volume half a dozen times to go to the window and watch for that visitor whom she had so confidently expected. lady audley led the way through the low doorway and on to the smooth gravel drive, by which carriages approached the house. she was still very pale, but the brightness of her dress and of her feathery golden ringlets, distracted an observer's eyes from her pallid face. all mental distress is, with some show of reason, associated in our minds with loose, disordered garments and dishabilled hair, and an appearance in every way the reverse of my lady's. why had she come out into the chill sunshine of that march afternoon to wander up and down that monotonous pathway with the step-daughter she hated? she came because she was under the dominion of a horrible restlessness, which, would not suffer her to remain within the house waiting for certain tidings which she knew must too surely come. at first she had wished to ward them off�at first she had wished that strange convulsions of nature might arise to hinder their coming�that abnormal winter lightnings might wither and destroy the messenger who carried them�that the ground might tremble and yawn beneath his hastening feet, and that impassable gulfs might separate the spot from which the tidings were to come and the place to which they were to be carried. she wished that the earth might stand still, and the paralyzed elements cease from their natural functions, that the progress of time might stop, that the day of judgment might come, and that she might thus be brought before an unearthly tribunal, and so escape the intervening shame and misery of any earthly judgment. in the wild chaos of her brain, every one of these thoughts had held its place, and in her short slumber on the sofa in her dressing-room she had dreamed all these things and a hundred other things, all bearing upon the same subject. she had dreamed that a brook, a tiny streamlet when she first saw it, flowed across the road between mount stanning and audley, and gradually swelled into a river, and from a river became an ocean, till the village on the hill receded far away out of sight and only a great waste of waters rolled where it once had been. she dreamt that she saw the messenger, now one person, now another, but never any probable person, hindered by a hundred hinderances, now startling and terrible, now ridiculous and trivial, but never either natural or probable; and going down into the quiet house with the memory of these dreams strong upon her, she had been bewildered by the stillness which had betokened that the tidings had not yet come. and now her mind underwent a complete change. she no longer wished to delay the dreaded intelligence. she wished the agony, whatever it was to be, over and done with, the pain suffered, and the release attained. it seemed to her as if the intolerable day would never come to an end, as if her mad wishes had been granted, and the progress of time had actually stopped. "what a long day it has been!" exclaimed alicia, as if taking up the burden of my lady's thoughts; "nothing but drizzle and mist and wind! and now that it's too late for anybody to go out, it must needs be fine," the young lady added, with an evident sense of injury. lady audley did not answer. she was looking at the stupid one-handed clock, and waiting for the news which must come sooner or later, which could not surely fail to come very speedily. "they have been afraid to come and tell him," she thought; "they have been afraid to break the news to sir michael. who will come to tell it, at last, i wonder? the rector of mount stanning, perhaps, or the doctor; some important person at least." if she could have gone out into the leafless avenues, or onto the high road beyond them; if she could have gone so far as that hill upon which she had so lately parted with phoebe, she would have gladly done so. she would rather have suffered anything than that slow suspense, that corroding anxiety, that metaphysical dryrot in which heart and mind seemed to decay under an insufferable torture. she tried to talk, and by a painful effort contrived now and then to utter some commonplace remark. under any ordinary circumstances her companion would have noticed her embarrassment, but miss audley, happening to be very much absorbed by her own vexations, was quite as well inclined to be silent as my lady herself. the monotonous walk up and down the graveled pathway suited alicia's humor. i think that she even took a malicious pleasure in the idea that she was very likely catching cold, and that her cousin robert was answerable for her danger. if she could have brought upon herself inflammation of the lungs, or ruptured blood-vessels, by that exposure to the chill march atmosphere, i think she would have felt a gloomy satisfaction in her sufferings. "perhaps robert might care for me, if i had inflammation of the lungs," she thought. "he couldn't insult me by calling me a bouncer then. bouncers don't have inflammation of the lungs." i believe she drew a picture of herself in the last stage of consumption, propped up by pillows in a great easy-chair, looking out of a window in the afternoon sunshine, with medicine bottles, a bunch of grapes and a bible upon a table by her side, and with robert, all contrition and tenderness, summoned to receive her farewell blessing. she preached a whole chapter to him in that parting benediction, talking a great deal longer than was in keeping with her prostrate state, and very much enjoying her dismal castle in the air. employed in this sentimental manner, miss audley took very little notice of her step-mother, and the one hand of the blundering clock had slipped to six by the time robert had been blessed and dismissed. "good gracious me!" she cried, suddenly�"six o'clock, and i'm not dressed." the half-hour bell rung in a cupola upon the roof while alicia was speaking. "i must go in, my lady," she said. "won't you come?" "presently," answered lady audley. "i'm dressed, you see." alicia ran off, but sir michael's wife still lingered in the quadrangle, still waited for those tidings which were so long coming. it was nearly dark. the blue mists of evening had slowly risen from the ground. the flat meadows were filled with a gray vapor, and a stranger might have fancied audley court a castle on the margin of a sea. under the archway the shadows of fastcoming night lurked darkly, like traitors waiting for an opportunity to glide stealthily into the quadrangle. through the archway a patch of cold blue sky glimmered faintly, streaked by one line of lurid crimson, and lighted by the dim glitter of one wintry-looking star. not a creature was stirring in the quadrangle but the restless woman who paced up and down the straight pathways, listening for a footstep whose coming was to strike terror to her soul. she heard it at last!�a footstep in the avenue upon the other side of the archway. but was it the footstep? her sense of hearing, made unnaturally acute by excitement, told her that it was a man's footstep�told even more, that it was the tread of a gentleman, no slouching, lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots, but a gentleman who walked firmly and well. every sound fell like a lump of ice upon my lady's heart. she could not wait, she could not contain herself, she lost all self-control, all power of endurance, all capability of self-restraint, and she rushed toward the archway. she paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her. she saw him, oh, god! she saw him in that dim evening light. her brain reeled, her heart stopped beating. she uttered no cry of surprise, no exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway. with her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she stood staring at the new-comer. as he approached her more closely her knees sunk under her, and she dropped to the ground, not fainting, or in any manner unconscious, but sinking into a crouching attitude, and still crushed into the angle of the wall, as if she would have made a tomb for herself in the shadow of that sheltering brickwork. "my lady!" the speaker was robert audley. he whose bedroom door she had double-locked seventeen hours before at the castle inn. "what is the matter with you?" he said, in a strange, constrained manner. "get up, and let me take you indoors." he assisted her to rise, and she obeyed him very submissively. he took her arm in his strong hand and led her across the quadrangle and into the lamp-lit hall. she shivered more violently than he had ever seen any woman shiver before, but she made no attempt at resistance to his will. chapter xxxiv. my lady tells the truth. "is there any room in which i can talk to you alone?" robert audley asked, as he looked dubiously round the hall. my lady only bowed her head in answer. she pushed open the door of the library, which had been left ajar. sir michael had gone to his dressing-room to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment, perfectly legitimate for an invalid. the apartment was quite empty, only lighted by the blaze of the fire, as it had been upon the previous evening. lady audley entered the room, followed by robert, who closed the door behind him. the wretched, shivering woman went to the fireplace and knelt down before the blaze, as if any natural warmth, could have power to check that unnatural chill. the young man followed her, and stood beside her upon the hearth, with his arm resting upon the chimney-piece. "lady audley," he said, in a voice whose icy sternness held out no hope of any tenderness or compassion, "i spoke to you last-night very plainly, but you refused to listen to me. to-night i must speak to you still more plainly, and you must no longer refuse to listen to me." my lady, crouching before the fire with her face hidden in her hands, uttered a low, sobbing sound which was almost a moan, but made no other answer. "there was a fire last night at mount stanning, lady audley," the pitiless voice proceeded; "the castle inn, the house in which i slept, was burned to the ground. do you know how i escaped perishing in that destruction?" "no." "i escaped by a most providential circumstance which seems a very simple one. i did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me. the place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting a fire, and i persuaded the servant to make me up a bed on the sofa in the small ground-floor sitting-room which i had occupied during the evening." he paused for a moment, watching the crouching figure. the only change in my lady's attitude was that her head had fallen a little lower. "shall i tell you by whose agency the destruction of the castle inn was brought about, my lady?" there was no answer. "shall i tell you?" still the same obstinate silence. "my lady audley," cried robert, suddenly, "you are the incendiary. it was you whose murderous hand kindled those flames. it was you who thought by that thrice-horrible deed to rid yourself of me, your enemy and denouncer. what was it to you that other lives might be sacrificed? if by a second massacre of saint bartholomew you could have ridded yourself of me you would have sacrificed an army of victims. the day is past for tenderness and mercy. for you i can no longer know pity or compunction. so far as by sparing your shame i can spare others who must suffer by your shame, i will be merciful, but no further. if there were any secret tribunal before which you might be made to answer for your crimes, i would have little scruple in being your accuser, but i would spare that generous and high-born gentleman upon whose noble name your infamy would be reflected." his voice softened as he made this allusion, and for a moment he broke down, but he recovered himself by an effort and continued: "no life was lost in the fire of last night. i slept lightly, my lady, for my mind was troubled, as it has been for a long time, by the misery which i knew was lowering upon this house. it was i who discovered the breaking out of the fire in time to give the alarm and to save the servant girl and the poor drunken wretch, who was very much burnt in spite of efforts, and who now lies in a precarious state at his mother's cottage. it was from him and from his wife that i learned who had visited the castle inn in the dead of the night. the woman was almost distracted when she saw me, and from her i discovered the particulars of last night. heaven knows what other secrets of yours she may hold, my lady, or how easily they might be extorted from her if i wanted her aid, which i do not. my path lies very straight before me. i have sworn to bring the murderer of george talboys to justice, and i will keep my oath. i say that it was by your agency my friend met with his death. if i have wondered sometimes, as it was only natural i should, whether i was not the victim of some horrible hallucination, whether such an alternative was not more probable than that a young and lovely woman should be capable of so foul and treacherous a murder, all wonder is past. after last night's deed of horror, there is no crime you could commit, however vast and unnatural, which could make me wonder. henceforth you must seem to me no longer a woman, a guilty woman with a heart which in its worst wickedness has yet some latent power to suffer and feel; i look upon you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some evil principle. but you shall no longer pollute this place by your presence. unless you will confess what you are and who you are in the presence of the man you have deceived so long, and accept from him and from me such mercy as we may be inclined to extend to you, i will gather together the witnesses who shall swear to your identity, and at peril of any shame to myself and those i love, i will bring upon you the just and awful punishment of your crime." the woman rose suddenly and stood before him erect and resolute, with her hair dashed away from her face and her eyes glittering. "bring sir michael!" she cried; "bring him here, and i will confess anything�everything. what do i care? god knows i have struggled hard enough against you, and fought the battle patiently enough; but you have conquered, mr. robert audley. it is a great triumph, is it not�a wonderful victory? you have used your cool, calculating, frigid, luminous intellect to a noble purpose. you have conquered�a mad woman!" "a mad woman!" cried mr. audley. "yes, a mad woman. when you say that i killed george talboys, you say the truth. when you say that i murdered him treacherously and foully, you lie. i killed him because i am mad! because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity; because, when george talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me, and reproached me, and threatened me, my mind, never properly balanced, utterly lost its balance, and i was mad! bring sir michael; and bring him quickly. if he is to be told one thing let him be told everything; let him hear the secret of my life!" robert audley left the room to look for his uncle. he went in search of that honored kinsman with god knows how heavy a weight of anguish at his heart, for he knew he was about to shatter the day-dream of his uncle's life; and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose, because they have never been the realities for which we have mistaken them. but even in the midst of his sorrow for sir michael, he could not help wondering at my lady's last words�"the secret of my life." he remembered those lines in the letter written by helen talboys upon the eve of her flight from wildernsea, which had so puzzled him. he remembered those appealing sentences�"you should forgive me, for you know why i have been so. you know the secret of my life." he met sir michael in the hall. he made no attempt to prepare the way for the terrible revelation which the baronet was to hear. he only drew him into the fire-lit library, and there for the first time addressed him quietly thus: "lady audley has a confession to make to you, sir�a confession which i know will be a most cruel surprise, a most bitter grief. but it is necessary for your present honor, and for your future peace, that you should hear it. she has deceived you, i regret to say, most basely; but it is only right that you should hear from her own lips any excuses which she may have to offer for her wickedness. may god soften this blow for you!" sobbed the young man, suddenly breaking down; "i cannot!" sir michael lifted his hand as if he would command his nephew to be silent, but that imperious hand dropped feeble and impotent at his side. he stood in the center of the fire-lit room rigid and immovable. "lucy!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish struck like a blow upon the jarred nerves of those who heard it, as the cry of a wounded animal pains the listener�"lucy, tell me that this man is a madman! tell me so, my love, or i shall kill him!" there was a sudden fury in his voice as he turned upon robert, as if he could indeed have felled his wife's accuser to the earth with the strength of his uplifted arm. but my lady fell upon her knees at his feet, interposing herself between the baronet and his nephew, who stood leaning on the back of an easy-chair, with his face hidden by his hand. "he has told you the truth," said my lady, "and he is not mad! i have sent him for you that i may confess everything to you. i should be sorry for you if i could, for you have been very, very good to me, much better to me than i ever deserved; but i can't, i can't�i can feel nothing but my own misery. i told you long ago that i was selfish; i am selfish still�more selfish than ever in my misery. happy, prosperous people may feel for others. i laugh at other people's sufferings; they seem so small compared to my own." when first my lady had fallen on her knees, sir michael had attempted to raise her, and had remonstrated with her; but as she spoke he dropped into a chair close to the spot upon which she knelt, and with his hands clasped together, and with his head bent to catch every syllable of those horrible words, he listened as if his whole being had been resolved into that one sense of hearing. "i must tell you the story of my life, in order to tell you why i have become the miserable wretch who has no better hope than to be allowed to run away and hide in some desolate corner of the earth. i must tell you the story of my life," repeated my lady, "but you need not fear that i shall dwell long upon it. it has not been so pleasant to me that i should wish to remember it. when i was a very little child i remember asking a question which it was natural enough that i should ask, god help me! i asked where my mother was. i had a faint remembrance of a face, like what my own is now, looking at me when i was very little better than a baby; but i had missed the face suddenly, and had never seen it since. they told me that mother was away. i was not happy, for the woman who had charge of me was a disagreeable woman and the place in which we lived was a lonely place, a village upon the hampshire coast, about seven miles from portsmouth. my father, who was in the navy, only came now and then to see me; and i was left almost entirely to the charge of this woman, who was irregularly paid, and who vented her rage upon me when my father was behindhand in remitting her money. so you see that at a very early age i found out what it was to be poor. "perhaps it was more from being discontented with my dreary life than from any wonderful impulse of affection, that i asked very often the same question about my mother. i always received the same answer�she was away. when i asked where, i was told that that was a secret. when i grew old enough to understand the meaning of the word death, i asked if my mother was dead, and i was told�'no, she was not dead; she was ill, and she was away.' i asked how long she had been ill, and i was told that she had been so some years, ever since i was a baby. "at last the secret came out. i worried my foster-mother with the old question one day when the remittances had fallen very much in arrear, and her temper had been unusually tried. she flew into a passion, and told me that my mother was a mad woman, and that she was in a madhouse forty miles away. she had scarcely said this when she repented, and told me that it was not the truth, and that i was not to believe it, or to say that she had told me such a thing. i discovered afterward that my father had made her promise most solemnly never to tell me the secret of my mother's fate. "i brooded horribly upon the thought of my mother's madness. it haunted me by day and night. i was always picturing to myself this mad woman pacing up and down some prison cell, in a hideous garment that bound her tortured limbs. i had exaggerated ideas of the horror of her situation. i had no knowledge of the different degrees of madness, and the image that haunted me was that of a distraught and violent creature, who would fall upon me and kill me if i came within her reach. this idea grew upon me until i used to awake in the dead of night, screaming aloud in an agony of terror, from a dream in which i had felt my mother's icy grasp upon my throat, and heard her ravings in my ear. "when i was ten years old my father came to pay up the arrears due to my protectress, and to take me to school. he had left me in hampshire longer than he had intended, from his inability to pay this money; so there again i felt the bitterness of poverty, and ran the risk of growing up an ignorant creature among coarse rustic children, because my father was poor." my lady paused for a moment, but only to take breath, for she had spoken rapidly, as if eager to tell this hated story, and to have done with it. she was still on her knees, but sir michael made no effort to raise her. he sat silent and immovable. what was this story that he was listening to? whose was it, and to what was it to lead? it could not be his wife's; he had heard her simple account of her youth, and had believed it as he had believed in the gospel. she had told him a very brief story of an early orphanage, and a long, quiet, colorless youth spent in the conventional seclusion of an english boarding-school. "my father came at last, and i told him what i had discovered. he was very much affected when i spoke of my mother. he was not what the world generally calls a good man, but i learned afterward that he had loved his wife very dearly, and that he would have willingly sacrificed his life to her, and constituted himself her guardian, had he not been compelled to earn the daily bread of the mad woman and her child by the exercise of his profession. so here again i beheld what a bitter thing it is to be poor. my mother, who might have been tended by a devoted husband, was given over to the care of hired nurses. "before my father sent me to school at torquay, he took me to see my mother. this visit served at least to dispel the idea which had so often terrified me. i saw no raving, straight-waist-coated maniac, guarded by zealous jailers, but a golden-haired, blue-eyed, girlish creature, who seemed as frivolous as a butterfly, and who skipped toward us with her yellow curls decorated with natural flowers, and saluted us with radiant smiles, and gay, ceaseless chatter. "but she didn't know us. she would have spoken in the same manner to any stranger who had entered the gates of the garden about her prison-house. her madness was an hereditary disease transmitted to her from her mother, who had died mad. she, my mother, had been, or had appeared sane up to the hour of my birth, but from that hour her intellect had decayed, and she had become what i saw her. "i went away with the knowledge of this, and with the knowledge that the only inheritance i had to expect from my mother was�insanity! "i went away with this knowledge in my mind, and with something more�a secret to keep. i was a child of ten years only, but i felt all the weight of that burden. i was to keep the secret of my mother's madness; for it was a secret that might affect me injuriously in after-life. i was to remember this. "i did remember this; and it was, perhaps, this that made me selfish and heartless, for i suppose i am heartless. as i grew older i was told that i was pretty�beautiful�lovely�bewitching. i heard all these things at first indifferently, but by-and-by i listened to them greedily, and began to think that in spite of the secret of my life i might be more successful in the world's great lottery than my companions. i had learnt that which in some indefinite manner or other every school-girl learns sooner or later�i learned that my ultimate fate in life depended upon my marriage, and i concluded that if i was indeed prettier than my schoolfellows, i ought to marry better than any one of them. "i left school before i was seventeen years of age, with this thought in my mind, and i went to live at the other extremity of england with my father, who had retired upon his half-pay, and had established himself at wildernsea, with the idea that the place was cheap and select. "the place was indeed select. i had not been there a month before i discovered that even the prettiest girl might wait a long time for a rich husband. i wish to hurry over this part of my life. i dare say i was very despicable. you and your nephew, sir michael, have been rich all your lives, and can very well afford to despise me; but i knew how far poverty can affect a life, and i looked forward with a sickening dread to a life so affected. at last the rich suitor, the wandering prince came." she paused for a moment, and shuddered convulsively. it was impossible to see any of the changes in her countenance, for her face was obstinately bent toward the floor. throughout her long confession she never lifted it; throughout her long confession her voice was never broken by a tear. what she had to tell she told in a cold, hard tone, very much the tone in which some criminal, dogged and sullen to the last, might have confessed to a jail chaplain. "the wandering prince came," she repeated; "he was called george talboys." for the first time since his wife's confession had begun, sir michael audley started. he began to understand it all now. a crowd of unheeded words and forgotten circumstances that had seemed too insignificant for remark or recollection, flashed back upon him as vividly as if they had been the leading incidents of his past life. "mr. george talboys was a cornet in a dragoon regiment. he was the only son of a rich country gentleman. he fell in love with me, and married me three months after my seventeenth birthday. i think i loved him as much as it was in my power to love anybody; not more than i have loved you, sir michael�not so much, for when you married me you elevated me to a position that he could never have given me." the dream was broken. sir michael audley remembered that summer's evening, nearly two years ago, when he had first declared his love for mr. dawson's governess; he remembered the sick, half-shuddering sensation of regret and disappointment that had come over him then, and he felt as if it had in some manner dimly foreshadowed the agony of to-night. but i do not believe that even in his misery he felt that entire and unmitigated surprise, that utter revulsion of feeling that is felt when a good woman wanders away from herself and becomes the lost creature whom her husband is bound in honor to abjure. i do not believe that sir michael audley had ever really believed in his wife. he had loved her and admired her; he had been bewitched by her beauty and bewildered by her charms; but that sense of something wanting, that vague feeling of loss and disappointment which had come upon him on the summer's night of his betrothal had been with him more or less distinctly ever since. i cannot believe that an honest man, however pure and single may be his mind, however simply trustful his nature, is ever really deceived by falsehood. there is beneath the voluntary confidence an involuntary distrust, not to be conquered by any effort of the will. "we were married," my lady continued, "and i loved him very well, quite well enough to be happy with him as long as his money lasted, and while we were on the continent, traveling in the best style and always staying at the best hotels. but when we came back to wildernsea and lived with papa, and all the money was gone, and george grew gloomy and wretched, and was always thinking of his troubles, and appeared to neglect me, i was very unhappy, and it seemed as if this fine marriage had only given me a twelvemonth's gayety and extravagance after all. i begged george to appeal to his father, but he refused. i persuaded him to try and get employment, and he failed. my baby was born, and the crisis which had been fatal to my mother arose for me. i escaped, but i was more irritable perhaps after my recovery, less inclined to fight the hard battle of the world, more disposed to complain of poverty and neglect. i did complain one day, loudly and bitterly; i upbraided george talboys for his cruelty in having allied a helpless girl to poverty and misery, and he flew into a passion with me and ran out of the house. when i awoke the next morning, i found a letter lying on the table by my bed, telling me that he was going to the antipodes to seek his fortune, and that he would never see me again until he was a rich man. "i looked upon this as a desertion, and i resented it bitterly�resented it by hating the man who had left me with no protector but a weak, tipsy father, and with a child to support. i had to work hard for my living, and in every hour of labor�and what labor is more wearisome than the dull slavery of a governess?�i recognized a separate wrong done me by george talboys. his father was rich, his sister was living in luxury and respectability, and i, his wife, and the mother of his son, was a slave allied to beggary and obscurity. people pitied me, and i hated them for their pity. i did not love the child, for he had been left a burden upon my hands. the hereditary taint that was in my blood had never until this time showed itself by any one sign or token; but at this time i became subject to fits of violence and despair. at this time i think my mind first lost its balance, and for the first time i crossed that invisible line which separates reason from madness. i have seen my father's eyes fixed upon me in horror and alarm. i have known him soothe me as only mad people and children are soothed, and i have chafed against his petty devices, i have resented even his indulgence. "at last these fits of desperation resolved themselves into a desperate purpose. i determined to run away from this wretched home which my slavery supported. i determined to desert this father who had more fear of me than love for me. i determined to go to london and lose myself in that great chaos of humanity. "i had seen an advertisement in the times while i was at wildernsea, and i presented myself to mrs. vincent, the advertiser, under a feigned name. she accepted me, waiving all questions as to my antecedents. you know the rest. i came here, and you made me an offer, the acceptance of which would lift me at once into the sphere to which my ambition had pointed ever since i was a school-girl, and heard for the first time that i was pretty. "three years had passed, and i had received no token of my husband's existence; for, i argued, that if he had returned to england, he would have succeeded in finding me under any name and in any place. i knew the energy of his character well enough to know this. "i said 'i have a right to think that he is dead, or that he wishes me to believe him dead, and his shadow shall not stand between me and prosperity.' i said this, and i became your wife, sir michael, with every resolution to be as good a wife as it was in my nature to be. the common temptations that assail and shipwreck some women had no terror for me. i would have been your true and pure wife to the end of time, though i had been surrounded by a legion of tempters. the mad folly that the world calls love had never had any part in my madness, and here at least extremes met, and the vice of heartlessness became the virtue of constancy. "i was very happy in the first triumph and grandeur of my new position, very grateful to the hand that had lifted me to it. in the sunshine of my own happiness i felt, for the first time in my life, for the miseries of others. i had been poor myself, and i was now rich, and could afford to pity and relieve the poverty of my neighbors. i took pleasure in acts of kindness and benevolence. i found out my father's address and sent him large sums of money, anonymously, for i did not wish him to discover what had become of me. i availed myself to the full of the privilege your generosity afforded me. i dispensed happiness on every side. i saw myself loved as well as admired, and i think i might have been a good woman for the rest of my life, if fate would have allowed me to be so. "i believe that at this time my mind regained its just balance. i had watched myself very closely since leaving wildernsea; i had held a check upon myself. i had often wondered while sitting in the surgeon's quiet family circle whether any suspicion of that invisible, hereditary taint had ever occurred to mr. dawson. "fate would not suffer me to be good. my destiny compelled me to be a wretch. within a month of my marriage, i read in one of the essex papers of the return of a certain mr. talboys, a fortunate gold-seeker, from australia. the ship had sailed at the time i read the paragraph. what was to be done? "i said just now that i knew the energy of george's character. i knew that the man who had gone to the antipodes and won a fortune for his wife would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to find her. it was hopeless to think of hiding myself from him. "unless he could be induced to believe that i was dead, he would never cease in his search for me. "my brain was dazed as i thought of my peril. again the balance trembled, again the invisible boundary was passed, again i was mad. "i went down to southampton and found my father, who was living there with my child. you remember how mrs. vincent's name was used as an excuse for this hurried journey, and how it was contrived i should go with no other escort than phoebe marks, whom i left at the hotel while i went to my father's house. "i confided to my father the whole secret of my peril. he was not very much shocked at what i had done, for poverty had perhaps blunted his sense of honor and principle. he was not very much shocked, but he was frightened, and he promised to do all in his power to assist me in my horrible emergency. "he had received a letter addressed to me at wildernsea, by george, and forwarded from there to my father. this letter had been written within a few days of the sailing of the argus, and it announced the probable date of the ship's arrival at liverpool. this letter gave us, therefore, data upon which to act. "we decided at once upon the first step. this was that on the date of the probable arrival of the argus, or a few days later, an advertisement of my death should be inserted in the times. "but almost immediately after deciding upon this, we saw that there were fearful difficulties in the carrying out of such a simple plan. the date of the death, and the place in which i died, must be announced, as well as the death itself. george would immediately hurry to that place, however distant it might be, however comparatively inaccessible, and the shallow falsehood would be discovered. "i knew enough of his sanguine temperament, his courage and determination, his readiness to hope against hope, to know that unless he saw the grave in which i was buried, and the register of my death, he would never believe that i was lost to him. "my father was utterly dumfounded and helpless. he could only shed childish tears of despair and terror. he was of no use to me in this crisis. "i was hopeless of any issue out of my difficulties. i began to think that i must trust to the chapter of accidents, and hope that among other obscure corners of the earth, audley court might be undreamt of by my husband. "i sat with my father, drinking tea with him in his miserable hovel, and playing with the child, who was pleased with my dress and jewels, but quite unconscious that i was anything but a stranger to him. i had the boy in my arms, when a woman who attended him came to fetch him that she might make him more fit to be seen by the lady, as she said. "i was anxious to know how the boy was treated, and i detained this woman in conversation with me while my father dozed over the tea-table. "she was a pale-faced, sandy-haired woman of about five-and-forty and she seemed very glad to get the chance of talking to me as long as i pleased to allow her. she soon left off talking of the boy, however, to tell me of her own troubles. she was in very great trouble, she told me. her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her situation from ill-health; in fact, the doctor said the girl was in a decline; and it was a hard thing for a poor widow who had seen better days to have a sick daughter to support, as well as a family of young children. "i let the woman run on for a long time in this manner, telling me the girl's ailments, and the girl's age, and the girl's doctor's stuff, and piety, and sufferings, and a great deal more. but i neither listened to her nor heeded her. i heard her, but only in a far-away manner, as i heard the traffic in the street, or the ripple of the stream at the bottom of it. what were this woman's troubles to me? i had miseries of my own, and worse miseries than her coarse nature could ever have to endure. these sort of people always had sick husbands or sick children, and expected to be helped in their illness by the rich. it was nothing out of the common. i was thinking this, and i was just going to dismiss the woman with a sovereign for her sick daughter, when an idea flashed upon me with such painful suddenness that it sent the blood surging up to my brain, and set my heart beating, as it only beats when i am mad. "i asked the woman her name. she was a mrs. plowson, and she kept a small general shop, she said, and only ran in now and then to look after georgey, and to see that the little maid-of-all-work took care of him. her daughter's name was matilda. i asked her several questions about this girl matilda, and i ascertained that she was four-and-twenty, that she had always been consumptive, and that she was now, as the doctor said, going off in a rapid decline. he had declared that she could not last much more than a fortnight. "it was in three weeks that the ship that carried george talboys was expected to anchor in the mersey. "i need not dwell upon this business. i visited the sick girl. she was fair and slender. her description, carelessly given, might tally nearly enough with my own, though she bore no shadow of resemblance to me, except in these two particulars. i was received by the girl as a rich lady who wished to do her a service. i bought the mother, who was poor and greedy, and who for a gift of money, more money than she had ever before received, consented to submit to anything i wished. upon the second day after my introduction to this mrs. plowson, my father went over to ventnor, and hired lodgings for his invalid daughter and her little boy. early the next morning he carried over the dying girl and georgey, who had been bribed to call her 'mamma.' she entered the house as mrs. talboys; she was attended by a ventnor medical man as mrs. talboys; she died, and her death and burial were registered in that name. "the advertisement was inserted in the times, and upon the second day after its insertion george talboys visited ventnor, and ordered the tombstone which at this hour records the death of his wife, helen talboys." sir michael audley rose slowly, and with a stiff, constrained action, as if every physical sense had been benumbed by that one sense of misery. "i cannot hear any more," he said, in a hoarse whisper; "if there is anything more to be told i cannot hear it. robert, it is you who have brought about this discovery, as i understand. i want to know nothing more. will you take upon yourself the duty of providing for the safety and comfort of this lady whom i have thought my wife? i need not ask you to remember in all you do, that i have loved her very dearly and truly. i cannot say farewell to her. i will not say it until i can think of her without bitterness�until i can pity her, as i now pray that god may pity her this night." sir michael walked slowly from the room. he did not trust himself to look at that crouching figure. he did not wish to see the creature whom he had cherished. he went straight to his dressing-room, rung for his valet, and ordered him to pack a portmanteau, and make all necessary arrangements for accompanying his master by the last up-train. chapter xxxv. the hush that succeeds the tempest. robert audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after sir michael had spoken those few quiet words which sounded the death-knell of his hope and love. heaven knows how much the young man had feared the coming of this day. it had come; and though there had been no great outburst of despair, no whirlwind of stormy grief, no loud tempest of anguish and tears, robert took no comforting thought from the unnatural stillness. he knew enough to know that sir michael audley went away with the barbed arrow, which his nephew's hand had sent home to its aim, rankling in his tortured heart; he knew that this strange and icy calm was the first numbness of a heart stricken by grief so unexpected as for a time to be rendered almost incomprehensible by a blank stupor of astonishment; he knew that when this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little, and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's sorrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him, the storm would burst in fatal fury, and tempests of tears and cruel thunder-claps of agony would rend that generous heart. robert had heard of cases in which men of his uncle's age had borne some great grief, as sir michael had borne this, with a strange quiet; and had gone away from those who would have comforted them, and whose anxieties have been relieved by this patient stillness, to fall down upon the ground and die under the blow which at first had only stunned him. he remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy had stricken men as strong as his uncle in the first hour of the horrible affliction; and he lingered in the lamp-lit vestibule, wondering whether it was not his duty to be with sir michael�to be near him, in case of any emergency, and to accompany him wherever he went. yet would it be wise to force himself upon that gray-headed sufferer in this cruel hour, in which he had been awakened from the one delusion of a blameless life to discover that he had been the dupe of a false face, and the fool of a nature which was too coldly mercenary, too cruelly heartless, to be sensible of its own infamy? "no," thought robert audley, "i will not intrude upon the anguish of this wounded heart. there is humiliation mingled with this bitter grief. it is better he should fight the battle alone. i have done what i believe to have been my solemn duty, yet i should scarcely wonder if i had rendered myself forever hateful to him. it is better he should fight the battle alone. i can do nothing to make the strife less terrible. better that it should be fought alone." while the young man stood with his hand upon the library door, still half-doubtful whether he should follow his uncle or re-enter the room in which he had left that more wretched creature whom it had been his business to unmask, alicia audley opened the dining-room door, and revealed to him the old-fashioned oak-paneled apartment, the long table covered with showy damask, and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass and silver. "is papa coming to dinner?" asked miss audley. "i'm so hungry; and poor tomlins has sent up three times to say the fish will be spoiled. it must be reduced to a species of isinglass soup, by this time, i should think," added the young lady, as she came out into the vestibule with the times newspaper in her hand. she had been sitting by the fire reading the paper, and waiting for her seniors to join her at the dinner table. "oh, it's you, mr. robert audley." she remarked, indifferently. "you dine with us of course. pray go and find papa. it must be nearly eight o'clock, and we are supposed to dine at six." mr. audley answered his cousin rather sternly. her frivolous manner jarred upon him, and he forgot in his irrational displeasure that miss audley had known nothing of the terrible drama which had been so long enacting under her very nose. "your papa has just endured a very great grief, alicia," the young man said, gravely. the girl's arch, laughing face changed in a moment to a tenderly earnest look of sorrow and anxiety. alicia audley loved her father very dearly. "a grief?" she exclaimed; "papa grieved! oh! robert, what has happened?" "i can tell you nothing yet, alicia," robert answered in a low voice. he took his cousin by the wrist, and drew her into the dining-room as he spoke. he closed the door carefully behind him before he continued: "alicia, can i trust you?" he asked, earnestly. "trust me to do what?" "to be a comfort and a friend to your poor father under a very heavy affliction." "yes!" cried alicia, passionately. "how can you ask me such a question? do you think there is anything i would not do to lighten any sorrow of my father's? do you think there is anything i would not suffer if my suffering could lighten his?" the rushing tears rose to miss audley's bright gray eyes as she spoke. "oh, robert! robert! could you think so badly of me as to think i would not try to be a comfort to my father in his grief?" she said, reproachfully. "no, no, my dear," answered the young man, quietly; "i never doubted your affection, i only doubted your discretion. may i rely upon that?" "you may, robert," said alicia, resolutely. "very well, then, my dear girl, i will trust you. your father is going to leave the court, for a time at least. the grief which he has just endured�a sudden and unlooked-for sorrow, remember�has no doubt made this place hateful to him. he is going away; but he must not go alone, must he, alicia?" "alone? no! no! but i suppose my lady�" "lady audley will not go with him," said robert, gravely; "he is about to separate himself from her." "for a time?" "no, forever." "separate himself from her forever!" exclaimed alicia. "then this grief�" "is connected with lady audley. lady audley is the cause of your father's sorrow." alicia's face, which had been pale before, flushed crimson. sorrow, of which my lady was the cause�a sorrow which was to separate sir michael forever from his wife! there had been no quarrel between them�there had never been anything but harmony and sunshine between lady audley and her generous husband. this sorrow must surely then have arisen from some sudden discovery; it was, no doubt, a sorrow associated with disgrace. robert audley understood the meaning of that vivid blush. "you will offer to accompany your father wherever he may choose to go, alicia," he said. "you are his natural comforter at such a time as this, but you will best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all intrusion upon his grief. your very ignorance of the particulars of that grief will be a security for your discretion. say nothing to your father that you might not have said to him two years ago, before he married a second wife. try and be to him what you were before the woman in yonder room came between you and your father's love." "i will," murmured alicia, "i will." "you will naturally avoid all mention of lady audley's name. if your father is often silent, be patient; if it sometimes seems to you that the shadow of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life, be patient still; and remember that there can be no better hope of a cure of his grief than the hope that his daughter's devotion may lead him to remember there is one woman upon this earth who will love him truly and purely until the last." "yes�yes, robert, dear cousin, i will remember." mr. audley, for the first time since he had been a schoolboy, took his cousin in his arms and kissed her broad forehead. "my dear alicia," he said, "do this and you will make me happy. i have been in some measure the means of bringing this sorrow upon your father. let me hope that it is not an enduring one. try and restore my uncle to happiness, alicia, and i will love you more dearly than brother ever loved a noble-hearted sister; and a brotherly affection may be worth having, perhaps, after all, my dear, though it is very different to poor sir harry's enthusiastic worship." alicia's head was bent and her face hidden from her cousin while he spoke, but she lifted her head when he had finished, and looked him full in the face with a smile that was only the brighter for her eyes being filled with tears. "you are a good fellow, bob," she said; "and i've been very foolish and wicked to feel angry with you because�" the young lady stopped suddenly. "because what, my dear?" asked mr. audley. "because i'm silly, cousin robert," alicia said, quickly; "never mind that, bob, i'll do all you wish, and it shall not be my fault if my dearest father doesn't forget his troubles before long. i'd go to the end of the world with him, poor darling, if i thought there was any comfort to be found for him in the journey. i'll go and get ready directly. do you think papa will go to-night?" "yes, my dear; i don't think sir michael will rest another night under this roof yet awhile." "the mail goes at twenty minutes past nine," said alicia; "we must leave the house in an hour if we are to travel by it. i shall see you again before we go, robert?" "yes, dear." miss audley ran off to her room to summon her maid, and make all necessary preparations for the sudden journey, of whose ultimate destination she was as yet quite ignorant. she went heart and soul into the carrying out of the duty which robert had dictated to her. she assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus, and hopelessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into her bonnet-boxes and satin shoes into her dressing-case. she roamed about her rooms, gathering together drawing-materials, music-books, needle-work, hair-brushes, jewelry, and perfume-bottles, very much as she might have done had she been about to sail for some savage country, devoid of all civilized resources. she was thinking all the time of her father's unknown grief, and perhaps a little of the serious face and earnest voice which had that night revealed her cousin robert to her in a new character. mr. audley went up-stairs after his cousin, and found his way to sir michael's dressing-room. he knocked at the door and listened, heaven knows how anxiously, for the expected answer. there was a moment's pause, during which the young man's heart beat loud and fast, and then the door was opened by the baronet himself. robert saw that his uncle's valet was already hard at work preparing for his master's hurried journey. sir michael came out into the corridor. "have you anything more to say to me, robert?" he asked, quietly. "i only came to ascertain if i could assist in any of your arrangements. you go to london by the mail?" "yes." "have you any idea of where you will stay." "yes, i shall stop at the clarendon; i am known there. is that all you have to say?" "yes; except that alicia will accompany you?" "alicia!" "she could not very well stay here, you know, just now. it would be best for her to leave the court until�" "yes, yes, i understand," interrupted the baronet; "but is there nowhere else that she could go�must she be with me?" "she could go nowhere else so immediately, and she would not be happy anywhere else." "let her come, then," said sir michael, "let her come." he spoke in a strange, subdued voice, and with an apparent effort, as if it were painful to him to have to speak at all; as if all this ordinary business of life were a cruel torture to him, and jarred so much upon his grief as to be almost worse to bear than that grief itself. "very well, my dear uncle, then all is arranged; alicia will be ready to start at nine o'clock." "very good, very good," muttered the baronet; "let her come if she pleases, poor child, let her come." he sighed heavily as he spoke in that half pitying tone of his daughter. he was thinking how comparatively indifferent he had been toward that only child for the sake of the woman now shut in the fire-lit room below. "i shall see you again before you go, sir," said robert; "i will leave you till then." "stay!" said sir michael, suddenly; "have you told alicia?" "i have told her nothing, except that you are about to leave the court for some time." "you are very good, my boy, you are very good," the baronet murmured in a broken voice. he stretched out his hand. his nephew took it in both his own, and pressed it to his lips. "oh, sir! how can i ever forgive myself?" he said; "how can i ever cease to hate myself for having brought this grief upon you?" "no, no, robert, you did right; i wish that god had been so merciful to me as to take my miserable life before this night; but you did right." sir michael re-entered his dressing-room, and robert slowly returned to the vestibule. he paused upon the threshold of that chamber in which he had left lucy�lady audley, otherwise helen talboys, the wife of his lost friend. she was lying upon the floor, upon the very spot in which she had crouched at her husband's feet telling her guilty story. whether she was in a swoon, or whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her misery, robert scarcely cared to know. he went out into the vestibule, and sent one of the servants to look for her maid, the smart, be-ribboned damsel who was loud in wonder and consternation at the sight of her mistress. "lady audley is very ill," he said; "take her to her room and see that she does not leave it to-night. you will be good enough to remain near her, but do not either talk to her or suffer her to excite herself by talking." my lady had not fainted; she allowed the girl to assist her, and rose from the ground upon which she had groveled. her golden hair fell in loose, disheveled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders, her face and lips were colorless, her eyes terrible in their unnatural light. "take me away," she said, "and let me sleep! let me sleep, for my brain is on fire!" as she was leaving the room with her maid, she turned and looked at robert. "is sir michael gone?" she asked. "he will leave in half an hour." "there were no lives lost in the fire at mount stanning?" "none." "i am glad of that." "the landlord of the house, marks, was very terribly burned, and lies in a precarious state at his mother's cottage; but he may recover." "i am glad of that�i am glad no life was lost. good-night, mr. audley." "i shall ask to see you for half an hour's conversation in the course of to-morrow, my lady." "whenever you please. good night." "good night." she went away quietly leaning upon her maid's shoulder, and leaving robert with a sense of strange bewilderment that was very painful to him. he sat down by the broad hearth upon which the red embers were fading, and wondered at the change in that old house which, until the day of his friend's disappearance, had been so pleasant a home for all who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof. he sat brooding over the desolate hearth, and trying to decide upon what must be done in this sudden crisis. he sat helpless and powerless to determine upon any course of action, lost in a dull revery, from which he was aroused by the sound of carriage-wheels driving up to the little turret entrance. the clock in the vestibule struck nine as robert opened the library door. alicia had just descended the stairs with her maid; a rosy-faced country girl. "good-by, robert," said miss audley, holding out her hand to her cousin; "good-by, and god bless you! you may trust me to take care of papa." "i am sure i may. god bless you, my dear." for the second time that night robert audley pressed his lips to his cousin's candid forehead, and for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or paternal character, rather than the rapturous proceeding which it would have been had sir harry towers been the privileged performer. it was five minutes past nine when sir michael came down-stairs, followed by his valet, grave and gray-haired like himself. the baronet was pale, but calm and self-possessed. the hand which he gave to his nephew was as cold as ice, but it was with a steady voice that he bade the young man good-by. "i leave all in your hands, robert," he said, as he turned to leave the house in which he had lived so long. "i may not have heard the end, but i have heard enough. heaven knows i have no need to hear more. i leave all to you, but you will not be cruel�you will remember how much i loved�" his voice broke huskily before he could finish the sentence. "i will remember you in everything, sir," the young man answered. "i will do everything for the best." a treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut out his uncle's face, and in another minute the carriage had driven away, and robert audley sat alone in the dark library, where only one red spark glowed among the pale gray ashes. he sat alone, trying to think what he ought to do, and with the awful responsibility of a wicked woman's fate upon his shoulders. "good heaven!" he thought; "surely this must be god's judgment upon the purposeless, vacillating life i led up to the seventh day of last september. surely this awful responsibility has been forced upon me in order that i may humble myself to an offended providence, and confess that a man cannot choose his own life. he cannot say, 'i will take existence lightly, and keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, energetic creatures, who fight so heartily in the great battle.' he cannot say, 'i will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle.' he cannot do this. he can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the maker who created him has appointed for him to do. if he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully; but woe betide him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty muster-roll, woe betide him if he hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war!" one of the servants brought candles into the library and relighted the fire, but robert audley did not stir from his seat by the hearth. he sat as he had often sat in his chambers in figtree court, with his elbows resting upon the arms of his chair, and his chin upon his hand. but he lifted his head as the servant was about to leave the room. "can i send a message from here to london?" he asked. "it can be sent from brentwood, sir�not from here." mr. audley looked at his watch thoughtfully. "one of the men can ride over to brentwood, sir, if you wish any message to be sent." "i do wish to send a message; will you manage it for me, richards?" "certainly, sir." "you can wait, then, while i write the message." "yes, sir." the man brought writing materials from one of the side-tables, and placed them before mr. audley. robert dipped a pen in the ink, and stared thoughtfully at one of the candles for a few moments before he began to write. the message ran thus: "from robert audley, of audley court, essex, to francis wilmington, of paper-buildings, temple. "dear wilmington�if you know any physician experienced in cases of mania, and to be trusted with a secret, be so good as to send me his address by telegraph." mr. audley sealed this document in a stout envelope, and handed it to the man, with a sovereign. "you will see that this is given to a trustworthy person, richards," he said, "and let the man wait at the station for the return message. he ought to get it in an hour and a half." mr. richards, who had known robert audley in jackets and turn-down collars, departed to execute his commission. heaven forbid that we should follow him into the comfortable servants' hall at the court, where the household sat round the blazing fire, discussing in utter bewilderment the events of the day. nothing could be wider from the truth than the speculations of these worthy people. what clew had they to the mystery of that firelit room in which a guilty woman had knelt at their master's feet to tell the story of her sinful life? they only knew that which sir michael's valet had told them of this sudden journey. how his master was as pale as a sheet, and spoke in a strange voice that didn't sound like his own, somehow, and how you might have knocked him�mr. parsons, the valet�down with a feather, if you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of so feeble a weapon. the wiseheads of the servants' hall decided that sir michael had received sudden intelligence through mr. robert�they were wise enough to connect the young man with the catastrophe�either of the death of some near and dear relation�the elder servants decimated the audley family in their endeavors to find a likely relation�or of some alarming fall in the funds, or of the failure of some speculation or bank in which the greater part of the baronet's money was invested. the general leaning was toward the failure of a bank, and every member of the assembly seemed to take a dismal and raven-like delight in the fancy, though such a supposition involved their own ruin in the general destruction of that liberal household. robert sat by the dreary hearth, which seemed dreary even now when the blaze of a great wood-fire roared in the wide chimney, and listened to the low wail of the march wind moaning round the house and lifting the shivering ivy from the walls it sheltered. he was tired and worn out, for remember that he had been awakened from his sleep at two o'clock that morning by the hot breath of blazing timber and the sharp crackling of burning woodwork. but for his presence of mind and cool decision, mr. luke marks would have died a dreadful death. he still bore the traces of the night's peril, for the dark hair had been singed upon one side of his forehead, and his left hand was red and inflamed, from the effect of the scorching atmosphere out of which he had dragged the landlord of the castle inn. he was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and he fell into a heavy sleep in his easy-chair before the bright fire, from which he was only awakened by the entrance of mr. richards with the return message. this return message was very brief. "dear audley�always glad to oblige. alwyn mosgrave, m.d., saville row. safe." this with names and addresses, was all that it contained. "i shall want another message taken to brentwood to-morrow morning, richards," said mr. audley, as he folded the telegram. "i should be glad if the man would ride over with it before breakfast. he shall have half a sovereign for his trouble." mr. richards bowed. "thank you, sir�not necessary, sir; but as you please, of course, sir," he murmured. "at what hour might you wish the man to go?" mr. audley might wish the man to go as early as he could, so it was decided that he should go at six. "my room is ready, i suppose, richards?" said robert. "yes, sir�your old room." "very good. i shall go to bed at once. bring me a glass of brandy and water as hot as you can make it, and wait for the telegram." this second message was only a very earnest request to doctor mosgrave to pay an immediate visit to audley court on a matter of serious moment. having written this message, mr. audley felt that he had done all that he could do. he drank his brandy and water. he had actual need of the diluted alcohol, for he had been chilled to the bone by his adventures during the fire. he slowly sipped the pale golden liquid and thought of clara talboys, of that earnest girl whose brother's memory was now avenged, whose brother's destroyer was humiliated in the dust. had she heard of the fire at the castle inn? how could she have done otherwise than hear of it in such a place as mount stanning? but had she heard that he had been in danger, and that he had distinguished himself by the rescue of a drunken boor? i fear that, even sitting by that desolate hearth, and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own house, robert audley was weak enough to think of these things�weak enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal fir-trees under the cold march sky, and the dark-brown eyes that were so like the eyes of his lost friend. chapter xxxvi. dr. mosgrave's advice. my lady slept. through that long winter night she slept soundly. criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth; and have been found in the gray morning slumbering peacefully, by the jailer who came to wake them. the game had been played and lost. i do not think that my lady had thrown away a card, or missed the making of a trick which she might by any possibility have made; but her opponent's hand had been too powerful for her, and he had won. she looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner, who would have to be taken good care of. a second iron mask, who must be provided for in some comfortable place of confinement. she abandoned herself to a dull indifference. she had lived a hundred lives within the space of the last few days of her existence, and she had worn out her capacity for suffering�for a time at least. she ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and emerged, with perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely careless of morning toilets, from her luxurious dressing-room. she looked at herself in the cheval-glass before she left the room. a long night's rest had brought back the delicate rose-tints of her complexion, and the natural luster of her blue eyes. that unnatural light which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone, and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated the reflection of her beauty. the days were gone in which her enemies could have branded her with white-hot irons, and burned away the loveliness which had done such mischief. whatever they did to her they must leave her her beauty, she thought. at the worst, they were powerless to rob her of that. the march day was bright and sunny, with a cheerless sunshine certainly. my lady wrapped herself in an indian shawl; a shawl that had cost sir michael a hundred guineas. i think she had an idea that it would be well to wear this costly garment; so that if hustled suddenly away, she might carry at least one of her possessions with her. remember how much she had periled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and horses, jewels and laces; and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity to gauds and gew-gaws, in the hour of her despair. if she had been judas, she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver to the last moment of her shameful life. mr. robert audley breakfasted in the library. he sat long over his solitary cup of tea, smoking his meerschaum pipe, and meditating darkly upon the task that lay before him. "i will appeal to the experience of this dr. mosgrave," he though; "physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth century. surely, he will be able to help me." the first fast train from london arrived at audley at half-past ten o'clock, and at five minutes before eleven, richards, the grave servant, announced dr. alwyn mosgrave. the physician from saville row was a tall man of about fifty years of age. he was thin and sallow, with lantern jaws, and eyes of a pale, feeble gray, that seemed as if they had once been blue, and had faded by the progress of time to their present neutral shade. however powerful the science of medicine as wielded by dr. alwyn mosgrave, it had not been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones, or brightness into his face. he had a strangely expressionless, and yet strangely attentive countenance. he had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in listening to other people, and who had parted with his own individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career. he bowed to robert audley, took the opposite seat indicated by him, and addressed his attentive face to the young barrister. robert saw that the physician's glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention, and became earnest and searching. "he is wondering whether i am the patient," thought mr. audley, "and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face." dr. mosgrave spoke as if in answer to this thought. "is it not about your own�health�that you wish to consult me?" he said, interrogatively. "oh, no!" dr. mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty-guinea benson-made chronometer, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket as carelessly as if it had been a potato. "i need not remind you that my time is precious," he said; "your telegram informed me that my services were required in a case of�danger�as i apprehend, or i should not be here this morning." robert audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire, wondering how he should begin the conversation, and had needed this reminder of the physician's presence. "you are very good, dr. mosgrave," he said, rousing himself by an effort, "and i thank you very much for having responded to my summons. i am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me than words can describe. i am about to implore your advice in a most difficult case, and i trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue me, and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and complicated position." the business-like attention in dr. mosgrave's face grew into a look of interest as he listened to robert audley. "the revelation made by the patient to the physician is, i believe, as sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest?" robert asked, gravely. "quite as sacred." "a solemn confidence, to be violated under no circumstances?" "most certainly." robert audley looked at the fire again. how much should he tell, or how little, of the dark history of his uncle's second wife? "i have been given to understand, dr. mosgrave, that you have devoted much of your attention to the treatment of insanity." "yes, my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental diseases." "such being the case, i think i may venture to conclude that you sometimes receive strange, and even terrible, revelations." dr. mosgrave bowed. he looked like a man who could have carried, safely locked in his passionless breast, the secrets of a nation, and who would have suffered no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden. "the story which i am about to tell you is not my own story," said robert, after a pause; "you will forgive me, therefore, if i once more remind you that i can only reveal it upon the understanding that under no circumstances, or upon no apparent justification, is that confidence to be betrayed." dr. mosgrave bowed again. a little sternly, perhaps, this time. "i am all attention, mr. audley," he said coldly. robert audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician, and in a low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that same chamber upon the previous night. dr. mosgrave's listening face, turned always toward the speaker, betrayed no surprise at that strange revelation. he smiled once, a grave, quiet smile, when mr. audley came to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy at ventnor; but he was not surprised. robert audley ended his story at the point at which sir michael audley had interrupted my lady's confession. he told nothing of the disappearance of george talboys, nor of the horrible suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance. he told nothing of the fire at the castle inn. dr. mosgrave shook his head, gravely, when mr. audley came to the end of his story. "you have nothing further to tell me?" he said. "no. i do not think there is anything more that need be told," robert answered, rather evasively. "you would wish to prove that this lady is mad, and therefore irresponsible for her actions, mr. audley?" said the physician. robert audley stared, wondering at the mad doctor. by what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young man's secret desire? "yes, i would rather, if possible, think her mad; i should be glad to find that excuse for her." "and to save the esclandre of a chancery suit, i suppose, mr. audley," said dr. mosgrave. robert shuddered as he bowed an assent to this remark. it was something worse than a chancery suit that he dreaded with a horrible fear. it was a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams. how often he had awoke, in an agony of shame, from a vision of a crowded court-house, and his uncle's wife in a criminal dock, hemmed in on every side by a sea of eager faces. "i fear that i shall not be of any use to you," the physician said, quietly; "i will see the lady, if you please, but i do not believe that she is mad." "why not?" "because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done. she ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she left in the hope of finding a better. there is no madness in that. she committed the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune and position. there is no madness there. when she found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate. she employed intelligent means, and she carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution. there is no madness in that." "but the traits of hereditary insanity�" "may descend to the third generation, and appear in the lady's children, if she have any. madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter. i should be glad to help you, if i could, mr. audley, but i do not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me. i do not think any jury in england would accept the plea of insanity in such a case as this. the best thing you can do with this lady is to send her back to her first husband; if he will have her." robert started at this sudden mention of his friend. "her first husband is dead," he answered, "at least, he has been missing for some time�and i have reason to believe that he is dead." dr. mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard the embarrassment in robert audley's voice as he spoke of george talboys. "the lady's first husband is missing," he said, with a strange emphasis on the word�"you think that he is dead?" he paused for a few moments and looked at the fire, as robert had looked before. "mr. audley," he said, presently, "there must be no half-confidences between us. you have not told me all." robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in his face the surprise he felt at these words. "i should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies of my professional experience," said dr. mosgrave, "if i could not perceive where confidence ends and reservation begins. you have only told me half this lady's story, mr. audley. you must tell me more before i can offer you any advice. what has become of the first husband?" he asked this question in a decisive tone, as if he knew it to be the key-stone of an arch. "i have already told you, dr. mosgrave, that i do not know." "yes," answered the physician, "but your face has told me what you have withheld from me; it has told me that you suspect." robert audley was silent. "if i am to be of use to you, you must trust me, mr. audley," said the physician. "the first husband disappeared�how and when? i want to know the history of his disappearance." robert paused for some time before he replied to this speech; but, by and by, he lifted his head, which had been bent in an attitude of earnest thought, and addressed the physician. "i will trust you, dr. mosgrave," he said. "i will confide entirely in your honor and goodness. i do not ask you to do any wrong to society; but i ask you to save our stainless name from degradation and shame, if you can do so conscientiously." he told the story of george's disappearance, and of his own doubts and fears, heaven knows how reluctantly. dr. mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before. robert concluded with an earnest appeal to the physician's best feelings. he implored him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a wicked woman had brought much misery upon his declining years. it was impossible to draw any conclusion, either favorable or otherwise, from dr. mosgrave's attentive face. he rose, when robert had finished speaking, and looked at his watch once more. "i can only spare you twenty minutes," he said. "i will see the lady, if you please. you say her mother died in a madhouse?" "she did. will you see lady audley alone?" "yes, alone, if you please." robert rung for my lady's maid, and under convoy of that smart young damsel the physician found his way to the octagon antechamber, and the fairy boudoir with which it communicated. ten minutes afterward, he returned to the library, in which robert sat waiting for him. "i have talked to the lady," he said, quietly, "and we understand each other very well. there is latent insanity! insanity which might never appear; or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime. it would be a dementia in its worst phase, perhaps; acute mania; but its duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure. the lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood. she has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence. i will tell you what she is, mr. audley. she is dangerous!" dr. mosgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke again. "i will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses you, mr. audley," he said, presently, "but i will tell you this much, i do not advise any esclandre. this mr. george talboys has disappeared, but you have no evidence of his death. if you could produce evidence of his death, you could produce no evidence against this lady, beyond the one fact that she had a powerful motive for getting rid of him. no jury in the united kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that." robert audley interrupted dr. mosgrave, hastily. "i assure you, my dear sir," he said, "that my greatest fear is the necessity of any exposure�any disgrace." "certainly, mr. audley," answered the physician, coolly, "but you cannot expect me to assist you to condone one of the worst offenses against society. if i saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been committed by this woman, i should refuse to assist you in smuggling her away out of the reach of justice, although the honor of a hundred noble families might be saved by my doing so. but i do not see adequate reason for your suspicions; and i will do my best to help you." robert audley grasped the physician's hands in both his own. "i will thank you when i am better able to do so," he said, with emotion; "i will thank you in my uncle's name as well as in my own." "i have only five minutes more, and i have a letter to write," said dr. mosgrave, smiling at the young man's energy. he seated himself at a writing-table in the window, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes. he had filled three sides of a sheet of note-paper, when he threw down his pen and folded his letter. he put this letter into an envelope, and delivered it, unsealed, to robert audley. the address which it bore was: "monsieur val, "villebrumeuse, "belgium." mr. audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor, who was putting on his gloves as deliberately as if his life had never known a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them. "that letter," he said, in answer to robert audley's inquiring look, "is written to my friend monsieur val, the proprietor and medical superintendent of a very excellent maison de santé in the town of villebrumeuse. we have known each other for many years, and he will no doubt willingly receive lady audley into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life; it will not be a very eventful one!" robert audley would have spoken, he would have once more expressed his gratitude for the help which had been given to him, but dr. mosgrave checked him with an authoritative gesture. "from the moment in which lady audley enters that house," he said, "her life, so far as life is made up of action and variety, will be finished. whatever secrets she may have will be secrets forever! whatever crimes she may have committed she will be able to commit no more. if you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it, you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations. but as a physiologist and as an honest man, i believe you could do no better service to society than by doing this; for physiology is a lie if the woman i saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at large. if she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little hands, as i sat talking to her just now, she would have done it." "she suspected your purpose, then!" "she knew it. 'you think i am mad like my mother, and you have come to question me,' she said. 'you are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint in my blood.' good-day to you, mr. audley," the physician added hurriedly, "my time was up ten minutes ago; it is as much as i shall do to catch the train." chapter xxxvii. buried alive. robert audley sat alone in the library with the physician's letter upon the table before him, thinking of the work which was still to be done. the young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer of this wretched woman. he had been her judge; and he was now her jailer. not until he had delivered the letter which lay before him to its proper address, not until he had given up his charge into the safe-keeping of the foreign mad-house doctor, not until then would the dreadful burden be removed from him and his duty done. he wrote a few lines to my lady, telling her that he was going to carry her away from audley court to a place from which she was not likely to return, and requesting her to lose no time in preparing for the journey. he wished to start that evening, if possible, he told her. miss susan martin, the lady's maid, thought it a very hard thing to have to pack her mistress' trunks in such a hurry, but my lady assisted in the task. she toiled resolutely in directing and assisting her servant, who scented bankruptcy and ruin in all this packing up and hurrying away, and was therefore rather languid and indifferent in the discharge of her duties; and at six o'clock in the evening she sent her attendant to tell mr. audley that she was ready to depart as soon as he pleased. robert had consulted a volume of bradshaw, and had discovered that villebrumeuse lay out of the track of all railway traffic, and was only approachable by diligence from brussels. the mail for dover left london bridge at nine o'clock, and could be easily caught by robert and his charge, as the seven o'clock up-train from audley reached shoreditch at a quarter past eight. traveling by the dover and calais route, they would reach villebrumeuse by the following afternoon or evening. it was late in the afternoon of the next day when the diligence bumped and rattled over the uneven paving of the principal street in villebrumeuse. robert audley and my lady had had the coupé of the diligence to themselves for the whole of the journey, for there were not many travelers between brussels and villebrumeuse, and the public conveyance was supported by the force of tradition rather than any great profit attaching to it as a speculation. my lady had not spoken during the journey, except to decline some refreshments which robert had offered her at a halting place upon the road. her heart sunk when they left brussels behind, for she had hoped that city might have been the end of her journey, and she had turned with a feeling of sickness and despair from the dull belgian landscape. she looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a great stony quadrangle, which had been the approach to a monastery once, but which was now the court yard of a dismal hotel, in whose cellars legions of rats skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine was bright in the chambers above. lady audley shuddered as she alighted from the diligence, and found herself in that dreary court yard. robert was surrounded by chattering porters, who clamored for his "baggages," and disputed among themselves as to the hotel at which he was to rest. one of these men ran away to fetch a hackney-coach at mr. audley's behest, and reappeared presently, urging on a pair of horses�which were so small as to suggest the idea that they had been made out of one ordinary-sized animal�with wild shrieks and whoops that had a demoniac sound in the darkness. mr. audley left my lady in a dreary coffee-room in the care of a drowsy attendant while he drove away to some distant part of the quiet city. there was official business to be gone through before sir michael's wife could be quietly put away in the place suggested by dr. mosgrave. robert had to see all manner of important personages; and to take numerous oaths; and to exhibit the english physician's letter; and to go through much ceremony of signing and countersigning before he could take his lost friend's cruel wife to the home which was to be her last upon earth. upward of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged, and the young man was free to return to the hotel, where he found his charge staring absently at a pair of wax-candles, with a cup of untasted coffee standing cold and stagnant before her. robert handed my lady into the hired vehicle, and took his seat opposite to her once more. "where are you going to take me?" she asked, at last. "i am tired of being treated like some naughty child, who is put into a dark cellar as a punishment for its offenses. where are you taking me?" "to a place in which you will have ample leisure to repent the past, mrs. talboys," robert answered, gravely. they had left the paved streets behind them, and had emerged out of a great gaunt square, in which there appeared to be about half a dozen cathedrals, into a small boulevard, a broad lamp-lit road, on which the shadows of the leafless branches went and came tremblingly, like the shadows of a paralytic skeleton. there were houses here and there upon this boulevard; stately houses, entre cour et jardin, and with plaster vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways. the rumbling hackney-carriage drove upward of three-quarters of a mile along this smooth roadway before it drew up against a gateway, older and more ponderous than any of those they had passed. my lady gave a little scream as she looked out of the coach-window. the gaunt gateway was lighted by an enormous lamp; a great structure of iron and glass, in which one poor little shivering flame struggled with the march wind. the coachman rang the bell, and a little wooden door at the side of the gate was opened by a gray-haired man, who looked out at the carriage, and then retired. he reappeared three minutes afterward behind the folding iron gates, which he unlocked and threw back to their full extent, revealing a dreary desert of stone-paved courtyard. the coachman led his wretched horses into the courtyard, and piloted the vehicle to the principal doorway of the house, a great mansion of gray stone, with several long ranges of windows, many of which were dimly lighted, and looked out like the pale eyes of weary watchers upon the darkness of the night. my lady, watchful and quiet as the cold stars in the wintry sky, looked up at these casements with an earnest and scrutinizing gaze. one of the windows was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red; and upon this curtain there went and came a dark shadow, the shadow of a woman with a fantastic head dress, the shadow of a restless creature, who paced perpetually backward and forward before the window. sir michael audley's wicked wife laid her hand suddenly upon robert's arm, and pointed with the other hand to this curtained window. "i know where you have brought me," she said. "this is a mad-house." mr. audley did not answer her. he had been standing at the door of the coach when she addressed him, and he quietly assisted her to alight, and led her up a couple of shallow stone steps, and into the entrance-hall of the mansion. he handed dr. mosgrave's letter to a neatly-dressed, cheerful-looking, middle-aged woman, who came tripping out of a little chamber which opened out of the hall, and was very much like the bureau of an hotel. this person smilingly welcome robert and his charge: and after dispatching a servant with the letter, invited them into her pleasant little apartment, which was gayly furnished with bright amber curtains and heated by a tiny stove. "madam finds herself very much fatigued?" the frenchwoman said, interrogatively, with a look of intense sympathy, as she placed an arm-chair for my lady. "madam" shrugged her shoulders wearily, and looked round the little chamber with a sharp glance of scrutiny that betokened no very great favor. "what is this place, robert audley?" she cried fiercely. "do you think i am a baby, that you may juggle with and deceive me�what is it? it is what i said just now, is it not?" "it is a maison de santé, my lady," the young man answered, gravely. "i have no wish to juggle with or to deceive you." my lady paused for a few moments, looking reflectively at robert. "a maison de santé," she repeated. "yes, they manage these things better in france. in england we should call it a madhouse. this a house for mad people, this, is it not, madam?" she said in french, turning upon the woman, and tapping the polished floor with her foot. "ah, but no, madam," the woman answered with a shrill scream of protest. "it is an establishment of the most agreeable, where one amuses one's self�" she was interrupted by the entrance of the principal of this agreeable establishment, who came beaming into the room with a radiant smile illuminating his countenance, and with dr. mosgrave's letter open in his hand. it was impossible to say how enchanted he was to make the acquaintance of m'sieu. there was nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for m'sieu in his own person, and nothing under heaven which he would not strive to accomplish for him, as the friend of his acquaintance, so very much distinguished, the english doctor. dr. mosgrave's letter had given him a brief synopsis of the case, he informed robert, in an undertone, and he was quite prepared to undertake the care of the charming and very interesting "madam�madam�" he rubbed his hands politely, and looked at robert. mr. audley remembered, for the first time, that he had been recommended to introduce his wretched charge under a feigned name. he affected not to hear the proprietor's question. it might seem a very easy matter to have hit upon a heap of names, any one of which would have answered his purpose; but mr. audley appeared suddenly to have forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal appellation except that of himself and of his lost friend. perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood his embarrassment. he at any rate relieved it by turning to the woman who had received them, and muttering something about no. , bis. the woman took a key from a long range of others, that hung over the mantel-piece, and a wax candle from a bracket in a corner of the room, and having lighted the candle, led the way across the stone-paved hall, and up a broad, slippery staircase of polished wood. the english physician had informed his belgian colleague that money would be of minor consequence in any arrangements made for the comfort of the english lady who was to be committed to his care. acting upon this hint, monsieur val opened the outer door of a stately suite of apartments, which included a lobby, paved with alternate diamonds of black and white marble, but of a dismal and cellar-like darkness; a saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and with a certain funereal splendor which is not peculiarly conducive to the elevation of the spirits; and a bed-chamber, containing a bed so wondrously made, as to appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings, unless the counterpane had been split asunder with a pen-knife. my lady stared dismally round at the range of rooms, which looked dreary enough in the wan light of a single wax-candle. this solitary flame, pale and ghost-like in itself, was multiplied by paler phantoms of its ghostliness, which glimmered everywhere about the rooms; in the shadowy depths of the polished floors and wainscot, or the window-panes, in the looking-glasses, or in those great expanses of glimmering something which adorned the rooms, and which my lady mistook for costly mirrors, but which were in reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin. amid all the faded splendor of shabby velvet, and tarnished gilding, and polished wood, the woman dropped into an arm-chair, and covered her face with her hands. the whiteness of them, and the starry light of diamonds trembling about them, glittered in the dimly-lighted chamber. she sat silent, motionless, despairing, sullen, and angry, while robert and the french doctor retired to an outer chamber, and talked together in undertones. mr. audley had very little to say that had not been already said for him, with a far better grace than he himself could have expressed it, by the english physician. he had, after great trouble of mind, hit upon the name of taylor, as a safe and simple substitute for that other name, to which alone my lady had a right. he told the frenchman that this mrs. taylor was distantly related to him�that she had inherited the seeds of madness from her mother, as indeed dr. mosgrave had informed monsieur val; and that she had shown some fearful tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her mind; but that she was not to be called "mad." he begged that she might be treated with all tenderness and compassion; that she might receive all reasonable indulgences; but he impressed upon monsieur val, that under no circumstances was she to be permitted to leave the house and grounds without the protection of some reliable person, who should be answerable for her safe-keeping. he had only one other point to urge, and that was, that monsieur val, who, as he had understood, was himself a protestant�the doctor bowed�would make arrangements with some kind and benevolent protestant clergyman, through whom spiritual advice and consolation might be secured for the invalid lady; who had especial need, robert added, gravely, of such advantages. this�with all necessary arrangements as to pecuniary matters, which were to be settled from time to time between mr. audley and the doctor, unassisted by any agents whatever�was the extent of the conversation between the two men, and occupied about a quarter of an hour. my lady sat in the same attitude when they re-entered the bedchamber in which they had left her, with her ringed hands still clasped over her face. robert bent over to whisper in her ear. "your name is madam taylor here," he said. "i do not think you would wish to be known by your real name." she only shook her head in answer to him, and did not even remove her hands from over her face. "madam will have an attendant entirely devoted to her service." said monsieur val. "madam will have all her wishes obeyed; her reasonable wishes, but that goes without saying," monsieur adds, with a quaint shrug. "every effort will be made to render madam's sojourn at villebrumeuse agreeable. the inmates dine together when it is wished. i dine with the inmates sometimes; my subordinate, a clever and a worthy man always. i reside with my wife and children in a little pavilion in the grounds; my subordinate resides in the establishment. madam may rely upon our utmost efforts being exerted to insure her comfort." monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same effect, rubbing his hands and beaming radiantly upon robert and his charge, when madam rises suddenly, erect and furious, and dropping her jeweled fingers from before her face, tells him to hold his tongue. "leave me alone with the man who has brought me here." she cried, between her set teeth. "leave me!" she points to the door with a sharp, imperious gesture; so rapid that the silken drapery about her arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her hand. the sibilant french syllables hiss through her teeth as she utters them, and seem better fitted to her mood and to herself than the familiar english she has spoken hitherto. the french doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes out into the lobby, and mutters something about a "beautiful devil," and a gesture worthy of "the mars." my lady walked with a rapid footstep to the door between the bed-chamber and the saloon; closed it, and with the handle of the door still in her hand, turned and looked at robert audley. "you have brought me to my grave, mr. audley," she cried; "you have used your power basely and cruelly, and have brought me to a living grave." "i have done that which i thought just to others and merciful to you," robert answered, quietly. "i should have been a traitor to society had i suffered you to remain at liberty after�the disappearance of george talboys and the fire at castle inn. i have brought you to a place in which you will be kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of your story�no power to taunt or to reproach you. you will lead a quiet and peaceful life, my lady; such a life as many a good and holy woman in this catholic country freely takes upon herself, and happily endures until the end. the solitude of your existence in this place will be no greater than that of a king's daughter, who, flying from the evil of the time, was glad to take shelter in a house as tranquil as this. surely, it is a small atonement which i ask you to render for your sins, a light penance which i call upon you to perform. live here and repent; nobody will assail you, nobody will torment you. i only say to you, repent!" "i cannot!" cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon robert audley, "i cannot! has my beauty brought me to this? have i plotted and schemed to shield myself and laid awake in the long deadly nights, trembling to think of my dangers, for this? i had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end. i had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when george talboys first came back to england." she plucked at the feathery golden curls as if she would have torn them from her head. it had served her so little after all, that gloriously glittering hair, that beautiful nimbus of yellow light that had contrasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her eyes. she hated herself and her beauty. "i would laugh at you and defy you, if i dared," she cried; "i would kill myself and defy you, if i dared. but i am a poor, pitiful coward, and have been so from the first. afraid of my mother's horrible inheritance; afraid of poverty; afraid of george talboys; afraid of you." she was silent for a little while, but she held her place by the door, as if determined to detain robert as long as it was her pleasure to do so. "do you know what i am thinking of?" she said, presently. "do you know what i am thinking of, as i look at you in the dim light of this room? i am thinking of the day upon which george talboys disappeared." robert started as she mentioned the name of his lost friend; his face turned pale in the dusky light, and his breathing grew quicker and louder. "he was standing opposite me, as you are standing now," continued my lady. "you said that you would raze the old house to the ground; that you would root up every tree in the gardens to find your dead friend. you would have had no need to do so much: the body of george talboys lies at the bottom of the old well, in the shrubbery beyond the lime-walk." robert audley flung his hands and clasped them above his head, with one loud cry of horror. "oh, my god!" he said, after a dreadful pause; "have all the ghastly things that i have thought prepared me so little for the ghastly truth, that it should come upon me like this at last?" "he came to me in the lime-walk," resumed my lady, in the same hard, dogged tone as that in which she had confessed the wicked story of her life. "i knew that he would come, and i had prepared myself, as well as i could, to meet him. i was determined to bribe him, to cajole him, to defy him; to do anything sooner than abandon the wealth and the position i had won, and go back to my old life. he came, and he reproached me for the conspiracy at ventnor. he declared that so long as he lived he would never forgive me for the lie that had broken his heart. he told me that i had plucked his heart out of his breast and trampled upon it; and that he had now no heart in which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me. that he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth, but that one deliberate and passionless wrong that i had done him. he said this and a great deal more, and he told me that no power on earth should turn him from his purpose, which was to take me to the man i had deceived, and make me tell my wicked story. he did not know the hidden taint that i had sucked in with my mother's milk. he did not know that it was possible to drive me mad. he goaded me as you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you have been merciless. we were in the shrubbery at the end of the lime-walk. i was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well. george talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position. i rose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as i had determined to defy him at the worst. i told him that if he denounced me to sir michael, i would declare him to be a madman or a liar, and i defied him to convince the man who loved me�blindly, as i told him�that he had any claim to me. i was going to leave him after having told him this, when he caught me by the wrist and detained me by force. you saw the bruises that his fingers made upon my wrist, and noticed them, and did not believe the account i gave of them. i could see that, mr. robert audley, and i saw that you were a person i should have to fear." she paused, as if she had expected robert to speak; but he stood silent and motionless, waiting for the end. "george talboys treated me as you treated me," she said, petulantly. "he swore that if there was but one witness of my identity, and that witness was removed from audley court by the width of the whole earth, he would bring him there to swear to my identity, and to denounce me. it was then that i was mad, it was then that i drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood, and saw my first husband sink with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well. there is a legend of its enormous depth. i do not know how deep it is. it is dry, i suppose, for i heard no splash, only a dull thud. i looked down and i saw nothing but black emptiness. i knelt down and listened, but the cry was not repeated, though i waited for nearly a quarter of an hour�god knows how long it seemed to me!�by the mouth of the well." robert audley uttered a word of horror when the story was finished. he moved a little nearer toward the door against which helen talboys stood. had there been any other means of exit from the room, he would gladly have availed himself of it. he shrank from even a momentary contact with this creature. "let me pass you, if you please," he said, in an icy voice. "you see i do not fear to make my confession to you," said helen talboys; "for two reasons. the first is, that you dare not use it against me, because you know it would kill your uncle to see me in a criminal dock; the second is, that the law could pronounce no worse sentence than this�a life-long imprisonment in a mad-house. you see i do not thank you for your mercy, mr. robert audley, for i know exactly what it is worth." she moved away from the door, and robert passed her without a word, without a look. half an hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at villebrumeuse, sitting at a neatly-ordered supper-table, with no power to eat; with no power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from the image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the thicket at audley court. chapter xxxviii. ghost-haunted. no feverish sleeper traveling in a strange dream ever looked out more wonderingly upon a world that seemed unreal than robert audley, as he stared absently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars between villebrumeuse and brussels. could it be that he was returning to his uncle's house without the woman who had reigned in it for nearly two years as queen and mistress? he felt as if he had carried off my lady, and had made away with her secretly and darkly, and must now render up an account to sir michael of the fate of that woman, whom the baronet had so dearly loved. "what shall i tell him?" he thought. "shall i tell the truth�the horrible, ghastly truth? no; that would be too cruel. his generous spirit would sink under the hideous revelation. yet, in his ignorance of the extent of this wretched woman's wickedness, he may think, perhaps, that i have been hard with her." brooding thus, mr. robert audley absently watched the cheerless landscape from the seat in the shabby coupé of the diligence, and thought how great a leaf had been torn out of his life, now that the dark story of george talboys was finished. what had he to do next? a crowd of horrible thoughts rushed into his mind as he remembered the story that he had heard from the white lips of helen talboys. his friend�his murdered friend�lay hidden among the moldering ruins of the old well at audley court. he had lain there for six long months, unburied, unknown; hidden in the darkness of the old convent well. what was to be done? to institute a search for the remains of the murdered man was to inevitably bring about a coroner's inquest. should such an inquest be held, it was next to impossible that the history of my lady's crime could fail to be brought to light. to prove that george talboys met with his death at audley court, was to prove almost as surely that my lady had been the instrument of that mysterious death; for the young man had been known to follow her into the lime-walk upon the day of his disappearance. "my god!" robert exclaimed, as the full horror of his position became evident to him; "is my friend to rest in this unhallowed burial-place because i have condoned the offenses of the woman who murdered him?" he felt that there was no way out of this difficulty. sometimes he thought that it little mattered to his dead friend whether he lay entombed beneath a marble monument, whose workmanship should be the wonder of the universe, or in that obscure hiding-place in the thicket at audley court. at another time he would be seized with a sudden horror at the wrong that had been done to the murdered man, and would fain have traveled even more rapidly than the express between brussels and paris could carry him in his eagerness to reach the end of his journey, that he might set right this cruel wrong. he was in london at dusk on the second day after that on which he had left audley court, and he drove straight to the clarendon, to inquire after his uncle. he had no intention of seeing sir michael, as he had not yet determined how much or how little he should tell him, but he was very anxious to ascertain how the old man had sustained the cruel shock he had so lately endured. "i will see alicia," he thought, "she will tell me all about her father. it is only two days since he left audley. i can scarcely expect to hear of any favorable change." but mr. audley was not destined to see his cousin that evening, for the servants at the clarendon told him that sir michael and his daughter had left by the morning mail for paris, on their way to vienna. robert was very well pleased to receive this intelligence; it afforded him a welcome respite, for it would be decidedly better to tell the baronet nothing of his guilty wife until he returned to england, with health unimpaired and spirits re-established, it was to be hoped. mr. audley drove to the temple. the chambers which had seemed dreary to him ever since the disappearance of george talboys, were doubly so to-night. for that which had been only a dark suspicion had now become a horrible certainty. there was no longer room for the palest ray, the most transitory glimmer of hope. his worst terrors had been too well founded. george talboys had been cruelly and treacherously murdered by the wife he had loved and mourned. there were three letters waiting for mr. audley at his chambers. one was from sir michael, and another from alicia. the third was addressed in a hand the young barrister knew only too well, though he had seen it but once before. his face flushed redly at the sight of the superscription, and he took the letter in his hand, carefully and tenderly, as if it had been a living thing, and sentient to his touch. he turned it over and over in his hands, looking at the crest upon the envelope, at the post-mark, at the color of the paper, and then put it into the bosom of his waistcoat with a strange smile upon his face. "what a wretched and unconscionable fool i am!" he thought. "have i laughed at the follies of weak men all my life, and am i to be more foolish than the weakest of them at last? the beautiful brown-eyed creature! why did i ever see her? why did my relentless nemesis ever point the way to that dreary house in dorsetshire?" he opened the first two letters. he was foolish enough to keep the last for a delicious morsel�a fairy-like dessert after the commonplace substantialities of a dinner. alicia's letter told him that sir michael had borne his agony with such a persevering tranquility that she had become at last far more alarmed by his patient calmness than by any stormy manifestation of despair. in this difficulty she had secretly called upon the physician who attended the audley household in any cases of serious illness, and had requested this gentleman to pay sir michael an apparently accidental visit. he had done so, and after stopping half an hour with the baronet, had told alicia that there was no present danger of any serious consequence from this great grief, but that it was necessary that every effort should be made to arouse sir michael, and to force him, however unwillingly, into action. alicia had immediately acted upon this advice, had resumed her old empire as a spoiled child, and reminded her father of a promise he had made of taking her through germany. with considerable difficulty she had induced him to consent to fulfilling this old promise, and having once gained her point, she had contrived that they should leave england as soon as it was possible to do so, and she told robert, in conclusion, that she would not bring her father back to his old house until she had taught him to forget the sorrows associated with it. the baronet's letter was very brief. it contained half a dozen blank checks on sir michael audley's london bankers. "you will require money, my dear robert," he wrote, "for such arrangements as you may think fit to make for the future comfort of the person i committed to your care. i need scarcely tell you that those arrangements cannot be too liberal. but perhaps it is as well that i should tell you now, for the first and only time, that it is my earnest wish never again to hear that person's name. i have no wish to be told the nature of the arrangements you may make for her. i am sure that you will act conscientiously and mercifully. i seek to know no more. whenever you want money, you will draw upon me for any sums that you may require; but you will have no occasion to tell me for whose use you want that money." robert audley breathed a long sigh of relief as he folded this letter. it released him from a duty which it would have been most painful for him to perform, and it forever decided his course of action with regard to the murdered man. george talboys must lie at peace in his unknown grave, and sir michael audley must never learn that the woman he had loved bore the red brand of murder on her soul. robert had only the third letter to open�the letter which he had placed in his bosom while he read the others; he tore open the envelope, handling it carefully and tenderly as he had done before. the letter was as brief as sir michael's. it contained only these few lines: "dear mr. audley�the rector of this place has been twice to see marks, the man you saved in the fire at the castle inn. he lies in a very precarious state at his mother's cottage, near audley court, and is not expected to live many days. his wife is attending him, and both he and she have expressed a most earnest desire that you should see him before he dies. pray come without delay. "yours very sincerely, "clara talboys. "mount stanning rectory, march ." robert audley folded this letter very reverently, and placed it underneath that part of his waistcoat which might be supposed to cover the region of his heart. having done this, he seated himself in his favorite arm-chair, filled and lighted a pipe and smoked it out, staring reflectingly at the fire as long as his tobacco lasted. "what can that man marks want with me," thought the barrister. "he is afraid to die until he has made confession, perhaps. he wishes to tell me that which i know already�the story of my lady's crime. i knew that he was in the secret. i was sure of it even upon the night on which i first saw him. he knew the secret, and he traded on it." robert audley shrank strangely from returning to essex. how should he meet clara talboys now that he knew the secret of her brother's fate? how many lies he should have to tell, or how much equivocation he must use in order to keep the truth from her? yet would there be any mercy in telling that horrible story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon her youth, and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished? he knew by his own experience how possible it was to hope against hope, and to hope unconsciously; and he could not bear that her heart should be crushed as his had been by the knowledge of the truth. "better that she should hope vainly to the last," he thought; "better that she should go through life seeking the clew to her lost brother's fate, than that i should give that clew into her hands, and say, 'our worst fears are realized. the brother you loved has been foully murdered in the early promise of his youth.'" but clara talboys had written to him, imploring him to return to essex without delay. could he refuse to do her bidding, however painful its accomplishment might be? and again, the man was dying, perhaps, and had implored to see him. would it not be cruel to refuse to go�to delay an hour unnecessarily? he looked at his watch. it wanted only five minutes to nine. there was no train to audley after the ipswich mail, which left london at half-past eight; but there was a train that left shoreditch at eleven, and stopped at brentwood between twelve and one. robert decided upon going by this train, and walking the distance between brentwood and audley, which was upwards of six miles. fleet street was quiet and lonely at this late hour, and robert audley being in a ghost-seeing mood, would have been scarcely astonished had he seen johnson's set come roystering westward in the lamp-light, or blind john milton groping his way down the steps before saint bride's church. mr. audley hailed a hansom at the corner of farrington street, and was rattled rapidly away across tenantless smithfield market, and into a labyrinth of dingy streets that brought him out upon the broad grandeur of finsbury pavement. the hansom rattled up the steep and stony approach to shoreditch station, and deposited robert at the doors of that unlovely temple. there were very few people going to travel by this midnight train, and robert walked up and down the long wooden platform, reading the huge advertisements whose gaunt lettering looked wan and ghastly in the dim lamplight. he had the carriage in which he sat all to himself. all to himself did i say? had he not lately summoned to his side that ghostly company which of all companionship is the most tenacious? the shadow of george talboys pursued him, even in the comfortable first-class carriage, and was behind him when he looked out of the window, and was yet far ahead of him and the rushing engine, in that thicket toward which the train was speeding, by the side of the unhallowed hiding-place in which the mortal remains of the dead man lay, neglected and uncared for. "i must give my lost friend decent burial," robert thought, as the chill wind swept across the flat landscape, and struck him with such frozen breath as might have emanated from the lips of the dead. "i must do it; or i shall die of some panic like this which has seized upon me to-night. i must do it; at any peril; at any cost. even at the price of that revelation which will bring the mad woman back from her safe hiding-place, and place her in a criminal dock." he was glad when the train stopped at brentwood at a few minutes after twelve. it was half-past one o'clock when the night wanderer entered the village of audley, and it was only there that he remembered that clara talboys had omitted to give him any direction by which he might find the cottage in which luke marks lay. "it was dawson who recommended that the poor creature should be taken to his mother's cottage," robert thought, by-and-by, "and, i dare say. dawson has attended him ever since the fire. he'll be able to tell me the way to the cottage." acting upon this idea, mr. audley stopped at the house in which helen talboys had lived before her second marriage. the door of the little surgery was ajar, and there was a light burning within. robert pushed the door open and peeped in. the surgeon was standing at the mahogany counter, mixing a draught in a glass measure, with his hat close beside him. late as it was, he had evidently only just come in. the harmonious snoring of his assistant sounded from a little room within the surgery. "i am sorry to disturb you, mr. dawson," robert said, apologetically, as the surgeon looked up and recognized him, "but i have come down to see marks, who, i hear, is in a very bad way, and i want you to tell me the way to his mother's cottage." "i'll show you the way, mr. audley," answered the surgeon, "i am going there this minute." "the man is very bad, then?" "so bad that he can be no worse. the change that can happen is that change which will take him beyond the reach of any earthly suffering." "strange!" exclaimed robert. "he did not appear to be much burned." "he was not much burnt. had he been, i should never have recommended his being removed from mount stanning. it is the shock that has done the business. he has been in a raging fever for the last two days; but to-night he is much calmer, and i'm afraid, before to-morrow night, we shall have seen the last of him." "he has asked to see me, i am told," said mr. audley. "yes," answered the surgeon, carelessly. "a sick man's fancy, no doubt. you dragged him out of the house, and did your best to save his life. i dare say, rough and boorish as the poor fellow is, he thinks a good deal of that." they had left the surgery, the door of which mr. dawson had locked behind him. there was money in the till, perhaps, for surely the village apothecary could not have feared that the most daring housebreaker would imperil his liberty in the pursuit of blue pill and colocynth, of salts and senna. the surgeon led the way along the silent street, and presently turned into a lane at the end of which robert audley saw the wan glimmer of a light; a light which told of the watch that is kept by the sick and dying; a pale, melancholy light, which always has a dismal aspect when looked upon in this silent hour betwixt night and morning. it shone from the window of the cottage in which luke marks lay, watched by his wife and mother. mr. dawson lifted the latch, and walked into the common room of the little tenement, followed by robert audley. it was empty, but a feeble tallow candle, with a broken back, and a long, cauliflower-headed wick, sputtered upon the table. the sick man lay in the room above. "shall i tell him you are here?" asked mr. dawson. "yes, yes, if you please. but be cautious how you tell him, if you think the news likely to agitate him. i am in no hurry. i can wait. you can call me when you think i can safely come up-stairs." the surgeon nodded, and softly ascended the narrow wooden stairs leading to the upper chamber. robert audley seated himself in a windsor chair by the cold hearth-stone, and stared disconsolately about him. but he was relieved at last by the low voice of the surgeon, who looked down from the top of the little staircase to tell him that luke marks was awake, and would be glad to see him. robert immediately obeyed this summons. he crept softly up the stairs, and took off his hat before he bent his head to enter at the low doorway of the humble rustic chamber. he took off his hat in the presence of this common peasant man, because he knew that there was another and a more awful presence hovering about the room, and eager to be admitted. phoebe marks was sitting at the foot of the bed, with her eyes fixed upon her husband's face�not with any very tender expression in the pale light, but with a sharp, terrified anxiety, which showed that it was the coming of death itself that she dreaded, rather than the loss of her husband. the old woman was busy at the fire-place, airing linen, and preparing some mess of broth which it was not likely the patient would ever eat. the sick man lay with his head propped up by pillows, his coarse face deadly pale, and his great hands wandering uneasily about the coverlet. phoebe had been reading to him, for an open testament lay among the medicine and lotion bottles upon the table near the bed. every object in the room was neat and orderly, and bore witness of that delicate precision which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of phoebe. the young woman rose as robert audley crossed the threshold, and hurried toward him. "let me speak to you for a moment, sir, before you talk to luke," she said, in an eager whisper. "pray let me speak to you first." "what's the gal a-sayin', there?" asked the invalid in a subdued roar, which died away hoarsely on his lips. he was feebly savage, even in his weakness. the dull glaze of death was gathering over his eyes, but they still watched phoebe with a sharp glance of dissatisfaction. "what's she up to there?" he said. "i won't have no plottin' and no hatchin' agen me. i want to speak to mr. audley my own self; and whatever i done i'm goin' to answer for. if i done any mischief, i'm a-goin' to try and undo it. what's she a-sayin'?" "she ain't a-sayin' nothin', lovey," answered the old woman, going to the bedside of her son, who even when made more interesting than usual by illness, did not seem a very fit subject for this tender appellation. "she's only a-tellin' the gentleman how bad you've been, my pretty." "what i'm a-goin' to tell i'm only a-goin' to tell to him, remember," growled mr. mark; "and ketch me a-tellin' of it to him if it warn't for what he done for me the other night." "to be sure not, lovey," answered the old woman soothingly. phoebe marks had drawn mr. audley out of the room and onto the narrow landing at the top of the little staircase. this landing was a platform of about three feet square, and it was as much as the two could manage to stand upon it without pushing each other against the whitewashed wall, or backward down the stairs. "oh, sir, i wanted to speak to you so badly," phoebe answered, eagerly; "you know what i told you when i found you safe and well upon the night of the fire?" "yes, yes." "i told you what i suspected; what i think still." "yes, i remember." "but i never breathed a word of it to anybody but you, sir, and i think that luke has forgotten all about that night; i think that what went before the fire has gone clean out of his head altogether. he was tipsy, you know, when my la�when she came to the castle; and i think he was so dazed and scared like by the fire that it all went out of his memory. he doesn't suspect what i suspect, at any rate, or he'd have spoken of it to anybody or everybody; but he's dreadful spiteful against my lady, for he says if she'd have let him have a place at brentwood or chelmsford, this wouldn't have happened. so what i wanted to beg of you, sir, is not to let a word drop before luke." "yes, yes, i understand; i will be careful." "my lady has left the court, i hear, sir?" "yes." "never to come back, sir?" "never to come back." "but she has not gone where she'll be cruelly treated; where she'll be ill-used?" "no: she will be very kindly treated." "i'm glad of that, sir; i beg your pardon for troubling you with the question, sir, but my lady was a kind mistress to me." luke's voice, husky and feeble, was heard within the little chamber at this period of the conversation, demanding angrily when "that gal would have done jawing;" upon which phoebe put her finger to her lips, and led mr. audley back into the sick-room. "i don't want you" said mr. marks, decisively, as his wife re-entered the chamber�"i don't want you; you've no call to hear what i've got to say�i only want mr. audley, and i wants to speak to him all alone, with none o' your sneakin' listenin' at doors, d'ye hear? so you may go down-stairs and keep there till you're wanted; and you may take mother�no, mother may stay, i shall want her presently." the sick man's feeble hand pointed to the door, through which his wife departed very submissively. "i've no wish to hear anything, luke," she said, "but i hope you won't say anything against those that have been good and generous to you." "i shall say what i like," answered mr. marks, fiercely, "and i'm not a-goin' to be ordered by you. you ain't the parson, as i've ever heerd of; nor the lawyer neither." the landlord of the castle inn had undergone no moral transformation by his death-bed sufferings, fierce and rapid as they had been. perhaps some faint glimmer of a light that had been far off from his life now struggled feebly through the black obscurities of ignorance that darkened his soul. perhaps a half angry, half sullen penitence urged him to make some rugged effort to atone for a life that had been selfish and drunken and wicked. be it how it might he wiped his white lips, and turning his haggard eyes earnestly upon robert audley, pointed to a chair by the bedside. "you made game of me in a general way, mr. audley," he said, presently, "and you've drawed me out, and you've tumbled and tossed me about like in a gentlemanly way, till i was nothink or anythink in your hands; and you've looked me through and through, and turned me inside out till you thought you knowed as much as i knowed. i'd no particular call to be grateful to you, not before the fire at the castle t'other night. but i am grateful to you for that. i'm not grateful to folks in a general way, p'r'aps, because the things as gentlefolks have give have a'most allus been the very things i didn't want. they've give me soup, and tracks, and flannel, and coals; but, lord, they've made such a precious noise about it that i'd have been to send 'em all back to 'em. but when a gentleman goes and puts his own life in danger to save a drunken brute like me, the drunkenest brute as ever was feels grateful like to that gentleman, and wishes to say before he dies�which he sees in the doctor's face as he ain't got long to live�'thank ye, sir, i'm obliged to you." luke marks stretched out his left hand�the right hand had been injured by the fire, and was wrapped in linen�and groped feebly for that of mr. robert audley. the young man took the coarse but shrunken hand in both his own, and pressed it cordially. "i need no thanks, luke marks," he said; "i was very glad to be of service to you." mr. marks did not speak immediately. he was lying quietly upon his side, staring reflectingly at robert audley. "you was oncommon fond of that gent as disappeared at the court, warn't you, sir?" he said at last. robert started at the mention of his dead friend. "you was oncommon fond of that mr. talboys, i've heard say, sir," repeated luke. "yes, yes," answered robert, rather impatiently, "he was my very dear friend." "i've heard the servants at the court say how you took on when you couldn't find him. i've heered the landlord of the sun inn say how cut up you was when you first missed him. 'if the two gents had been brothers,' the landlord said, 'our gent,' meanin' you, sir, 'couldn't have been more cut up when he missed the other.'" "yes, yes, i know, i know," said robert; "pray do not speak any more of this subject. i cannot tell you how much it distresses me." was he to be haunted forever by the ghost of his unburied friend? he came here to comfort the sick man, and even here he was pursued by this relentless shadow; even here he was reminded of the secret crime which had darkened his life. "listen to me, marks," he said, earnestly; "believe me that i appreciate your grateful words, and that i am very glad to have been of service to you. but before you say anything more, let me make one most solemn request. if you have sent for me that you may tell me anything of the fate of my lost friend, i entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me that horrible story. you can tell me nothing which i do not already know. the worst you can tell me of the woman who was once in your power, has already been revealed to me by her own lips. pray, then, be silent upon this subject; i say again, you can tell me nothing which i do not know." luke marks looked musingly at the earnest face of his visitor, and some shadowy expression, which was almost like a smile, flitted feebly across the sick man's haggard features. "i can't tell you nothin' you don't know?" he asked. "nothing." "then it ain't no good for me to try," said the invalid, thoughtfully. "did she tell you?" he asked, after a pause. "i must beg, marks, that you will drop the subject," robert answered, almost sternly. "i have already told you that i do not wish to hear it spoken of. whatever discoveries you made, you made your market out of them. whatever guilty secrets you got possession of, you were paid for keeping silence. you had better keep silence to the end." "had i?" cried luke marks, in an eager whisper. "had i really now better hold my tongue to the last?" "i think so, most decidedly. you traded on your secret, and you were paid to keep it. it would be more honest to hold to your bargain, and keep it still." "would it now?" said mr. marks with a ghastly grin; "but suppose my lady had one secret and i another. how then?" "what do you mean?" "suppose i could have told something all along; and would have told it, perhaps, if i'd been a little better treated; if what was give to me had been give a little more liberal like, and not flung at me as if i was a dog, and was only give it to be kep' from bitin'. suppose i could have told somethin', and would have told it but for that? how then?" it was impossible to describe the ghastliness of the triumphant grin that lighted up the sick man's haggard face. "his mind is wandering," robert thought; "i had need be patient with him, poor fellow. it would be strange if i could not be patient with a dying man." luke marks lay staring at mr. audley for some moments with that triumphant grin upon his face. the old woman, wearied out with watching her dying son, had dropped into a doze, and sat nodding her sharp chin over the handful of fire, upon which the broth that was never to be eaten, still bubbled and simmered. mr. audley waited very patiently until it should be the sick man's pleasure to speak. every sound was painfully distinct in that dead hour of the night. the dropping of the ashes on the hearth, the ominous crackling of the burning coals, the slow and ponderous ticking of the sulky clock in the room below, the low moaning of the march wind (which might have been the voice of an english banshee, screaming her dismal warning to the watchers of the dying), the hoarse breathing of the sick man--every sound held itself apart from all other sounds, and made itself into a separate voice, loud with a gloomy portent in the solemn stillness of the house. robert sat with his face shaded by his hands, thinking what was to become of him now that the secret of his friend's fate had been told, and the dark story of george talboys and his wicked wife had been finished in the belgian mad-house. what was to become of him? he had no claim upon clara talboys; for he had resolved to keep the horrible secret that had been told to him. how then could he dare to meet her with that secret held back fom her? how could he ever look into her earnest eyes, and yet withhold the truth? he felt that all power of reservation would fail before the searching glance of those calm brown eyes. if he was indeed to keep this secret he must never see her again. to reveal it would be to embitter her life. could he, for any selfish motive of his own, tell her this terrible story?--or could he think that if he told her she would suffer her murdered brother to lie unavenged and forgotten in his unhallowed grave? hemmed in on every side by difficulties which seemed utterly insumountable; with the easy temperament which was natural to him embittered by the gloomy burden he had borne so long, robert audley looked hopelessly forward to the life which lay before him, and thought that it would have been better for him had he perished among the burning ruins of the castle inn. "who would have been sorry for me? no one but my poor little alicia," he thought, "and hers would have only been an april sorrow. would clara talboys have been sorry? no! she would have only regretted me as a lost link in the mystery of her brother's death. she would only--" chapter xxxix. that which the dying man had to tell. heaven knows whither mr. audley's thoughts might have wandered had he not been startled by a sudden movement of the sick man, who raised himself up in his bed, and called to his mother. the old woman woke up with a jerk, and turned sleepily enough to look at her son. "what is it, luke, deary?" she asked soothingly. "it ain't time for the doctor's stuff yet. mr. dawson said as you weren't to have it till two hours after he went away, and he ain't been gone an hour yet." "who said it was the doctor's stuff i wanted?" cried mr. marks, impatiently. "i want to ask you something, mother. do you remember the seventh of last september?" robert started, and looked eagerly at the sick man. why did he harp upon this forbidden subject? why did he insist upon recalling the date of george's murder? the old woman shook her head in feeble confusion of mind. "lord, luke," she said, "how can'ee ask me such questions? my memory's been a failin' me this eight or nine year; and i never was one to remember the days of the month, or aught o' that sort. how should a poor workin' woman remember such things." luke marks shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "you're a good un to do what's asked you, mother," he said, peevishly. "didn't i tell you to rememer that day? didn't i tell you as the time might come when you'd be called upon to bear witness about it, and put upon your bible oath about it? didn't i tell you that, mother?" the old woman shook her head hopelessly. "if you say so, i make no doubt you did, luke," she said, with a conciliatory smile; "but i can't call it to mind, lovey. my memory's been failin' me this nine yaer, sir," she added, turning to robert audley, "and i'm but a poor crittur." mr. audley laid his hand upon the sick man's arm. "marks," he said, "i tell you again, you have no cause to worry yourself about this matter. i ask you no questions, i have no wish to hear anything." "but, suppose i want to tell something," cried luke, with feverish energy, "suppose i feel i can't die with a secret on my mind, and have asked to see you on purpose that i might tell you; suppose that, and you'll suppose nothing but the truth. i'd have been burnt alive before i'd have told her." he spoke these words between his set teeth, and scowled savagely as he uttered them. "i'd have been burnt alive first. i made her pay for her pretty insolent ways; i made her pay for her airs and graces; i'd never have told her�never, never! i had my power over her, and i kept it; i had my secret and was paid for it; and there wasn't a petty slight as she ever put upon me or mine that i didn't pay her out for twenty times over!" "marks, marks, for heaven's sake be calm," said robert, earnestly. "what are you talking of? what is it that you could have told?" "i'm a-goin to tell you," answered luke, wiping his lips. "give us a drink, mother." the old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug, and carried it to her son. he drank it in an eager hurry, as if he felt that the brief remainder of his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian, time. "stop where you are," he said to his mother, pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed. the old woman obeyed, and seated herself meekly opposite to mr. audley. "i'll ask you another question, mother," said luke, "and i think it'll be strange if you can't answer it. do you remember when i was at work upon atkinson's farm; before i was married you know, and when i was livin' down here along of you?" "yes, yes," mrs. marks answered, nodding triumphantly, "i remember that, my dear. it were last fall, just about as the apples was bein' gathered in the orchard across our lane, and about the time as you had your new sprigged wesket. i remember, luke, i remember." mr. audley wondered where all this was to lead to, and how long he would have to sit by the sick man's bed, hearing a conversation that had no meaning to him. "if you remember that much, maybe you'll remember more, mother," said luke. "can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night, while atkinsons was stackin' the last o' their corn?" once more mr. audley started violently, and this time he looked up earnestly at the face of the speaker, and listened, with a strange, breathless interest, that he scarcely understood himself, to what luke marks was saying. "i rek'lect your bringing home phoebe," the old woman answered, with great animation. "i rek'lect your bringin' phoebe home to take a cup o' tea, or a little snack o' supper, a mort o' times." "bother phoebe," cried mr. marks, "who's a talkin' of phoebe? what's phoebe, that anybody should go to put theirselves out about her? do you remember my bringin' home a gentleman after ten o'clock, one september night; a gentleman as was wet through to the skin, and was covered with mud and slush, and green slime and black muck, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and had his arm broke, and his shoulder swelled up awful; and was such a objeck that nobody would ha' knowed him; a gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places, and as sat by the kitchen fire, starin' at the coals as if he had gone mad or stupid-like, and didn't know where he was, or who he was; and as had to be cared for like a baby, and dressed, and dried, and washed, and fed with spoonfuls of brandy, that had to be forced between his locked teeth, before any life could be got into him? do you remember that, mother?" the old woman nodded, and muttered something to the effect that she remembered all these circumstances most vividly, now that luke happened to mention them. robert audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down upon his knees by the side of the sick man's bed. "my god!" he ejaculated, "i think thee for thy wondrous mercies. george talboys is alive!" "wait a bit," said mr. marks, "don't you be too fast. mother, give us down that tin box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers, will you?" the old woman obeyed, and after fumbling among broken teacups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery, produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a shabby, dirty-looking box enough. robert audley still knelt by the bedside with his face hidden by his clasped hands. luke marks opened the tin box. "there ain't no money in it, more's the pity," he said, "or if there had been it wouldn't have been let stop very long. but there's summat in it that perhaps you'll think quite as valliable as money, and that's what i'm goin' to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful to them as is kind to him." he took out two folded papers, which he gave into robert audley's hands. they were two leaves torn out of a pocket-book, and they were written upon in pencil, and in a handwriting that was quite strange to mr. audley�a cramped, stiff, and yet scrawling hand, such as some plowman might have written. "i don't know this writing," robert said, as he eagerly unfolded the first of the two papers. "what has this to do with my friend? why do you show me these?" "suppose you read 'em first," said mr. marks, "and ask me questions about them afterwards." the first paper which robert audley had unfolded contained the following lines, written in that cramped, yet scrawling hand which was so strange to him: "my dear friend�i write to you in such utter confusion of mind as perhaps no man ever before suffered. i cannot tell you what has happened to me, i can only tell you that something has happened which will drive me from england a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth in which i may live and die unknown and forgotten. i can only ask you to forget me. if your friendship could have done me any good, i would have appealed to it. if your counsel could have been any help to me, i would have confided in you. but neither friendship nor counsel can help me; and all i can say to you is this, god bless you for the past, and teach you to forget me in the future. g.t." the second paper was addressed to another person, and its contents were briefer than those of the first. "helen�may god pity and forgive you for that which you have done to-day, as truly as i do. rest in peace. you shall never hear of me again; to you and to the world i shall henceforth be that which you wished me to be to-day. you need fear no molestation from me. i leave england never to return. "g.t." robert audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment. they were not in his friend's familiar hand, and yet they purported to be written by him and were signed with his initials. he looked scrutinizingly at the face of luke marks, thinking that perhaps some trick was being played upon him. "this was not written by george talboys," he said. "it was," answered luke marks, "it was written by mr. talboys, every line of it. he wrote it with his own hand; but it was his left hand, for he couldn't use his right because of his broken arm." robert audley looked up suddenly, and the shadow of suspicion passed away from his face. "i understand," he said, "i understand. tell me all; tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved." "i was at work up at atkinson's farm, last september," said luke marks, "helping to stack the last of the corn, and as the nighest way from the farm to mother's cottage was through the meadows at the back of the court, i used to come that way, and phoebe used to stand in the garden wall beyond the lime-walk sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin' my time o' comin' home. "i don't know what phoebe was a-doin' upon the evenin' of the seventh o' september�i rek'lect the date because farmer atkinson paid me my wages all of a lump on that day, and i'd had to sign a bit of a receipt for the money he give me�i don't know what she was a-doin', but she warn't at the gate agen the lime-walk, so i went round to the other side o' the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch, for i wanted partic'ler to see her that night, as i was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond chelmsford the next day. audley church clock struck nine as i was crossin' the meadows between atkinson's and the court, and it must have been about a quarter past nine when i got into the kitchen garden. "i crossed the garden, and went into the lime-walk; the nighest way to the servants' hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well. it was a dark night, but i knew my way well enough about the old place, and the light in the window of the servants' hall looked red and comfortable through the darkness. i was close against the mouth of the dry well when i heard a sound that made my blood creep. it was a groan�a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' somewhere hid among the bushes. i warn't afraid of ghosts and i warn't afraid of anythink in a general way, but there was somethin in hearin' this groan as chilled me to the very heart, and for a minute i was struck all of a heap, and didn't know what to do. but i heard the groan again, and then i began to search among the bushes. i found a man lyin' hidden under a lot o' laurels, and i thought at first he was up to no good, and i was a-goin' to collar him to take him to the house, when he caught me by the wrist without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me very earnest, as i could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness, and asked me who i was, and what i was, and what i had to do with the folks at the court. "there was somethin' in the way he spoke that told me he was a gentleman, though i didn't know him from adam, and couldn't see his face; and i answered his questions civil. "'i want to get away from this place,' he said, 'without bein' seen by any livin' creetur, remember that. i've been lyin' here ever since four o'clock to-day, and i'm half dead, but i want to get away without bein' seen, mind that.' "i told him that was easy enough, but i began to think my first thoughts of him might have been right enough, after all, and that he couldn't have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet. "'can you take me to any place where i can get a change of dry clothes,' he says, 'without half a dozen people knowin' it?' "he'd got up into a sittin' attitude by this time, and i could see that his right arm hung close by his side, and that he was in pain. "i pointed to his arm, and asked him what was the matter with it; but he only answered, very quiet like: 'broken, my lad, broken. not that that's much,' he says in another tone, speaking to himself like, more than to me. 'there's broken hearts as well as broken limbs, and they're not so easy mended.' "i told him i could take him to mother's cottage, and that he could dry his clothes there and welcome. "'can your mother keep a secret?' he asked. "'well, she could keep one well enough if she could remember it,' i told him; 'but you might tell her all the secrets of the freemasons, and foresters, and buffalers and oddfellers as ever was, to-night: and she'd have forgotten all about 'em to-morrow mornin'.' "he seemed satisfied with this, and he got himself up by holdin' on to me, for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped, the use of 'em was almost gone. i felt as he came agen me, that his clothes was wet and mucky. "'you haven't been and fell into the fish-pond, have you, sir?' i asked. "he made no answer to my question; he didn't seem even to have heard it. i could see now he was standin' upon his feet that he was a tall, fine-made man, a head and shoulders higher than me. "'take me to your mother's cottage,' he said, 'and get me some dry clothes if you can; i'll pay you well for your trouble.' "i knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden wall, so i led him that way. he could scarcely walk at first, and it was only by leanin' heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to get along. i got him through the gate, leavin' it unlocked behind me, and trustin' to the chance of that not bein' noticed by the under-gardener, who had the care of the key, and was a careless chap enough. i took him across the meadows, and brought him up here, still keepin' away from the village, and in the fields, where there wasn't a creature to see us at that time o' night; and so i got him into the room down-stairs, where mother was a-sittin' over the fire gettin' my bit o' supper ready for me. "i put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire, and then for the first time i had a good look at him. i never see anybody in such a state before. he was all over green damp and muck, and his hands was scratched and cut to pieces. i got his clothes off him how i could, for he was like a child in my hands, and sat starin' at the fire as helpless as any baby; only givin' a long heavy sigh now and then, as if his heart was a-goin' to bust. at last he dropped into a kind of a doze, a stupid sort of sleep, and began to nod over the fire, so i ran and got a blanket and wrapped him in it, and got him to lie down on the press bedstead in the room under this. i sent mother to bed, and i sat by the fire and watched him, and kep' the fire up till it was just upon daybreak, when he 'woke up all of a sudden with a start, and said he must go, directly this minute. "i begged him not to think of such a thing and told him he warn't fit to move for ever so long; but he said he must go, and he got up, and though he staggered like, and at first could hardly stand steady two minutes together, he wouldn't be beat, and he got me to dress him in his clothes as i'd dried and cleaned as well as i could while he laid asleep. i did manage it at last, but the clothes was awful spoiled, and he looked a dreadful objeck, with his pale face and a great cut on his forehead that i'd washed and tied up with a handkercher. he could only get his coat on by buttoning it on round his neck, for he couldn't put a sleeve upon his broken arm. but he held out agen everything, though he groaned every now and then; and what with the scratches and bruises on his hands, and the cut upon his forehead, and his stiff limbs and broken arm, he'd plenty of call to groan; and by the time it was broad daylight he was dressed and ready to go. "'what's the nearest town to this upon the london road?' he asked me. "i told him as the nighest town was brentwood. "'very well, then,' he says, 'if you'll go with me to brentwood, and take me to some surgeon as'll set my arm, i'll give you a five pound note for that and all your other trouble.' "i told him that i was ready and willin' to do anything as he wanted done; and asked him if i shouldn't go and see if i could borrow a cart from some of the neighbors to drive him over in, for i told him it was a good six miles' walk. "he shook his head. no, no, no, he said, he didn't want anybody to know anything about him; he'd rather walk it. "he did walk it; and he walked like a good 'un, too; though i know as every step he took o' them six miles he took in pain; but he held out as he'd held out before; i never see such a chap to hold out in all my blessed life. he had to stop sometimes and lean agen a gateway to get his breath; but he held out still, till at last we got into brentwood, and then he says, 'take me to the nighest surgeon's,' and i waited while he had his arm set in splints, which took a precious long time. the surgeon wanted him to stay in brentwood till he was better, but he said it warn't to be heard on, he must get up to london without a minute's loss of time; so the surgeon made him as comfortable as he could, considering and tied up his arm in a sling." robert audley started. a circumstance connected with his visit to liverpool dashed suddenly back upon his memory. he remembered the clerk who had called him back to say there was a passenger who took his berth on board the victoria regia within an hour or so of the vessel's sailing; a young man with his arm in a sling, who had called himself by some common name, which robert had forgotten. "when his arm was dressed," continued luke, "he says to the surgeon, 'can you give me a pencil to write something before i go away?' the surgeon smiles and shakes his head: 'you'll never be able to write with that there hand to-day,' he says, pointin' to the arm as had just been dressed. 'p'raps not,' the young chap answers, quiet enough, 'but i can write with the other,' 'can't i write it for you?' says the surgeon. 'no, thank you,' answers the other; 'what i've got to write is private. if you can give me a couple of envelopes, i'll be obliged to you.' "with that the surgeon goes to fetch the envelopes, and the young chap takes a pocket-book out of his coat pocket with his left hand; the cover was wet and dirty, but the inside was clean enough, and he tears out a couple of leaves and begins to write upon 'em as you see; and he writes dreadful awk'ard with his left hand, and he writes slow, but he contrives to finish what you see, and then he puts the two bits o' writin' into the envelopes as the surgeon brings him, and he seals 'em up, and he puts a pencil cross upon one of 'em, and nothing on the other: and then he pays the surgeon for his trouble, and the surgeon says, ain't there nothin' more he can do for him, and can't he persuade him to stay in brentwood till his arm's better; but he says no, no, it ain't possible; and then he says to me, 'come along o' me to the railway station, and i'll give you what i've promised.' "so i went to the station with him. we was in time to catch the train as stops at brentwood at half after eight, and we had five minutes to spare. so he takes me into a corner of the platform, and he says, 'i wants you to deliver these here letters for me,' which i told him i was willin'. 'very well, then,' he says; 'look here; you know audley court?' 'yes,' i says, 'i ought to, for my sweetheart lives lady's maid there.' 'whose lady's maid?' he says. so i tells him, 'my lady's, the new lady what was governess at mr. dawson's.' 'very well, then,' he says; 'this here letter with the cross upon the envelope is for lady audley, but you're to be sure to give it into her own hands; and remember to take care as nobody sees you give it.' i promises to do this, and he hands me the first letter. and then he says, 'do you know mr. audley, as is nevy to sir michael?' and i said, 'yes, i've heerd tell on him, and i've heerd as he was a reg'lar swell, but affable and free-spoken' (for i heerd 'em tell on you, you know)," luke added, parenthetically. "'now look here,' the young chap says, 'you're to give this other letter to mr. robert audley, whose a-stayin' at the sun inn, in the village;' and i tells him it's all right, as i've know'd the sun ever since i was a baby. so then he gives me the second letter, what's got nothing wrote upon the envelope, and he gives me a five-pound note, accordin' to promise; and then he says, 'good-day, and thank you for all your trouble,'and he gets into a second-class carriage; and the last i sees of him is a face as white as a sheet of writin' paper, and a great patch of stickin'-plaster criss-crossed upon his forehead." "poor george! poor george!" "i went back to audley, and i went straight to the sun inn, and asked for you, meanin' to deliver both letters faithful, so help me god! then; but the landlord told me as you'd started off that mornin' for london, and he didn't know when you'd come back, and he didn't know the name o' the place where you lived in london, though he said he thought it was in one o' them law courts, such as westminster hall or doctors' commons, or somethin' like that. so what was i to do? i couldn't send a letter by post, not knowin' where to direct to, and i couldn't give it into your own hands, and i'd been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it; so i'd nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, and bide my time for givin' of it to you. "i thought i'd go over to the court in the evenin' and see phoebe, and find out from her when there'd be a chance of seein' her lady, for i know'd she could manage it if she liked. so i didn't go to work that day, though i ought to ha' done, and i lounged and idled about until it was nigh upon dusk, and then i goes down to the meadows behind the court, and there i finds phoebe sure enough, waitin' agen the wooden door in the wall, on the lookout for me. "i hadn't been talkin' to her long before i see there was somethink wrong with her and i told her as much. "well,' she says, 'i ain't quite myself this evenin', for i had a upset yesterday, and i ain't got over it yet.' "'a upset,' i says. 'you had a quarrel with your missus, i suppose.' "she didn't answer me directly, but she smiled the queerest smile as ever i see, and presently she says: "no, luke, it weren't nothin' o' that kind; and what's more, nobody could be friendlier toward me than my lady. i think she'd do any think for me a'most; and i think, whether it was a bit o' farming stock and furniture or such like, or whether it was the good-will of a public-house, she wouldn't refuse me anythink as i asked her.' "i couldn't make out this, for it was only a few days before as she'd told me her missus was selfish and extravagant, and we might wait a long time before we could get what we wanted from her. "so i says to her, 'why, this is rather sudden like, phoebe;' and she says, 'yes, it is sudden;' and she smiles again, just the same sort of smile as before. upon that i turns round upon her sharp, and says: "i'll tell you what it is, my gal, you're a-keepin' somethink from me; somethink you've been told, or somethink you've found out; and if you think you're a-goin' to try that game on with me, you'll find you're very much mistaken; and so i give you warnin'." "but she laughed it off like, and says, 'lor' luke, what could have put such fancies into your head?' "'perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as you,' i said, 'and perhaps other people can make friends as well as you. there was a gentleman came here to see your missus yesterday, warn't there�a tall young gentleman with a brown beard?' "instead of answering of me like a christian, my cousin phoebe bursts out a-cryin', and wrings her hands, and goes on awful, until i'm dashed if i can make out what she's up to. "but little by little i got it out of her, for i wouldn't stand no nonsense; find she told me how she'd been sittin' at work at the window of her little room, which was at the top of the house, right up in one of the gables, and overlooked the lime-walk, and the shrubbery and the well, when she see my lady walking with a strange gentleman, and they walked together for a long time, until by-and-by they�" "stop!" cried robert, "i know the rest." "well, phoebe told me all about what she see, and she told me she'd met her lady almost directly afterward, and somethin' had passed between 'em, not much, but enough to let her missus know that the servant what she looked down upon had found out that as would put her in that servant's power to the last day of her life. "'and she is in my power, luke,' says phoebe; 'and she'll do anythin' in the world for us if we keep her secret.' "so you see both my lady audley and her maid thought as the gentleman as i'd seen safe off by the london train was lying dead at the bottom of the well. if i was to give the letter they'd find out the contrary of this; and if i was to give the letter, phoebe and me would lose the chance of gettin' started in life by her missus. "so i kep' the letter and kep' my secret, and my lady kep' hern. but i thought if she acted liberal by me, and gave me the money i wanted, free like, i'd tell her everythink, and make her mind easy. "but she didn't. whatever she give me she throwed me as if i'd been a dog. whenever she spoke to me, she spoke as she might have spoken to a dog; and a dog she couldn't abide the sight of. there was no word in her mouth that was too bad for me; there was no toss as she could give her head that was too proud and scornful for me; and my blood b'iled agen her, and i kep' my secret, and let her keep hern. i opened the two letters, and i read 'em, but i couldn't make much sense out of 'em, and i hid 'em away; and not a creature but me has seen 'em until this night." luke marks had finished his story, and lay quietly enough, exhausted by having talked so long. he watched robert audley's face, fully expecting some reproof, some grave lecture; for he had a vague consciousness that he had done wrong. but robert did not lecture him; he had no fancy for an office which he did not think himself fitted to perform. robert audley sat until long after daybreak with the sick man, who fell into a heavy slumber a short time after he had finished his story. the old woman had dozed comfortably throughout her son's confession. phoebe was asleep upon the press bedstead in the room below; so the young barrister was the only watcher. he could not sleep; he could only think of the story he had heard. he could only thank god for his friend's preservation, and pray that he might be able to go to clara talboys, and say, "your brother still lives, and has been found." phoebe came up-stairs at eight o'clock, ready to take her place at the sick-bed, and robert audley went away, to get a bed at the sun inn. it was nearly dusk when he awoke out of a long dreamless slumber, and dressed himself before dining in the little sitting-room, in which he and george had sat together a few months before. the landlord waited upon him at dinner, and told him that luke marks had died at five o'clock that afternoon. "he went off rather sudden like," the man said, "but very quiet." robert audley wrote a long letter that evening, addressed to madame taylor, care of monsieur val, villebrumeuse; a long letter in which he told the wretched woman who had borne so many names, and was to bear a false one for the rest of her life, the story that the dying man had told him. "it may be some comfort to her to hear that her husband did not perish in his youth by her wicked hand," he thought, "if her selfish soul can hold any sentiment of pity or sorrow for others." chapter xl. restored. clara talboys returned to dorsetshire, to tell her father that his only son had sailed for australia upon the th of september, and that it was most probable he yet lived, and would return to claim the forgiveness of the father he had never very particularly injured; except in the matter of having made that terrible matrimonial mistake which had exercised so fatal an influence upon his youth. mr. harcourt-talboys was fairly nonplused. junius brutus had never been placed in such a position as this, and seeing no way of getting out of this dilemma by acting after his favorite model, mr. talboys was fain to be natural for once in his life, and to confess that he had suffered much uneasiness and pain of mind about his only son since his conversation with robert audley, and that he would be heartily glad to take his poor boy to his arms, whenever he should return to england. but when was he likely to return? and how was he to be communicated with? that was the question. robert audley remembered the advertisements which he had caused to be inserted in the melbourne and sydney papers. if george had re-entered either city alive, how was it that no notice had ever been taken of that advertisement? was it likely that his friend would be indifferent to his uneasiness? but then, again, it was just possible that george talboys had not happened to see this advertisement; and, as he had traveled under a feigned name, neither his fellow passengers nor the captain of the vessel would have been able to identify him with the person advertised for. what was to be done? must they wait patiently till george grew weary of his exile, and returned to his friends who loved him? or were there any means to be taken by which his return might be hastened? robert audley was at fault! perhaps, in the unspeakable relief of mind which he had experienced upon the discovery of his friend's escape, he was unable to look beyond the one fact of that providential preservation. in this state of mind he went down to dorsetshire to pay a visit to mr. talboys, who had given way to a perfect torrent of generous impulses, and had gone so far as to invite his son's friend to share the prim hospitality of the square, red brick mansion. mr. talboys had only two sentiments upon the subject of george's story; one was a natural relief and happiness in the thought that his son had been saved, the other was an earnest wish that my lady had been his wife, and that he might thus have had the pleasure of making a signal example of her. "it is not for me to blame you, mr. audley," he said, "for having smuggled this guilty woman out of the reach of justice, and thus, as i may say, paltered with the laws of your country. i can only remark that, had the lady fallen into my hands, she would have been very differently treated." it was in the middle of april when robert audley found himself once more under those black fir-trees beneath which his wandering thoughts had so often stayed since his first meeting with clara talboys. there were primroses and early violets in the hedges now, and the streams, which, upon his first visit, had been hard and frost-bound as the heart of harcourt talboys, had thawed, like that gentleman, and ran merrily under the blackthorn bushes in the capricious april sunshine. robert had a prim bedroom, and an uncompromising dressing-room allotted him in the square house, and he woke every morning upon a metallic spring mattress, which always gave him the idea of sleeping upon some musical instrument, to see the sun glaring in upon him through the square, white blinds and lighting up the two lackered urns which adorned the foot of the blue iron bedstead, until they blazed like two tiny brazen lamps of the roman period. he emulated mr. harcourt talboys in the matter of shower-baths and cold water, and emerged prim and blue as that gentleman himself, as the clock in the hall struck seven, to join the master of the house in his ante-breakfast constitutional under the fir-trees in the stiff plantation. but there was generally a third person who assisted in the constitutional promenades, and that third person was clara talboys, who used to walk by her father's side, more beautiful than the morning�for that was sometimes dull and cloudy, while she was always fresh and bright�in a broad-leaved straw-hat and flapping blue ribbons, one quarter of an inch of which mr. audley would have esteemed a prouder decoration than ever adorned a favored creature's button-hole. at first they were very ceremonious toward each other, and were only familiar and friendly upon the one subject of george's adventures; but little by little a pleasant intimacy arose between them, and before the first three weeks of robert's visit had elapsed, miss talboys made him happy, by taking him seriously in hand and lecturing him on the purposeless life he had led so long, and the little use he had made of the talents and opportunities that had been given to him. how pleasant it was to be lectured by the woman he loved! how pleasant it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her! how delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven to be something better than an idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways that have no particular goal; that, blessed by the ties which would have given a solemn purpose to every hour of his existence, he might indeed have fought the battle earnestly and unflinchingly. he generally wound up with a gloomy insinuation to the effect that it was only likely he would drop quietly over the edge of the temple gardens some afternoon when the river was bright and placid in the low sunlight, and the little children had gone home to their tea. "do you think i can read french novels and smoke mild turkish until i am three-score-and-ten, miss talboys?" he asked. "do you think there will not come a day in which my meerschaums will be foul, and the french novels more than usually stupid, and life altogether such a dismal monotony that i shall want to get rid of it somehow or other?" i am sorry to say that while this hypocritical young barrister was holding forth in this despondent way, he had mentally sold up his bachelor possessions, including all michel levy's publications, and half a dozen solid silver-mounted meerschaums; pensioned off mrs. maloney, and laid out two or three thousand pounds in the purchase of a few acres of verdant shrubbery and sloping lawn, embosomed amid which there should be a fairy cottage ornée, whose rustic casements should glimmer out of bowers of myrtle and clematis to see themselves reflected in the purple bosom of the lake. of course, clara talboys was far from discovering the drift of these melancholy lamentations. she recommended mr. audley to read hard and think seriously of his profession, and begin life in real earnest. it was a hard, dry sort of existence, perhaps, which she recommended; a life of serious work and application, in which he should strive to be useful to his fellow-creatures, and win a reputation for himself. "i'd do all that," he thought, "and do it earnestly, if i could be sure of a reward for my labor. if she would accept my reputation when it was won, and support me in the struggle by her beloved companionship. but what if she sends me away to fight the battle, and marries some hulking country squire while my back is turned?" being naturally of a vacillating and dilatory disposition, there is no saying how long mr. audley might have kept his secret, fearful to speak and break the charm of that uncertainty which, though not always hopeful, was very seldom quite despairing, had not he been hurried by the impulse of an unguarded moment into a full confession of the truth. he had stayed five weeks at grange heath, and felt that he could not, in common decency, stay any longer; so he had packed his portmanteau one pleasant may morning, and had announced his departure. mr. talboys was not the sort of man to utter any passionate lamentations at the prospect of losing his guest, but he expressed himself with a cool cordiality which served with him as the strongest demonstration of friendship. "we have got on very well together, mr. audley," he said, "and you have been pleased to appear sufficiently happy in the quiet routine of our orderly household; nay, more, you have conformed to our little domestic regulations in a manner which i cannot refrain from saying i take as an especial compliment to myself." robert bowed. how thankful he was to the good fortune which had never suffered him to oversleep the signal of the clanging bell, or led him away beyond the ken of clocks at mr. talboys' luncheon hour. "i trust as we have got on so remarkably well together," mr. talboys resumed, "you will do me the honor of repeating your visit to dorsetshire whenever you feel inclined. you will find plenty of sport among my farms, and you will meet with every politeness and attention from my tenants, if you like to bring your gun with you." robert responded most heartily to these friendly overtures. he declared that there was no earthly occupation that was more agreeable to him than partridge-shooting, and that he should be only too delighted to avail himself of the privilege so kindly offered to him. he could not help glancing toward clara as he said this. the perfect lids drooped a little over the brown eyes, and the faintest shadow of a blush illuminated the beautiful face. but this was the young barrister's last day in elysium, and there must be a dreary interval of days and nights and weeks and months before the first of september would give him an excuse for returning to dorsetshire; a dreary interval which fresh colored young squires or fat widowers of eight-and-forty, might use to his disadvantage. it was no wonder, therefore, that he contemplated this dismal prospect with moody despair, and was bad company for miss talboys that morning. but in the evening after dinner, when the sun was low in the west, and harcourt talboys closeted in his library upon some judicial business with his lawyer and a tenant farmer, mr. audley grew a little more agreeable. he stood by clara's side in one of the long windows of the drawing-room, watching the shadows deepening in the sky and the rosy light growing every moment rosier as the sun died out. he could not help enjoying that quiet tête-a-tête, though the shadow of the next morning's express which was to carry him away to london loomed darkly across the pathway of his joy. he could not help being happy in her presence; forgetful of the past, reckless of the future. they talked of the one subject which was always a bond of union between them. they talked of her lost brother george. she spoke of him in a very melancholy tone this evening. how could she be otherwise than sad, remembering that if he lived�and she was not even sure of that�he was a lonely wanderer far away from all who loved him, and carrying the memory of a blighted life wherever he went. "i cannot think how papa can be so resigned to my poor brother's absence," she said, "for he does love him, mr. audley; even you must have seen lately that he does love him. but i cannot think how he can so quietly submit to his absence. if i were a man, i would go to australia, and find him, and bring him back; if he was still to be found among the living," she added, in a lower voice. she turned her face away from robert, and looked out at the darkening sky. he laid his hand upon her arm. it trembled in spite of him, and his voice trembled, too, as he spoke to her. "shall i go to look for your brother?" he said. "you!" she turned her head, and looked at him earnestly through her tears. "you, mr. audley! do you think that i could ask you to make such a sacrifice for me, or for those i love?" "and do you think, clara, that i should think any sacrifice too great a one if it were made for you? do you think there is any voyage i would refuse to take, if i knew that you would welcome me when i came home, and thank me for having served you faithfully? i will go from one end of the continent of australia to the other to look for your brother, if you please, clara; and will never return alive unless i bring him with me, and will take my chance of what reward you shall give me for my labor." her head was bent, and it was some moments before she answered him. "you are very good and generous, mr. audley," she said, at last, "and i feel this offer too much to be able to thank you for it. but what you speak of could never be. by what right could i accept such a sacrifice?" "by the right which makes me your bounden slave forever and ever, whether you will or no. by right of the love i bear you, clara," cried mr. audley, dropping on his knees�rather awkwardly, it must be confessed�and covering a soft little hand, that he had found half hidden among the folds of a silken dress, with passionate kisses. "i love you, clara," he said, "i love you. you may call for your father, and have me turned out of the house this moment, if you like; but i shall go on loving you all the same; and i shall love you forever and ever, whether you will or no." the little hand was drawn away from his, but not with a sudden or angry gesture, and it rested for one moment lightly and tremulously upon his dark hair. "clara, clara!" he murmured, in a low, pleading voice, "shall i go to australia to look for your brother?" there was no answer. i don't know how it is, but there is scarcely anything more delicious than silence in such cases. every moment of hesitation is a tacit avowal; every pause is a tender confession. "shall we both go, dearest? shall we go as man and wife? shall we go together, my dear love, and bring our brother back between us?" mr. harcourt talboys, coming into the lamplit room a quarter of an hour afterward, found robert audley alone, and had to listen to a revelation which very much surprised him. like all self-sufficient people, he was tolerably blind to everything that happened under his nose, and he had fully believed that his own society, and the spartan regularity of his household, had been the attractions which had made dorsetshire delightful to his guest. he was rather disappointed, therefore; but he bore his disappointment pretty well, and expressed a placid and rather stoical satisfaction at the turn which affairs had taken. so robert audley went back to london, to surrender his chambers in figtree court, and to make all due inquiries about such ships as sailed from liverpool for sydney in the month of june. he had lingered until after luncheon at grange heath, and it was in the dusky twilight that he entered the shady temple courts and found his way to his chambers. he found mrs. maloney scrubbing the stairs, as was her wont upon a saturday evening, and he had to make his way upward amidst an atmosphere of soapy steam, that made the balusters greasy under his touch. "there's lots of letters, yer honor," the laundress said, as she rose from her knees and flattened herself against the wall to enable robert to pass her, "and there's some parcels, and there's a gentleman which has called ever so many times, and is waitin' to-night, for i towld him you'd written to me to say your rooms were to be aired." he opened the door of his sitting-room, and walked in. the canaries were singing their farewell to the setting sun, and the faint, yellow light was flickering upon the geranium leaves. the visitor, whoever he was, sat with his back to the window and his head bent upon his breast. but he started up as robert audley entered the room, and the young man uttered a great cry of delight and surprise, and opened his arms to his lost friend, george talboys. we know how much robert had to tell. he touched lightly and tenderly upon that subject which he knew was cruelly painful to his friends; he said very little of the wretched woman who was wearing out the remnant of her wicked life in the quiet suburb of the forgotten belgian city. george talboys spoke very briefly of that sunny seventh of september, upon which he had left his friend sleeping by the trout stream while he went to accuse his false wife of that conspiracy which had well nigh broken his heart. "god knows that from the moment in which i sunk into the black pit, knowing the treacherous hand that had sent me to what might have been my death, my chief thought was of the safety of the woman who had betrayed me. i fell upon my feet upon a mass of slush and mire, but my shoulder was bruised, and my arm broken against the side of the well. i was stunned and dazed for a few minutes, but i roused myself by an effort, for i felt that the atmosphere i breathed was deadly. i had my australian experiences to help me in my peril; i could climb like a cat. the stones of which the well was built were rugged and irregular, and i was able to work my way upward by planting my feet in the interstices of the stones, and resting my back at times against the opposite side of the well, helping myself as well as i could with my hands, though one arm was crippled. it was hard work, bob, and it seems strange that a man who had long professed himself weary of his life, should take so much trouble to preserve it. i think i must have been working upward of half an hour before i got to the top; i know the time seemed an eternity of pain and peril. it was impossible for me to leave the place until after dark without being observed, so i hid myself behind a clump of laurel-bushes, and lay down on the grass faint and exhausted to wait for nightfall. the man who found me there told you the rest. robert." "yes, my poor old friend.�yes, he told me all." george had never returned to australia after all. he had gone on board the victoria regia, but had afterward changed his berth for one in another vessel belonging to the same owners, and had gone to new york, where he had stayed as long as he could endure the loneliness of an existence which separated him from every friend he had ever known. "jonathan was very kind to me, bob," he said; "i had enough money to enable me to get on pretty well in my own quiet way and i meant to have started for the california gold fields to get more when that was gone. i might have made plenty of friends had i pleased, but i carried the old bullet in my breast; and what sympathy could i have with men who knew nothing of my grief? i yearned for the strong grasp of your hand, bob; the friendly touch of the hand which had guided me through the darkest passage of my life." chapter xli. at peace. two years have passed since the may twilight in which robert found his old friend; and mr. audley's dream of a fairy cottage has been realized between teddington locks and hampton bridge, where, amid a little forest of foliage, there is a fantastical dwelling place of rustic woodwork, whose latticed windows look out upon the river. here, among the lilies and the rushes on the sloping bank, a brave boy of eight years old plays with a toddling baby, who peers wonderingly from his nurse's arms at that other baby in the purple depth of the quiet water. mr. audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time, and has distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of hobbs v. nobbs, and has convulsed the court by his deliciously comic rendering of the faithless nobb's amatory correspondence. the handsome dark-eyed boy is master george talboys, who declines musa at eton, and fishes for tadpoles in the clear water under the spreading umbrage beyond the ivied walls of the academy. but he comes very often to the fairy cottage to see his father, who lives there with his sister and his sister's husband; and he is very happy with his uncle robert, his aunt clara, and the pretty baby who has just begun to toddle on the smooth lawn that slopes down to the water's brink, upon which there is a little swiss boat-house and landing-stage where robert and george moor their slender wherries. other people come to the cottage near teddington. a bright, merry-hearted girl, and a gray-bearded gentleman, who has survived the trouble of his life, and battled with it as a christian should. it is more than a year since a black-edged letter, written upon foreign paper, came to robert audley, to announce the death of a certain madame taylor, who had expired peacefully at villebrumeuse, dying after a long illness, which monsieur val describes as a maladie de langueur. another visitor comes to the cottage in this bright summer of �a frank, generous hearted young man, who tosses the baby and plays with georgey, and is especially great in the management of the boats, which are never idle when sir harry towers is at teddington. there is a pretty rustic smoking-room over the swiss boat-house, in which the gentlemen sit and smoke in the summer evenings, and whence they are summoned by clara and alicia to drink tea, and eat strawberries and cream upon the lawn. audley court is shut up, and a grim old housekeeper reigns paramount in the mansion which my lady's ringing laughter once made musical. a curtain hangs before the pre-raphaelite portrait; and the blue mold which artists dread gathers upon the wouvermans and poussins, the cuyps and tintorettis. the house is often shown to inquisitive visitors, though the baronet is not informed of that fact, and people admire my lady's rooms, and ask many questions about the pretty, fair-haired woman who died abroad. sir michael has no fancy to return to the familiar dwelling-place in which he once dreamed a brief dream of impossible happiness. he remains in london until alicia shall be lady towers, when he is to remove to a house he has lately bought in hertfordshire, on the borders of his son-in-law's estate. george talboys is very happy with his sister and his old friend. he is a young man yet, remember, and it is not quite impossible that he may, by-and-by, find some one who will console him for the past. that dark story of the past fades little by little every day, and there may come a time in which the shadow my lady's wickedness has cast upon the young man's life will utterly vanish away. the meerschaum and the french novels have been presented to a young templar with whom robert audley had been friendly in his bachelor days; and mrs. maloney has a little pension, paid her quarterly, for her care of the canaries and geraniums. i hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace. if my experience of life has not been very long, it has at least been manifold; and i can safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared, when he said, that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever shown him "the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." the end. images generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) a picture-book of merry tales. [illustration: _the dwarfs' capers._] [illustration: title page] a picture-book of merry tales. _london: bosworth and harrison, , regent street._ contents. page i. the birth of owlglass, and how he was thrice baptized ii. how all the people of the village, both men and women, made complaints of young owlglass; and how, whilst on horseback with his father, without his knowledge, he made game of them all iii. how owlglass crept into a beehive; and how, when two thieves came in the night to steal it, he managed to set them quarrelling, so that they came to blows and left the hive behind them iv. how owlglass ate a roasted fowl off the spit, and did only half work v. how owlglass was forbidden the duchy of luneburgh, and bought himself land of his own vi. of the manner in which owlglass paints a picture for the count of hessen, and how he persuades him that those of base birth could not see the painting vii. how, at erfurt, owlglass taught a donkey to read viii. how owlglass brought it about that the watch of nurenberg fell into the water ix. how owlglass appears as dentist and doctor x. how owlglass sells his horse to a jew, and on what terms xi. how owlglass sells an old hat for more than its weight in gold xii. how owlglass, by means of a false confession, cheated the priest of riesenburgh out of his horse; and how he steals another priest's snuff-box xiii. how a bootmaker of brunswick larded owlglass's boots; and how he was paid for doing so xiv. how owlglass hires himself to a tailor; and how well he executes his master's orders xv. how owlglass caused three tailors to fall from their work-board, and persuaded the people that the wind had blown them down xvi. how owlglass tells a truth to a smith, to his wife, his assistant, and his maidservant, for which he gets his horse shod xvii. how owlglass hired himself to a merchant as cook and coachman xviii. how owlglass cheated a horse-dealer at wismar, and afterwards cheated the public xix. how owlglass sowed rogues xx. how owlglass hired himself to a barber, and entered his house through the window xxi. how owlglass frightened an innkeeper at eisleben with a dead wolf xxii. the grateful animals xxiii. tim jarvis xxiv. the shoemaker and the dwarfs xxv. the countryman and the jew xxvi. my watch xxvii. fittletetot xxviii. the wee bannock xxix. jock and his mother xxx. the irish highwayman xxxi. fiddling jackey xxxii. teeny-tiny xxxiii. the cannibal cow xxxiv. the three men of gotham on nottingham bridge xxxv. the man of gotham and his cheeses xxxvi. twelve men of gotham go out fishing together xxxvii. the cobbler's wager xxxviii. the miller and his donkey xxxix. dr. dobbs, and his horse nobbs xl. the brownie [decoration] i. _the birth of owlglass, and how he was thrice baptized._ in the duchy of brunswick is a forest called seib, and in this lies the village of kneitlingen, where the good child owlglass was born. the life of this child does not confirm the old saying, "like father like son," for his father, by name elaus owlglass, was a quiet respectable man, and his mother, anna, was the very model of a woman, for she was meek and a woman of few words. no particular circumstance attending the birth of our hero is handed down to us, and it therefore was, probably, not very different to other births; but it is recorded that he enjoyed the benefit of three distinct baptisms. there does not seem to have been any church in the village where he was born, for when the time came for him to be christened he was sent by his parents to the village of amptlen, where he received the name of tyll owlglass. the place is still remembered as the scene of this ceremony; but also because close by there stood once a castle of the same name, destroyed, as a nest of robbers, by the good people of magdeburgh, with the help of their neighbours. at the time we are speaking of it was the custom of the land that the godfathers and godmothers, together with the nurse and child, should adjourn, immediately after the christening, to an alehouse, there to enjoy themselves; and that part of the ceremony was not forgotten or neglected on this occasion. now it was a long way from the church to the ale-house, and the day was very hot, so that the party indulged rather freely in the refreshing beverage, delaying their homeward journey as long as possible. at length, however, they had to get on their way; and the nurse, whose head was rather giddy and legs not over-steady, had very unpleasant visions of a narrow footpath with ground sloping down into a muddy ditch, and she had serious forebodings of how that part of the journey would be accomplished. the nearer she drew to the dreaded spot the more her nervousness increased, and young tyll, whether that she clutched him more firmly to her, or whether he too had forebodings of danger, began to kick and struggle in her arms, so that her stopping on the brink of danger, to gather steadiness and courage, was of no manner of use, for just as one foot rested on a loose stone a violent plunge of the child threw her fairly off her legs, and threw himself over her head into the ditch below. but weeds are not easily extirpated; so no harm happened to the child excepting that he was covered with mud and slime. then he was taken home and washed. [illustration: _owlglass's second baptism._] thus owlglass was, on one and the same day, thrice baptized. first, in all proper order and due form, then in the muddy ditch, and lastly, in warm water to cleanse him from the dirt. this was symbolic of the many mishaps of his future life, for evil is sure to fall back upon its perpetrator. ii. _how all the people of the village, both men and women, made complaints of young owlglass; and how, whilst on horseback with his father, without his knowledge, he made game of them all._ our young acquaintance, tyll, began at an early age to show signs of a decidedly marked character. he was full of life and spirits, as the other children of the village found out to their cost, for no sooner could he crawl amongst them than he played all manner of tricks. in truth he was more like a monkey than the child of respectable christian parents, and when he had reached the age of four years he became daily more mischievous. he played his companions as many tricks daily as he was inches high, and, as "ill weeds grow apace," he soon became almost unbearable; but yet they could not do without him, so quick was his invention at all games, which, however, he so contrived that they were sure to end in a quarrel, taking care to get out of it himself before the blows came; and he would afterwards mock and laugh at those who had got hurt. he was even more dangerous away than with them, for he was then most certainly planning mischief. he would find out holes in the ground, which he carefully covered with sticks and grass, and then foremost in the race to a mark he had set up a little beyond the hole, he would stop short, in time to watch the others tumble one over the other into the trap he had set them. neither were the girls spared. unknown to them he would fasten their petticoats together with thorns, as they sat on the ground, and then frighten them, so as to make them jump up suddenly, when he did not fail to point out the rents in their dresses, and laugh at them for the scolding and beating they would get at home. a hundred different tricks he played them, so that every day some were sure to be sent home crying and complaining. true, he got many a thrashing from boys bigger and stronger than himself; but so sure was he to repay them tenfold, in one way or another, that both big and small were afraid of him. nor were the parents spared when he could safely do mischief to man or woman, so that constant complaints were made to his father, to whom, however, he knew how to defend and excuse himself so artfully that the good simple man thought his dear child shamefully ill-used. [illustration: _young owlglass mocking the villagers._] tired, at length, of these daily complaints, his father determined to take him out with him when he knew the street would be full, in order to show the people how well and soberly his boy could behave; so, taking him behind him on his horse, having first impressed upon him that he must be very good, they started off together. now what did this obedient child do? he put his finger up to his nose, and by various other insulting gestures mocked the people as they passed, till there was a general outcry against the mischievous little imp. his father was sorely puzzled; and tyll, pretending to cry, said to him, "you hear, dear father, what the people say. you know that i am sitting here quietly, without saying a single word, and yet all complain of me." his father hereupon places his dear child before him. young hopeful, now seated before his father, could do nothing but make faces and put out his tongue at the people, who again were loud in their complaints. the poor man, who could see no fault in his darling, said, "do not fret, my own dear boy. we will go and live somewhere else, and get away from these evil-minded people." he did, indeed, move to a distance, and not many years after died, leaving wife and child in great poverty. now young tyll, though sixteen years old, had learnt no business, nor anything useful or good, but with years had increased in all malice and mischief. [decoration] iii. _how owlglass crept into a beehive; and how, when two thieves came in the night to steal it, he managed to set them quarrelling, so that they came to blows and left the hive behind them._ we pass over a few years of owlglass's life during which he continued to thrive in body, but we are sorry to say gave no signs of moral improvement. however, in the adventure we are about to relate, he was not so much to blame, the sufferers being scarcely better than himself, and in no way deserving of our sympathy. he went one day, with his mother, to a feast in a neighbouring village, where, having eaten and drunk as much as he could bear for the time, he looked about him for a convenient place to sleep. he found some beehives, four of which were empty, and creeping into one of these he thought he would have an hour's quiet rest, but slept from mid-day to mid-night, so that his mother thought he had gone back home. now in that night two thieves came to steal one of the beehives, and having heard that the heaviest was always the best, they tried the weight of each; and finding that one the heaviest in which owlglass was, they settled between them that that was the one they would take, and walked off with it. the night was as dark as pitch, so that there was no seeing at all; but owlglass was awake, and had heard them consulting with each other. the motion was not unpleasant as they carried him along; but yet he thought he could do better than sleep, and after short consideration he stretched out one hand, and with his finger first slightly touched the neck of the man before him, then he touched his nose, chin, cheeks, and forehead. at each touch of the finger the thief thought one of the bees had settled on him, till he fancied his face covered with them, and dreaded every moment to feel their sting. he dared not speak nor move a muscle of his face, but trembled with fear till the perspiration streamed down him. at length, however, scarcely moving his jaws, he ventured to mutter to his companion, "i say, jack," he said, "have you anything on your face?" "yes," growled his companion, who was not in the best of humours, for he began to find the hive heavy, "i have a nose on my face, and pray what have you to say against it?" "it is not that i mean," said the first speaker; "but have you ever heard that bees swarm in the dark, for i am covered with them?" "you are a fool," was jack's only reply. after a minute owlglass again put out his hand; and this time gave the front man a sharp tug by the hair, who, thinking his companion had done it, began to complain and swear. the other cried, "how is it possible i could pull your hair? do i not want both my hands to carry this abominable hive? you must be mad or drunk; but let us have no more of your nonsense, or it will be the worse for you." owlglass laughed in his sleeve, enjoying this fine sport; and, after they had gone on a little further, he caught hold of the fellow's hair at the back, giving his head such a pull forward that he scraped his nose against the hive. the fellow's rage now knew no bounds. "you scoundrel," he cried, "first you say i pull your hair and now you pull mine; but wait, you shall catch it." whereupon he let go of the hive, and the other doing the like, they fell upon each other, and a furious fight began. at length they both came to the ground, and, rolling one over the other down a steep bank, they became separated, and in the great darkness neither knew where to find the other nor the beehive. [illustration: _owlglass in the beehive._] owlglass, seeing it was still dark, went to sleep again in the hive; and the next morning, not knowing where he was, went on his way whither chance might lead him. [decoration] iv. _how owlglass ate a roasted fowl off the spit, and did only half work._ the first village owlglass came to he went straight to the priest's house. here he was hired, the priest telling him that he should live as well as he and his cook, and do only half the work. owlglass agreed, promising himself to the very letter to act up to what had been said. the cook, who had but one eye, put two chickens to the fire to roast, bidding him turn the spit. this he readily did, thinking all the while of the priest's words, that he should live as well as he and his cook; and, when the chickens were well roasted, took one of them off the spit, and ate it then and there. when dinner-time had come the cook went to the fire to baste the chickens, and seeing only one, said to owlglass, "what has become of the other fowl?" to this he answered, "open your other eye, my good woman, and you will see the two." she flew into a passion at having her defect of the loss of one eye thus thrown in her teeth, and straightway went to her master, to whom she complained of the insult offered to her, and how that his new servant understood cooking so well that two chickens dwindled down into one. the priest thereupon went into the kitchen, and said, "why is it, owlglass, that you have mocked my servant? i see that there is only one fowl on the spit, whereas there were two; what has become of the other?" owlglass answered, "open both your eyes, and you will see that the other fowl is on the spit. i only said the same to your cook, when she grew angry." the priest laughed, and said, "my cook cannot open both eyes since she has only one." owlglass replied, "that you say, i do not say so." the priest continued, "with all this, there is but one fowl." owlglass said, "the other i have eaten, for you said i should live as well as you and your cook, and therefore one chicken was for me, and the other for you two. i should have been grieved that what you said were not true, and thus i took my share beforehand." "well, well, my good fellow," his master said, "it matters little about the eaten fowl, only you do in future what my cook tells you." owlglass said, "yes, my dear master, as you told me so will i do." now, at the hiring, the priest had said owlglass should do half the work which the cook would tell him, so that he only did the half of what she told him to do. [illustration: _owlglass eats the priest's fowl._] when told to fetch a pail full of water, he brought it only half full, and when he was to put two logs of wood on the fire, he only put one on. the cook saw well enough that all this was done to vex her, and said to her master that if he kept such a perverse fellow in his house she would leave it. owlglass defended himself, saying, it was quite natural that having only one eye she should see the work only half done. at this the priest laughed; but to appease his cook was obliged to dismiss his man, promising, however, that he would be a friend to him. [decoration] v. _how owlglass was forbidden the duchy of luneburgh, and bought himself land of his own._ owlglass had played so many pranks in the duchy of luneburgh that he was forbidden the land, the duke giving orders that if found there he should be hanged. nevertheless, he continued to pass through the duchy whenever his road led that way; but one day, as he was riding along devoid of care, he saw the duke himself coming with several followers. then he said to himself, "if i fly i shall be pursued and cut down, and, if i remain as i am, the duke will come up in great anger and have me hanged on the nearest tree;" and most provokingly one stood close by. there was not much time for consideration, and none to be lost, so, jumping off his horse, he killed the animal, and, ripping it open, took his stand in its inside. now when the duke came up to him he was astonished at his impudence, and still more so at his extraordinary position. "did i not promise you," he said, "that, if found in my territory, you should be surely hanged? what have you to say for yourself?" owlglass answered, "i put my trust in your grace's goodness, and that you will not carry your threat into execution, seeing that i have not done anything to deserve hanging." "well," said the duke, "let me hear what you have to say in your defence, or rather, tell me why you are standing inside your horse?" owlglass answered, "i sorely feared your grace's displeasure, and thought i had better be found in my own property, where i ought to be safe." the duke laughed, and said, "as long as you remain where you are you shall be safe," and then rode away. owlglass made the best of his way over the frontier; but it was not long before he had occasion again to be in the duchy of luneburgh, and hearing that the duke was coming to the neighbourhood where he was, he straightway got a cart and horse, and going up to a peasant, whom he saw digging in a field, he asked whose land it was. the peasant said it was his own, for he had lately inherited it. hereupon owlglass asked for how much he would sell him his cart full of earth. they agreed for a shilling; and owlglass paying the money, filled his cart with earth, in which he buried himself up to his arm-pits, and drove leisurely on his way. [illustration: _owlglass rides on his own land._] it was not long before he met the duke, who, seeing him sitting thus in the cart, stopped, and, with difficulty restraining his laughter, said, "owlglass, have i not forbidden you my land on pain of death?" to this owlglass answered, "i am not in your grace's land, but sitting in my own, which i purchased from a peasant whose inheritance it was." the duke replied, "though sitting in your own land, your cart and horse are on mine; but this once more i will let you go in safety; beware, however, that you do not come again, for then nothing shall save you." owlglass then immediately sprang upon his horse and rode off, leaving the cart behind. vi. _of the manner in which owlglass paints a picture for the count of hessen, and how he persuades him that those of base birth could not see the painting._ after owlglass had wandered all over saxony, and was so well known that his trickery and scheming were no longer of any avail, he went to hessen to the count's court. the count asked him what he could do, to which he answered, "noble sir, i am a painter such as is not to be found far and wide, for my work far surpasses all other." the count then said, "let me see some of your work." whereupon owlglass produced some curiously painted cloth which he had bought in flanders. the count was well pleased, and said, "what must i pay you to paint the walls of the grand saloon, representing the origin of the counts of hessen, and how they have held on in friendship and enmity with the kings of hungary, and other princes up to the present time?" owlglass said for that he must have two hundred pounds; which the count agreed to pay if he did the work well. owlglass stipulated for one hundred pounds to be paid in advance, that he might buy colours and hire assistants, and also that no one but his assistants should enter the saloon during the progress of the work, so that he might not be hindered. all being agreed to, he hired three assistants, with whom he settled that they were not to do any work; but he nevertheless paid them their wages, and they employed themselves mostly playing at cards and dice. a month passed by, and then the count desired to know what progress had been made with the work, and also to be allowed to enter the saloon. owlglass now said, "noble sir, there is one thing i must tell you, namely, that the base born cannot see my work." [illustration: _owlglass shows his picture to the count._] the count was rejoiced on hearing this, thinking how he could prove the birth of all by whom he was surrounded, for he was mightily proud. they then entered the saloon; and owlglass partly drawing back a cloth, which he had stretched across the side of the room he was supposed to be painting, said, pointing at the same time with his mahlstick, which he held in his hand, "here you behold the first count of hessen, in whose noble bearing i trust you recognize the great founder of your noble house; by his side you see his wife, daughter of justinian, afterwards emperor of bavaria: they had issue adolphus, from whom descended, in a direct line, william the brave, lewis the good, and so on up to your own noble self. you will not fail to appreciate how skilfully i have brought into my composition each worthy personage, occupied in a manner best suited to his character. the drawing i know is faultless, and i hope you admire the richness of the colours." now the count said nothing to all this, and he said to himself, "can it be possible that i am base born, for i see nothing but the white wall?" however, for the sake of his own honour, he expressed himself well pleased, adding that his want of knowledge of art prevented his doing full justice to the great talent displayed; whereupon he left the room. as soon as the countess saw him she anxiously inquired how he liked the painting, for she had her doubts of owlglass, who appeared to her a rogue. the count said he was well satisfied; and on her expressing a wish to see it, said she might, with the painter's permission. she immediately sent for owlglass, and requested permission to see his work. owlglass answered that he should be most happy to have her opinion of what he considered his masterpiece, telling her, as he had told the count, the peculiarity about his work, that it was invisible to the base born. the countess went to the saloon with eight attendants, one of whom, a distant relation of her own, was rather weak-minded. owlglass drew back the cloth, as he had done before, and explained his painting in the same words as to the count. the countess stared at the wall and then at him, and at the wall again, but did not make one single observation. the attendants were equally mute, excepting the weak-minded one, who looked at the wall and her companions in astonishment, and then exclaimed, that base born or not, she could see nothing but a white wall, and was convinced there was no more painting on it than on the back of her hand. the countess went straight to her husband, and told him that she was as well satisfied as he had been; but that her weak-minded relative maintained that there was no painting whatever on the wall, and that owlglass was an impostor who was making fools of the whole court. the count was vexed at this, and scarcely knew what to think; but determined to see whether any one else would make similar observations, he sent word to owlglass to have everything ready on the following day to receive a visit from himself and his whole court. on receiving this message owlglass immediately dismissed his assistants, and went to the treasurer and begged to be paid the hundred pounds that were still due to him. he got the money without difficulty, and the following day was no longer at the court, nor anywhere in hessen. [decoration] vii. _how, at erfurt, owlglass taught a donkey to read._ having had such signal success in the arts, owlglass determined to try science and letters; and therefore, when he came to prague, in bohemia, he had notices stuck up, on the church and college doors, stating that he could solve the most difficult questions. his answers, here, puzzled the learned more than they had puzzled him with their questions; and thus made bolder in impudence, he went to erfurt, where he gave out that he could teach any animal to read and write. now, at erfurt there was a celebrated university, and all the learned doctors met together and discussed what they should propose to owlglass, so that they might disgrace him, and come off with greater honor, themselves, than their brethren of prague. as soon as they had come to a satisfactory conclusion, they had owlglass called before them, and the head of the university said that they had determined to put a donkey to school with him, if he would undertake to teach it to read. owlglass agreed to do this without hesitation, adding that, as a donkey was naturally a dull animal, they must allow him a reasonable time and a sufficient sum for the support of his scholar during the course of his instruction. after conferring among themselves, the learned doctors proposed that twenty years should be allowed for the accomplishment of the task, together with a sum of money which owlglass thought sufficient; and having received part of the money in advance, he led his scholar off to a stall he had constructed on purpose for him. he felt no difficulty in his position, for he would be freed from all responsibility by the death of his pupil, which, at any time, could be brought about, but for the time being determined to have some sport. he took an old book, which he laid in the donkey's crib, having strewed some oats between the leaves, and when the animal found this out, it turned the leaves over with its tongue to get at the oats. now, when it no longer found any it cried out, "e-aw! e-aw!" which owlglass noticing, at once went to the head of the university and said, "learned doctor, would you not like to see how my pupil is getting on?" "does he improve?" the doctor asked; to which owlglass replied, "he is naturally uncouth and difficult to be taught, but by great care and perseverance i have brought him on so far that he pronounces some letters." several of the dignitaries of the university assembled at the donkey's stable, and as soon as owlglass placed a book before the poor creature, which had been kept fasting all day, it eagerly turned over the leaves, looking for the oats, and not finding any, cried with a loud voice, "e-aw! e-aw!" "you hear, my worthy sirs," owlglass said, "that he already pronounces a vowel and a diphthong pretty distinctly, and i have every hope that his progress will now be more rapid." after this exhibition, owlglass one night fastened a notice up at the college door to the effect that the donkey, his scholar, was now fully competent to be at the head of the university, and to instruct the other donkeys of erfurt, whom he therefore left to his charge. owlglass that night disappeared from the town, not forgetting to take with him the money he had so deservedly earned. [illustration: _owlglass's learned donkey._] viii. _how owlglass brought it about that the watch of nurenberg fell into the water._ after leaving erfurt, owlglass dressed himself as a priest, and, travelling about different parts, levied contributions wherever he found ignorance and credulity, of which there was no lack. he carried a death's head about with him, which he pretended was the skull of saint brandonis, possessing miraculous virtue for the cure of all manner of illnesses. he also pretended that he was collecting subscriptions for building a church in honour of saint brandonis, and that all who brought an offering would, by the intercession of the saint, find it restored to them a hundredfold before the year was over. when he arrived at any town or village he sought to find out any prevailing vice or sin, and would then give out that, from persons addicted to this particular vice or sin, he could not accept any offering for the saint. by these means the offerings flowed in more abundantly than had ever been collected, for those who felt themselves most guilty were most eager, by their offerings, to prove their innocence. thus owlglass got his pockets well filled and went to nurenberg, where he determined to rest for a time from his labours, and enjoy himself as long as his money would last. after being there some time, and knowing all the in's and out's of the place, he grew tired of idleness, and nothing could satisfy him but a piece of mischief. during his wanderings he had noticed that, in the evening, the town watchmen assembled together in a cellar under the town-hall, and that to get from the town-hall to the pig-market a small wooden bridge had to be passed, which crossed the river called the pegnetz. bearing all this in mind, he waited one night till the whole town was quiet, then, after breaking three planks of the bridge, he went up to the town-hall and set up a furious bellowing and shouting, at the same time striking the paved road with an iron spiked stick till the sparks flew on all sides. this roused the watch, and as he ran away, they chased him towards the pig-market. owlglass jumped over that part of the bridge where he had broken the planks, and stopped on the other side, shouting to his pursuers, "o! o! you pig-headed timber-toed rogues, is that the way you run? i see i must needs wait for you!" this enraged the men, and all together they rushed on the bridge, which giving way where he had broken the planks, they fell one over the other into the pegnitz. there he left them, and turned his back upon the town of nurenberg. [illustration: _the watchmen of nurenberg._] [decoration] ix. _how owlglass appears as dentist and doctor._ owlglass visited schomberg, where he had notices posted that he was a celebrated dentist and doctor; that he could not only cure the toothache without extracting the tooth, but that the most inveterate disease would immediately yield to his remedies. he met with a wag who was willing to join him in cheating the good people of schomberg, afterwards to share the plunder with him; and for this purpose his accomplice pretended to suffer intolerable pain from toothache, but immediately that owlglass had administered a pill to him, which was nothing more than simple bread, he professed to be perfectly cured. this wonderful cure took place before all the people, whereat they were greatly astonished, and they crowded to him to be cured of every imaginable pain; but owlglass appointed all to meet him on the following day, at a stated time, for he was in treaty to restore the patients of the hospital to health, and that before that great work was accomplished, he could not undertake any fresh case. the master of the hospital, on hearing owlglass's announcement that he could cure all diseases, had applied to him, for he had the hospital full of patients, and was most anxious to be rid of as many as possible. he agreed to pay fifty pounds, owlglass engaging that the next day the hospital should be free of patients. now this is the way he set about the serious task. he went to the hospital and asked each patient separately what ailed him or her, after which he said:-- "you must now solemnly swear that you will not reveal to any living being what i am about to tell you." and having received the required promise, he continued:--"the only way in which i can cure you is by taking one of your number, and burning him to powder, give a portion to each of the others. therefore, i shall take that one amongst you who is most seriously affected, in order that the others may be saved. now to find out which is most hopelessly ill, i shall place the master of the hospital at the door, who will cry with a loud voice, 'let those who are well come out;' and then the one that remains behind i shall burn to powder. do not forget what i now tell you, for i should be sorry to have you sacrificed." [illustration: _owlglass administers a pill._] the following morning he said to the master:-- "all the patients are now cured, the truth of which you will find; for if you stand at the door and cry out, 'let all those who are well come forth,' you shall see that not one will remain behind." it happened, indeed, as he said, and the hospital was left empty, whereupon he received the promised fifty pounds, besides many thanks. after this he received all who sought relief, whatever their sufferings might be; and giving each one of his bread pills, for which he took a small sum, he promised a perfect cure in three hours' time. before this time had elapsed, however, owlglass left the town with his illgotten earnings. x. _how owlglass sells his horse to a jew, and on what terms._ owlglass stopped one day at a roadside inn, for he had ridden a long way, and both he and his horse were tired. on entering the kitchen, which served as travellers' room, he found a jew and two or three countrymen, who had watched him as he rode up, and were joking about his and his horse's appearance. as i said, he had ridden a long way, and his horse, which was none of the handsomest, jaded and covered with dust as it was, cut but a sorry appearance, his own not being much better. the countrymen thought themselves rather wags, and one said, turning to owlglass, "that is a handsome animal of yours." "and it must be allowed," the other added, "that the gentleman sat the spirited creature well. i should not have liked my sweetheart to see him as he came along." the jew was glad to put in his joke, too; and, when it appeared he could do so with safety, said:-- "is the shentleman willing to part with his handsome beast? for if so i shall be happy to deal with him, as it would just suit a great nobleman, a particular friend of mine, for whom i have been looking out for a horse; but he is very particular, and up to the present i have not been able to find one good enough for him." the countrymen laughed boisterously at this sally of the jew's, but owlglass, appearing to take it seriously, answered:-- "my horse is, indeed, a splendid animal; but as i intend to rest myself here for some days i shall not need it, and am therefore willing to deal with you, my good friend. i have sworn, however, not to part with it for any sum of money, however great, and i cannot break my oath; but you can have the horse for your friend, if you agree to my terms. these are, that, after i shall have given you six stripes on your bare back, the animal is yours." miserable as the creature was the jew was ready enough to have it without paying any money, so agreed to the proposal. [illustration: _the jew's bargain._] whilst the jew was stripping his shoulders owlglass said, "these two gentlemen are witnesses that the horse is not to be yours till i have given you six stripes." the countrymen, anxious for the fun, said they would be witnesses; and the jew having bared his back, owlglass tied his hands to a staple in the door-post, and clutching his whip firmly gave him such a cut that the poor jew danced again. at the second stroke he fairly howled; and after giving him a third owlglass said, "i see, my friend, that you are not able to complete the bargain now, so i will keep my horse till some future time, when i shall have paid you the remaining three stripes." the countrymen were convulsed with laughter, and the jew had the worst of the bargain. [decoration] xi. _how owlglass sells an old hat for more than its weight in gold._ owlglass having determined to give himself a few days' rest, put up at an inn where he had noticed that the landlady was a very lively intelligent woman, for he thought that if an opportunity for a good piece of mischief occurred, she would be quite ready to second him. he remarked that amongst the daily visiters there were two particularly stupid who just on that account thought themselves superior to the rest, and gave themselves considerable airs. owlglass could not resist the temptation to play these a trick; and, having taken the landlady into his confidence, he invited them to sup with him. he told them many curious stories and adventures; and after he had prepared their minds to take in anything, however wonderful, he took down his hat, which was hanging against the wall, and which happened to be a very old one, saying, "you will scarcely believe that this hat is worth fifty times its weight in gold; but the fact is, it has the extraordinary power of making any one to whom i owe money believe i have paid them, when i hold it in a particular manner." fools as his guests were, this was more than they could believe; but owlglass engaged to give them proof of it that very moment, and that they should see the landlady would say she was paid. he rang the bell, and when the landlady appeared, he asked her how much he owed her for the supper, and she said five shillings. whereupon he continued, holding his old hat in a peculiar manner, on the tips of his fingers, "have i not paid you for the supper?" to which she answered, "yes;" adding that she was very much obliged to him. at this they marvelled; and when he said he was willing to sell it for fifty pounds, there was a dispute between them which should buy it, when it was at length agreed they should buy it between them. when owlglass received the money he made his accomplice a handsome present and went on his way, leaving the purchasers to try the virtue of the hat. [illustration: _owlglass paying the landlady._] xii. _how owlglass, by means of a false confession, cheated the priest of riesenburgh out of his horse; and how he steals another priest's snuff-box._ after this adventure, owlglass went to riesenburgh, where he lodged with the priest, whom he knew, having been there several times before. this priest had a very pretty maid-servant and a beautiful little horse, which horse the duke of brunswick much wished to have, and offered a considerable sum of money for its possession; but though the offer was often repeated the priest as often refused, for he was scarcely less fond of his horse than of his maid. owlglass having heard this, and soon after hearing that the duke was in the town, went to him, and said, "what will your highness give me if i get you the priest's horse?" "if you can do that," the duke answered, "i will give you the coat i now have on." now this coat was of scarlet velvet, ornamented with pearls. after this owlglass pretended to be ill; and taking to his bed, moaned and sighed so piteously that both the priest and his maid were much grieved, and knew not what to do. as he daily seemed to grow worse, the priest admonished him to confess, as he had many sins to answer for. owlglass answered, that he was anxious to confess himself, for though he did not feel guilty of any grievous sin, yet there was one which weighed heavily on his mind, but that he could not confess to him, and therefore earnestly begged he would fetch him another priest. when the priest heard this, there seemed something strange in it, and his curiosity being strongly excited, he said, "dear owlglass, i should have to go a long way for another confessor, and if in the meantime you should die unabsolved we should both have much to answer for, therefore speak, my son, and your sin shall be forgiven you." "be it so then," owlglass said, "but my sin is not so great, as that i fear offending you, for it concerns you." this excited the priest's curiosity still more, and he said, "speak without hesitation, for i forgive you beforehand; besides, my anger need not matter, for i dare not divulge your confession." "oh, my dear, good friend," owlglass answered, "i know i shall much anger and offend you; but since i feel that my end is near i will no longer delay. i grieve to say that i have kissed your maid more than once." the priest inquired how often that had happened; and being told five times, he hastily absolved his penitent, and going out called his servant to him. he accused her of having allowed herself to be kissed by owlglass; and though she denied it, he took a stick and beat her till she was black and blue. owlglass laughed when he heard the maid cry, and thought to himself, now the business is settled; so after remaining in bed one more day and night he got up, declaring himself to be quite well. after settling with his host for his board and lodging, he said, "i am now going to halberstadt to the bishop, to denounce you for having divulged the secrets of the confessional." the poor priest, who a moment before had felt quite happy at the prospect of getting rid of so dangerous a visiter, was now taken quite aback, when he saw ruin staring him in the face, and he begged most earnestly that he would not betray him, for it was in anger. he added that he would give him twenty pounds to purchase his secrecy, but owlglass declared that he would not take fifty. thereupon the priest begged his maid to intercede, and ascertain what owlglass would accept; and he, after making much difficulty, said he would not take anything but the priest's horse. now the priest would rather have parted with anything than his horse; but there was no help for it, so he gave him the animal. owlglass mounted the horse and rode off to wolfenbuttel, where he found the duke standing on the bridge. as he came near, the duke took off his coat, saying, "you see, owlglass, that as you have performed your part of the agreement i am ready to perform mine. there, take the coat i promised you." owlglass then had to relate by what means he obtained the horse from the priest; at which the duke laughed heartily, and besides the coat gave him another horse. [illustration: _owlglass's confession._] this was not the only priest whom owlglass tricked, as you shall hear. * * * * * whilst staying in the house where the adventure just told you occurred, he had become acquainted with a priest who came there several times, and there were two things he did not fail to note. firstly, this priest was very heavy with sleep every day after dinner, so that it seemed impossible to him to keep his eyes open; and secondly, he had a handsome silver snuff-box, which it was his habit to lay down by his side after taking a pinch from it. he lived in a town at no great distance from riesenburgh; and thither owlglass went to stay a day or two, the very first opportunity he had. choosing the time when he knew the priest had dined, he went to the confessional, and by means of a rambling story soon sent his friend asleep, his snuff-box lying by his side as usual. owlglass then put the box in his own pocket, and having waked the priest, said, "there is one thing weighs very heavily on my mind, for i have committed the mean crime of theft, and i must beg of you to accept the stolen article." this the priest refused to do, advising him to restore it to its real owner; but owlglass said, "he refuses to accept it." "under those circumstances keep it, my son, and i give you full absolution for having committed the great sin of stealing." owlglass then took the box out of his pocket, saying, "this is the box, and it was from you i stole it; when urged by remorse i wished to make restoration, but you refused to accept it, giving me full absolution." after this he left the confessional, and shortly after the town. [illustration: _owlglass takes the priest's snuff-box._] xiii. _how a bootmaker of brunswick larded owlglass's boots; and how he was paid for doing so._ the weather having turned wet, owlglass thought it well to have his boots greased, that his feet might be kept dry during his frequent wanderings; so, going to a bootmaker of the name of christopher, in the marketplace of brunswick, he gave him the boots, and said, "let these be well larded, and have them ready by to-morrow morning." when he had left the shop, the bootmaker's foreman said, "master, that is owlglass, who plays every one some ugly trick or another, so be very careful what you do, or your turn will have come." the master asked, "what did he tell us to do?" "he told you to lard his boots, meaning to grease them," the foreman answered; "and if i were you i would act up to the letter of what he said; i should not grease them, but lard them as one lards meat." "well, we will do as he bids us," the master said; and cutting up a piece of bacon into small strips, he larded the boots as if they were a joint of meat. owlglass called the following morning to ask whether the boots were ready; and the bootmaker, pointing to them as they hung against the wall, answered, "yes, there they are." owlglass, seeing his boots thus larded, burst out laughing, and said, "now you are the sort of tradesman i like, for you have conscientiously done as i ordered; how much do i owe you?" "a shilling," was the answer. as he paid the money, owlglass said, "you are much too moderate in your charges, but i shall not consider that with one miserable shilling i have paid you. rest assured, my good friend, that i will not forget you." then taking his boots he departed, the master and his foreman, looking after him, said, "he is the last man to whom such a thing should have happened." and as they talked it over they chuckled that the trickster, in his turn, had been tricked. their merriment, however, was of but short duration, for suddenly owlglass's head and shoulders appeared through the shop window, the glass flying in all directions about the place. "pray, my friend," he said, "have the goodness to tell me whether my boots are larded with sow's or boar's bacon." when the bootmaker had recovered a little from his surprise, he exclaimed, "get out of that, you scoundrel, or you will have my last at your head." "do not be angry, my good sir," owlglass said, "for i only wish to know what bacon that is with which you have larded my boots; whether it is from a boar or a sow?" the bootmaker's rage increased, and he abused him in the vilest terms for breaking his window; but owlglass said coolly, "if you will not tell me what bacon it is, i must go and ask some one else;" and drawing back his head and shoulders, contriving at the same time to break the windows still further, he disappeared. then the bootmaker was in a rage with his man, and said, "you gave me advice before; now advise me what i am to do to make my window whole again. pack yourself off at once, and the wages due to you i shall apply to repairing the mischief your wisdom has caused." [illustration: _owlglass returns with the boots._] xiv. _how owlglass hires himself to a tailor; and how well he executes his master's orders._ when owlglass found his pockets empty, he hired himself to a tailor, who said to him, "sew neatly, so that no one can see it, as a good workman should do." so owlglass took a needle and some pieces of cloth, and having crept under the cutting board, with his face turned to the wall, he laid the work across his knees and began to sew in the dark. when the master beheld this proceeding, he said, "what are you doing there, my man? that is a most extraordinary way of working." owlglass answered, "master, you told me to work so that no one could see it, and as you yourself cannot see what i am doing, so can no one else see my work, and therefore i am strictly executing your orders." the tailor, who was a quiet, easy man, then said, "that was not what i meant; come out there, and sew in such a manner that every one may see how fine your work is." thus they went on for a matter of three days, when, one evening, the tailor, feeling sleepy, threw a half-finished rough peasant's coat over to owlglass, and said, "there, make up that wolf for me, and then you can go to bed, as i am now going to do." you must know, that that particular sort of coat was called a wolf. as soon as the tailor had left the workshop, owlglass cut up the coat, and with the pieces first made the head, and then the body and legs of a wolf. he stood it up by means of sticks, and then went to bed. when, on the following morning, the master went into the shop, he started back in a fright, but owlglass just then coming in, he saw how it was, and said, "what have you been doing here?" owlglass answered, "i have made a wolf, as you bid me." and the tailor saying that he did not mean a wolf of that sort, but the peasant's rough coat, he continued, "my dear master, i wish i had understood your meaning, for i would rather have made a coat than a wolf." with this the master was satisfied, and they went on comfortably together for three or four days more, when one evening he again felt sleepy; but thinking it too early for his man to go to bed, he gave him a coat which was finished all but putting in the sleeves, and said, "whip the sleeves to this coat, and then you can go to rest." owlglass hung the coat up on a hook, and having laid the sleeves near it, he lighted two candles, and, with a whip he then made, whipped the sleeves all through the night. when the tailor came in, in the morning, he exclaimed, "what tomfoolery is this?" "it is no tomfoolery," owlglass answered, "i have done as you told me; but though i have stood here all night whipping the sleeves, i could not get them to stick to the coat. it would have been better you had let me go to bed than make me waste my time in this way." "it is not my fault," the tailor said, "how could i know you understood it this way, when i meant you to sew the sleeves into the coat?" owlglass answered, "i wish you would not say one thing when you mean another; but now you may do the work, for i must go to bed." this the tailor would no way agree to, so they quarrelled; and owlglass leaving him, went his way. xv. _how owlglass caused three tailors to fall from their work-board, and persuaded the people that the wind had blown them down._ owlglass took a lodging at bamberg, near to the market-place, where he remained about a fortnight, and next door to him there lived a tailor who had three workmen. these men sat on a board, supported by four posts, outside the window, and they laughed at owlglass, and threw pieces of rag or cloth at him whenever he passed. owlglass bore all in silence, biding his time to pay them back with interest; and this he determined should be on a fair day, when the market-place would be full of people. the night before the day of the fair he had sawed the posts nearly through which supported the board on which the three tailors sat, and in the morning they placed the board on them as usual, seated themselves on it and began their sewing. now, when the swineherd blew his horn all the people let out their pigs, and the tailor's pigs also came out of his house, and went, as owlglass well knew they would, under the board, rubbing themselves against the posts, which, giving way, the three journeymen tailors were thrown into the gutter. owlglass, who had been on the watch, now cried out, "see how light three tailors are, for a gust of wind has blown them all at once into the street, as if they were but three feathers! how easily a tailor can fly!" and this he cried so loud that he could be heard all over the marketplace. all the people came running to the spot to see the fun, and mocked and laughed at the poor tailors, who knew not what to do for very shame. they could not tell how it was their board fell; but they found out at last, and guessed that it was owlglass who had played them that trick. they put up fresh posts, but did not again venture to make game of owlglass. [illustration: _downfall of the tailors._] xvi. _how owlglass tells a truth to a smith, to his wife, his assistant, and his maidservant, for which he gets his horse shod._ owlglass now being in funds, he rode about the country like a gentleman, and one day came to a small town, where he saw a very neat woman, with her servant maid, standing at the door of a smithy, and judged her to be the smith's wife. he put up at an inn just opposite, and during the night pulled the four shoes off his horse. on the following morning he led his horse to the smithy; and as soon as it was known that it was owlglass, the wife and maidservant came out to see what had brought him there. owlglass asked the smith whether he would shoe his horse; to which he at once agreed, for he was glad of an opportunity to have some talk with a man of whom he had heard so much. after much talk on both sides, the smith said, "if you will tell me a truth that is really true, i will put one shoe on your horse without any charge." to this owlglass answered, "if you have iron and coals, and there is plenty of wind in the bellows, the fault will be yours if the forge does not go on well." "that is undoubtedly true," said the smith; and he gave him the promised horseshoe. the assistant, as he was putting on the shoe, said that if he would tell him a truth that applied to him, he would put another shoe on his horse. in answer, owlglass said, "a smith's assistant must work hard and not spare himself if he expects to please his master." "that is true enough," was the answer, and the horse had a second shoe. then the wife and the servant wanted a truth told them, for which each promised his horse a shoe. owlglass whispered his answer in the ear of each of these. to the mistress he said, "when a servant apes her mistress's dress, she would be mistress not only in dress alone." the mistress marked his glances as well as his words, and said, "that is true enough;" so there was a third shoe for the horse. and to the maid he said, "when a servant is better looking than her mistress, she will find it difficult to please her in anything." the maid said, "that i know to be true." so the horse got its fourth shoe, and owlglass rode further on his way. [illustration: _owlglass in the smithy._] [decoration] xvii. _how owlglass hired himself to a merchant as cook and coachman._ in the town of windsheim there lived a rich merchant, who was walking one day outside the town, when he saw owlglass lying on the grass, and stopping, he asked him what his calling was. owlglass answered that he was a cook; whereupon the merchant said, "you are just the man i want, that is, if you understand your business; for my wife is not at all satisfied with her present cook, and we have some of the first people of the town to dine with us to-morrow, to whom we would like to give a good dinner." owlglass said that he would serve him faithfully, and that he felt confident of giving satisfaction; so the merchant engaged him, stipulating that he should also serve as coachman, and took him home with him at once. as soon as the merchant's wife saw owlglass, she said, "who is this fellow whom you have brought home with you, for i do not like the look of him at all?" her husband answered, "never mind his look, my dear, for he is a first-rate cook, and we will serve up a dinner to-morrow that shall be the envy of the whole town." early the next morning the merchant gave owlglass full instructions as to the dinner, telling him what soup, meat, and vegetables to get, and how he liked everything done. "as for game," he added, "professor guzzle is particularly fond of roast hare, so we cannot do better than let him have his favourite puss; but, mind, let it be the finest that can be got in the whole town." owlglass promised that all his instructions should be strictly attended to; and the merchant, having business of importance to attend to, went out in easy confidence in his new servant. the merchant got home only just in time to receive his guests, so that he could not visit the kitchen before dinner, and his wife was too fine a lady to attend to such matters. however, the dinner went off very well, and the hare, in particular, was declared to be the finest that had been seen that year; so that all the company were in high spirits. at dessert the conversation turned upon cats; and one of the ladies, addressing the mistress of the house, said she had heard that she had the finest one in the whole town. the merchant's wife was very proud of her cat, and gave orders that it should be brought into the room; but it could not be found anywhere; and now the servants remembered that they had not seen it since the morning, when one of them saw owlglass carry it from the kitchen to an outhouse. owlglass was now sent for into the dining-room, before all the guests, and questioned as to what had become of the cat. without being in the slightest degree disconcerted, he said his master had told him that professor guzzle was very fond of roast hare, and that they could not do better than let him have his favourite puss, and therefore he, owlglass, was to be sure and get the very finest in the town; that he had searched the whole town through, but there were none to compare to the one in the house, and he was sure his master would not begrudge it his guests; therefore he had killed and roasted it, and the company had just eaten it. horror was depicted upon most of the countenances, whilst one or two of the guests tried to joke about it; but these the very first showed symptoms of distress, and one after another of the company had to leave the room pale as death, and not one returned. the mistress insisted upon owlglass being at once sent away; but the merchant said, "i want him to drive me and the priest to goslar to-morrow, and when we get back i will immediately send him about his business." that evening he told owlglass to get the carriage ready for the morrow, and to grease it well. as soon as all had gone to bed, owlglass took some cart grease and greased the carriage outside and in, but particularly the seats. early the next morning the merchant ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, and he and the priest getting in, they drove off in high spirits. they had not gone far, however, when they found they were gradually slipping off the seats; and the priest exclaimed, "what is all this grease? i held on with my hands to check the jolting, and i am all grease." they ordered owlglass to stop, and they found they were covered with grease; so that they had to buy a bundle of straw from a farmer and rub themselves and the carriage well. the merchant had now lost all patience, and he cried out to owlglass, "i find out now that you are a professed wag, and of the most mischievous class; but you are in the right road, go on, my good friend, straight to the gallows, and there your journey will be at an end." owlglass did as he was bid, for, turning off the road, he drove straight to a gallows which stood at no great distance, and stopping there began to take the horses out of the carriage. "what are you doing now, you rascal?" the merchant exclaimed. owlglass answered, "you told me to go straight to the gallows, and that there my journey would be at an end, so i naturally thought that we were to stop here." the merchant looked out of the carriage, and seeing that they were indeed under the gallows, could not help laughing. he said, "you have delayed us so long on the road with your foolery that i am afraid we shall not reach goslar in time for our business, so now, my good fellow, i pray you get on as fast as you can. do not look behind you, but mind only the road before you." owlglass now again mounted his horse, having first loosened the pin connecting the front wheels, and set off as fast as the horses could gallop. he had not gone far when the pin fell out; but, without looking behind him, he galloped on, carrying off the pole and front wheels, and leaving the body of the carriage far behind. in vain the priest and merchant shouted to him to stop. on he went; so they had to jump out of the carriage, and by scrambling through hedges and running across fields they were, fortunately, able to overtake him. complaint was useless; and as they found they could not now reach goslar in time, even if their coachman could be trusted to take them there, they determined upon returning home. the homeward journey was accomplished without any further accident; and when the merchant found himself safe in his own house, he called owlglass to him and said, "it is but too evident that all the mischief you have done since you have been with me has been done purposely. what have you to say to this?" owlglass answered, "i do everything strictly to the letter, as i am told, and if i do wrong, the fault is therefore not mine, but the fault of those who give the orders. you do not seem satisfied, so, if you pay me my wages, i would rather look for justice elsewhere." the merchant thinking it better to avoid further, and perhaps worse, mischief by getting rid of him at once, paid him, and they parted. [illustration: _owlglass's "skilful" coachmanship._] [decoration] xviii. _how owlglass cheated a horse-dealer at wismar, and afterwards cheated the public._ owlglass next went to wismar, a town much frequented by horse-dealers, and one of these had a habit of pulling the tail of any horse he thought of buying. this he did from a notion that, if the hair were firm in the tail, the horse was strong, and would live long; but if, on the contrary, the hair came out freely, that the animal would not last long, and he would therefore have nothing to do with it. owlglass knew of this habit, and determined to make some profit of it, so he bought a horse without a tail, which he got very cheap on that account, and most artfully he fastened a beautifully flowing tail to the bare stump, by means of blood and gum. with this horse he went to wismar, and asked so high a price that no one would bid for it, until the dealer came whose habit it was to pull the horses' tails, and him he asked a very low price. before striking a bargain, the horse-dealer, as usual, caught hold of the tail, and having formed a favourable opinion of the animal, gave it, perhaps, a harder tug than customary, when, lo and behold, the tail remained in his hands, and he measured his length upon the ground. a shout of laughter arose on all sides; but that was not enough for owlglass, who cried out, at the highest pitch of his voice, "see here! the villain has ruined my horse, for, beautiful creature that it is, who would have it without a tail?" the people drew nearer and took part with owlglass, so that the horse-dealer had to pay him ten pounds for the damage done to his horse, and owlglass laughed more heartily than any one, though only to himself. he rode out of wismar in high spirits, his trick having succeeded so well; and as soon as he was outside the town he fastened the tail on again, intending to sell the horse in the next town. as he rode along, however, he thought of some other way how to make money by his horse, before finally parting with it. in pursuance of the plan he had formed, he stopped at an inn two or three miles distant from the town, where he intended to put his plan into execution. here he remained till it had grown dark, so that he might enter the town unseen; which having done, he hired a stable, and having put up his horse, and attended to it himself, he locked the stable-door, putting the key in his pocket. the next morning he had it cried through the town that there was a horse to be shown with its tail where its head should be, stating a certain hour at which only it could be seen. before the appointed time he made all necessary preparations in the stable, when he again locked the door and then stood before it, waiting the arrival of the curious. now, as curiosity was pretty general in the town, there was a numerous attendance; and when owlglass judged that all the company to be expected had arrived, he collected the admission price from each, and then threw the door open. there was a general rush, followed by laughter from some, and indignant complaints from others, as they saw the horse, no different in itself to other horses, but fastened with its tail to the manger instead of its head. [illustration: _the horse's tail where his head should be._] xix. _how owlglass sowed rogues._ we next meet with owlglass in a town where he remained so long that he knew all the secrets of the place. by turns he took up his abode in twelve different inns, so that what had escaped him in one he was sure to hear in another, and it was little good he heard in either. for a long while he puzzled his brain what he could best do to suit the good people among whom he had the honour of living, when, at length, he hit upon a novel fancy, and, going into the market-place, he began sowing, up and down, sideways and crossways, the seed being represented by small pebbles. the people came in crowds, and to their questions what he was sowing, answered that he was sowing rogues. the people cried out, "those are not wanted here, for we have more than enough of them; and, pray, why do you not sow honest men as well?" he answered, "those will not grow here." these words were reported to the town council, who had him called before them, and ordered him to pick up his seed again, and then leave the town. his seed he could not well pick up; but he left the town, and after travelling about ten miles, came to another. here, however, the report of his wonderful seed had reached before him, so that he was not allowed to stop there, but had to pass through as quickly as possible. there was no help for it, so, escorted by the town authorities, he went down to the side of a river, which flowed through the town, and there hired a boat to carry him and his seed. he jumped into the boat, but when the boatman raised his bag to lift that in, it burst and all the seed fell out. owlglass pushed off the boat, crying out to the astonished spectators that he left them his seed, for he was sure that in such a highly virtuous town a few rogues were required to keep up a proper balance; and when he reached the opposite side, leaving the boat to the mercy of the stream, he ran on his way. whether the seed took root or not is not said; but to judge by the quantity of rogues in the world, it would seem it did, and that owlglass sowed some of the same sort in other parts of the world. [illustration: _owlglass sowing rogues._] xx. _how owlglass hired himself to a barber, and entered his house through the window._ once upon a time owlglass went to the city of hamburg, and having reached the market-place he there stood still and looked about him. whilst he was standing there a man came up to him and asked what he was looking out for. owlglass saw at once, by his questioner's appearance, what business he followed, answered that he was a barber and was seeking employment. "well met then," his new acquaintance said, "for i just happen to be in want of a barber's assistant, and i dare say we shall be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement together. i live in that high house just opposite. you see those windows that reach down to the ground. go in there, and i will follow you presently." owlglass answered, "yes." then crossing the road walked straight through the window, with a terrific crash, and made a polite bow to those within the room. the barber's wife sat there spinning, and, being much frightened, cried out for help, saying, "here is a madman come through the window." owlglass said to her, "my good lady, pray be not angry, for the master bid me come in here, having just hired me as his assistant." "may the foul fiend take you," the lady answered, for she was not possessed of the most even temper, "a pretty assistant you are. was the door not wide enough for you, that you must needs come in through the window?" owlglass answered, "my dear madam, must not an assistant do as his master bids him?" just then the barber entered, and seeing all the destruction around him, exclaimed, "what does all this mean?" owlglass addressed him thus, "you said to me, you see those windows that reach down to the ground--go in there, and i will follow you presently. now this good lady is angry that i have broken the window, but how could i help doing so, as it was not open? it seems to me that i have the most reason to complain, for i might have cut myself to pieces in doing what i was told to do; but i hope whatever may be the danger i shall never shrink from doing my duty. now, excuse me to the lady i beseech you, my dear master, for you see i could not avoid causing the mischief that has happened." [illustration: _owlglass walks through the barber's window._] the poor barber knew not what to say, so thought he might as well not say anything; besides, he wanted his assistance, and was in hopes he might be induced to accept more reasonable terms in consideration of the damage he had done. he now gave owlglass some razors to sharpen, and as they were somewhat rusty at the backs, he said, "brighten up the backs; indeed, make them quite like the edge." owlglass took the razors and made the backs as sharp as the edges, so that the barber, when he went to see what he was doing, exclaimed, "this is not right!" "how not right?" owlglass said; "are the backs not sharp enough? but have a little patience and they shall be quite like the edges, as you told me to make them. you see they had got very blunt at the backs, but after a little more sharpening you will be satisfied with them." "are you an idiot?" the master cried in a rage; "or is all this mischief done intentionally? leave the sharpening and pack yourself off back to where you came from." "well," owlglass said, "i see we should not be happy together for all our lives, so i may as well go at once;" and he walked out through the window as he had gone in. the barber was still more enraged at this, and ran after him to have him seized and locked up till he paid for the broken window; but owlglass was too quick for him, reached a ship that was just about to sail, and was off. [decoration] xxi. _how owlglass frightened an innkeeper at eisleben with a dead wolf._ in the depth of winter owlglass put up at an inn at eisleben, where one evening there also arrived three merchants from saxony on their way to nurenberg. they related how they had been attacked by a wolf, against which they had much difficulty in defending themselves, and that this disagreeable adventure had considerably delayed them. the host, who was a bragging sarcastic sort of a person, joked them much about their adventure, declaring that it was a shame they should allow themselves to be delayed by a miserable wolf; that, for his part, if he were attacked by two wolves, he would soon drive them off, but here three were frightened by one wolf. this continued all the evening till the merchants went to bed, owlglass in the mean time remaining silent, but turning it over in his mind how he could best play mine host some trick to pay him off for his bragging. the merchants and owlglass shared the same bed-room; and when the former discussed among themselves how they could repay the mocking of the innkeeper, owlglass said he had been thinking it over, and that if they would leave it to him he would engage that they should hear no more about the wolf. the merchants readily agreed, promising a handsome reward if he paid their tormentor off well; and owlglass then proposed that they should continue their journey, and all meet again there on their return. early the next morning the merchants paid the reckoning for owlglass, as well as for themselves, and rode on their way, mine host calling after them to beware lest a wolf should cross their path. owlglass also took his departure and went on the chase after a wolf. he succeeded in killing one, which he left out in the cold till it was frozen quite stiff, and when the merchants returned he put his prize in a sack, and, taking it with him, joined them at the inn as agreed upon. the innkeeper again teased his guests about the wolf, talking very big of how he would act. when the merchants went to their bed-room owlglass joined them, and said, "my good friends, keep your candle burning, and do not go to bed yet, for we will have some sport this night." now, as soon as all the household had gone to bed, owlglass fetched the dead wolf, which was hard frozen, and taking it to the kitchen placed it near the hearth, supporting it with sticks so that it stood upright, at the same time opening its jaws in which he put a child's shoe. then, quietly returning to his room, he called loudly for something to drink. when the innkeeper heard this he grumbled at being disturbed, and calling up the maid told her to get some beer for his guests. the maid went to the fire in the kitchen to light a candle, and seeing the wolf with its jaws wide open, rushed out into the yard, thinking the brute had surely devoured the children. owlglass and the merchants continued to call for drink, and the innkeeper, thinking the maid had gone to sleep again, called the man. he went to the fire to light a candle, and when he saw the wolf, thought it had made away with the maid, so he too ran out into the yard. the shouting for drink still continuing, the innkeeper thought the man must be asleep as well as the maid, and, grumbling like a bear, he himself got up. as soon as he had lighted a candle he saw the wolf with the shoe in its jaws, and running to the merchant's room, trembling with terror, cried out, "come and help me, my dear friends, for there is a frightful monster in the kitchen, which has devoured my children, maid, and man servant." they went with him; the girl and the man came from the yard, and the wife brought the children. all were alive. owlglass then went up to the wolf, which he turned over with his foot, and it did not stir; then turning to the innkeeper, said, "what an arrant coward you are! it is not long ago that you said you were ready to fight two wolves, and just now you ran away, trembling and shouting, from a dead one." the merchants made rare fun of mine host, and the next morning, after paying the bill, took their departure with owlglass. [illustration: _the frightful monster._] xxii. _the grateful animals._ a good many years ago some boys in a village were having rare sport with a mouse which they had quite surrounded, so that the poor little thing could nowhere escape, for to which ever side it turned, a heavy shoe, or a stick, threatened it with instant death. the poor animal thought this no sport at all, but the boys shouted with laughter as they saw it scamper and jump to avoid the blows aimed at it. activity alone saved it from its tormentors; but this was beginning to fail, when, fortunately, a man came that way. this man had more kindness in his heart than money in his pockets; but with this he had one great fault, for he was somewhat restless and fickle-minded, which, however, on this occasion proved fortunate for the poor little mouse, and eventually so for himself. his restless disposition had driven him to travel, poor as he was, and thus he came to the village, where witnessing the little creature's distress he released it, by giving the boys a few half-pence, and it instantly took refuge in a hole close by. in his wanderings he came to another village where he saw a crowd of boys, and, i am sorry to say, there were girls as well, tormenting an inoffensive donkey, which he saved from further molestation by again parting with a little of his scanty stock of money. further on he reached another village, where he released a bear from like persecution by giving more money. not long after these adventures this good man himself got into trouble, and was condemned by a cruel judge to be put into a box with only a jug of water and one loaf of bread, and thus thrown into the river, though i assure you he was quite innocent. you may imagine his distress, for he was not very comfortable in his box, nor could he see where he was being carried to, when all at once he felt the box grating against the ground, and then heard a nibbling at the lock, which, after awhile, gave way, and when he raised the lid was delighted to see his three friends, the mouse, the ass, and the bear, who now helped him in return for his kindness to them. [illustration: _friends in grave consultation._] they were not satisfied with merely saving his life, for they knew that he was poor, and had, moreover, spent some of his money to save them; so they were consulting together what they could do for him, when the bear espied a white stone come floating along. "nothing could happen more fortunate," the bear cried, "for here comes the lucky stone, and whoever has that will have all his wishes fulfilled on the instant." the man, hearing this, seized the stone as it was passing, and wished himself in a palace with every comfort and luxury, surrounded by beautiful grounds; and the next instant all was as he had wished. now, dazzled by so much splendour, and happy beyond anything he had ever dreamt of, he forgot his friends, the mouse, the ass, and the bear, though, i have no doubt, he would have thought of them sooner or later and wished them with him; but before this fault was remedied misfortune came upon him. it so happened that some merchants passed that way, and seeing a magnificent palace, where before there had only been barren land, they were seized with wonder and curiosity, so they went in and asked the owner how he had worked such a truly wonderful change. "i had only to wish for it," was the answer. they marvelled at this, as well they might; and being told that it was by means of the lucky stone his wish had been fulfilled, they offered all their merchandize for the stone. our friend, whose head, it must be confessed, was not as good as his heart, seeing so many beautiful things, agreed to the bargain at once, without thinking that he need only wish and he could have all those and more beautiful things. he gave the merchants the stone; and it was no sooner out of his hands than he found himself in his former position, which was rendered worse when he compared all the splendour and comfort he had lost to his ugly comfortless box, with only a jug of water and one loaf. his friends, however, did not desert him in his distress, but this time they could not open the box; and, after consulting, the bear said, "i see we cannot do any good without the lucky stone, so let us go to the palace where the merchants now live and try to get it." this was agreed upon; and when they got there they held another council. the bear seems to have had the wisest head, for he was again spokesman, and said, "it is useless for us to expect to be let in here; but you, my friend mrs. mouse, you can creep through anywhere--see, there is just a little hole at the bottom of the door. go in, and, as only one of the merchants is now at home, worry him in every possible way, for you can always manage to escape; and when you have worked him into a perfect fury lead him here to the door, and no doubt he will open it to rush out after you. then we two will go in and easily master him between us. only you take care to find out where he keeps the stone." the mouse got through the hole in the door without difficulty; and, after finding out where the stone was, went in search of the merchant, whom she found in bed. she crept in at the bottom and began nibbling at his toes. the merchant jumped up in a fright, but when he saw the mouse his fright turned to rage, and he made a snatch at it; but the little thing was too quick for him: and now began a chase all round the bed-room, round every table and chair, and into every corner of the next room, and, finally, into the hall, where, jumping up and biting him in the calf of the leg, in order to exasperate him still more, she slipped through the hole she had got in at. [illustration: _the merchant's rough handling._] the merchant threw open the door, and the bear, who was ready, greeted him with the closest embrace. they rolled down together, but the bear soon hugged all the breath out of him, and leaving him in charge of the donkey went with the mouse to fetch the stone. no sooner had they this in their possession than the three went off, regardless of the confusion they left behind them. they soon reached the water-side; but the box was floating in deep water, and the donkey said, in despair-- "we shall never get at it." the bear, however, cried, "nonsense, leave that to me, i can swim well enough, so you, donkey, just put your fore-feet round my neck, and take the stone in your mouth, but mind you don't swallow it; and you, my little friend, can make yourself snug somewhere in my long hair." all being satisfactorily arranged, off they set, but were destined to meet with a misfortune on their voyage; for the bear, who was rather fond of hearing himself talk, could not refrain from expatiating on the past adventure. "we managed that pretty well, i flatter myself. what is your opinion, my long-eared friend?" and as the donkey made no answer he continued-- "how is this? i was always taught that a civil question deserves a civil answer; but this does not seem to enter into your notions of politeness. who taught you manners, my friend?" the donkey could stand it no longer, but opened his mouth, and out fell the stone "plop" into the water. "there, you see what comes of your talking. could you not wait till our work was finished? how could i open my mouth without losing the stone? and now it is gone, and with it all hope of helping our friend." "well, well, my good fellow," the bear interrupted him, for he was not anxious to hear any more, as he felt himself in the wrong, "a moment's action is better than an hour's regret. i have a bright idea that will put all right again. let us go back, and i'll set about it at once." on the way back the bear called up all the frogs that were in those parts, and said to them, "fetch me up as many stones as possible from the bottom of the water, for i have an idea of building you a place of refuge in case of danger." a loud croaking was immediately heard, which called the frogs from all parts; and they set about collecting stones without loss of time. it was not long before the lucky stone was added to the heap, which the bear immediately seized; and telling the frogs that there were now stones enough, the three friends started off again. they soon reached the box, which now opened without difficulty, and the poor prisoner was relieved; but only just in time, for the loaf of bread was consumed, and he began to suffer from want. as soon as he had the stone in his hand he wished himself back in the palace, which he found just as he had left it. this time he did not forget his friends, and they lived happily together to the end of their days. now, does not this story prove that an act of kindness meets with its reward, and that the ungrateful are worse than the brute beasts, for our three good animals effectually showed their gratitude? [decoration] xxiii. _tim jarvis._ tim jarvis was as decent and hardworking a man as any one could wish to know, till the evil spirit got astride his imagination. tim was not only a decent, hardworking man, but recollected his early lessons, that the evil one should be resisted with might and main. nor was it during the day that the enemy, at first, attempted to gain any advantage; but it was at night that he mainly worked upon his mind by means of dreams. night after night he dreamed of treasures of gold and precious stones that were to be found, first in one place and then in another, till it grew too much for him, and his waking hours were scarcely different to dreaming. he was now found digging anywhere but in his garden or potatoe field; and indeed his dreams led him all the way from ireland to london-bridge, with his spade across his shoulder. now, when poor tim was on london-bridge he felt himself more puzzled than ever he had been in his life; he was quite bewildered by the confusion and noise, and being pushed from one side to another; but after a while he began to recover himself; and as he walked up and down, first on one side and then on the other, he tried the ground with his spade, but quite accidentally like, or as if it were a walking-stick, for he was wide awake. "for sure," he said to himself, "i'm not going to let so many people suspect what treasure is lying under their feet." he was encouraged by the hollowness of the sound; but then again his spirits sank, for he found no spot where his spade could make the slightest impression, nay, he doubted whether he could stick a pin in anywhere, so hard were the stones. when it had grown dark, and the bridge was still crowded, he began to fear that all the people were there for the same purpose as himself; but he was determined that he would tire them out; and indeed the numbers did gradually decrease. st. paul's had just struck twelve, when a stranger, stopping just in front of our friend, said-- "well, tim, you have come a long way, but you might have done better nearer home. you know, tim, the lane that runs at the back of your cabin, and you know the old wall, for i've seen you digging under that many a night. well, tim, you were in the right road, but too near home. i've seen you turn sharp round that wall, and, crossing the big bog, look longingly at the heap of stones behind the furze-bush in terry o'toole's field." "yes," sighed tim; "but it would have been more than my life was worth to dig there, for though terry knows well that his whole field is nothing but ugly stones, he would murther man, woman, or child who stuck a spade in any part of the ground--the big baste." "true for you, tim," the stranger said, "but the gold is there." after these words the stranger was gone as suddenly as he had appeared, and poor tim was left, more puzzled than ever. "may be," he said to himself, "its desaiving me he is, that he may have the digging of lunnon-bridge all to hisself, but then sorrow a spadeful of earth could any one throw up here, in all his life. no, it was to meet the sthrainger that i came all the way here without knowing it, so now i'll go back to ould ireland." tim did go back, and, after selling his potatoe-field, bought the waste bit of land, which o'toole was pleased to call a field. what did tim care, when all the neighbours called him mad, or even when his wife threatened him because he sold the bed from under her to buy a new spade and pick, for he knew it was troublesome ground he had to work in, and no mistake. when night came, after he had all ready, tim went to his new property, and, hard as the work was, did not rest till the first grey of morning began to appear. just then, through a crack in the ground, he thought he heard voices below. he listened, scarcely drawing his breath, when all the breath was frightened out of him, for he plainly heard-- "we'll give tim a nice dance when he comes for our gold." when he had recovered himself a bit, he scrambled out of the hole as fast as possible, and went home, where he met with no over-pleasant reception from his wife. a strange day that was which tim spent, divided between rejoicing and trembling, for he knew now for certain that gold was there; but he knew, too, that there were some sort of beings to be dealt with; and what were those beings? his hair stood on end as he pictured some frightful monsters to himself; but yet all must be risked to gain possession of the gold, and he said, "it's mighty polite i'll be to the gintlemen, and sure they won't harm a poor man." over and over again he repeated what he should say to the "gintlemen," and thus the day passed; the most anxious day of his life. he took care to arm himself with more than natural courage, in the shape of a bottle of potheen, of which he took a sup, and then another, and then a still longer one, before he jumped into the hole. in the darkness, for night had come on, he plainly saw a light shining through the crack in the ground, as the night before, so he immediately set to work; and he had not thrown up many spades of earth, when the ground gave way, and he sank down, he never knew how low, nor could he ever recollect more than that he found himself surrounded by the strangest little beings, who were all jabbering at once, and seemed very angry. he remembered that he made them his best of bows, and gave them his fairest words, when the tallest of them, stepping forward, addressed tim thus:-- "tim, we see that you are a decent, well-spoken, and polite gentleman, and in your case we will overlook our privacy being intruded on, which you must look upon as a great favour." "and 'tis very much obleged that i am to your honer and the other gintlemen, and sure 'tis i that will never forget it; but might i not make so bold as to tell you that i am a poor man, and ask your honour whether you could not help me with a thrifle?" there was a loud shout of laughter, and then the same little fellow that had addressed him before, said, "well, tim, we have plenty of the rubbish you all think so much of. there, take as much of the gold as you can carry." tim saw that the ground was covered with guineas, which he set to picking up as fast as he could stow them away, and when he could not find room for one more, he took both his hands full, sighing that he must leave so many behind. then the little people cried out, "go home, tim jarvis; but shut your eyes close, or some mischief will happen to you." he did as he was told, and felt himself whisked through the air quicker than lightning. some time after he knew that he no longer moved, he ventured to open his eyes, for he felt a mighty tugging at his hair. he found himself by the side of the hole he had been digging, and his wife, who had grown tired of his strange ways of late, was shaking him rather roughly. [illustration: _tim jarvis and his wife._] "lave the breath in me," he cried, "and i will fill your apron with golden guineas." he put his hand in his pocket, but only pulled out a few yellow furze-blossoms. when he saw this tim was quite dejected, and did not venture to answer a word to his wife's reproaches, but allowed himself to be led home. from that night he left off dreaming; and taking again to his industrious, hardworking habits, soon made up for his past neglect, and was not only able to buy back his potatoe-field, but became a happy, flourishing man. his wife used to say that it was only a dream about the little people and the gold, for that certainly she had found him asleep; but tim shook his head. [decoration] xxiv. _the shoemaker and the dwarfs._ why do we read of so many shoemakers that were poor? surely they must have lived in ireland; but, be that as it may, we have to tell of another, who, though he was most anxious to fit all the world, could find no customers, till at last he had nothing left but just leather enough to make one pair of shoes. he had been running about all day, longingly looking at all the feet, and wishing he might measure some one for this last pair of shoes, but he returned, having only worn out his own. however, with all his poverty, he had a light heart and a good wife, who was always ready to cheer him; so he determined to make up the shoes in the very best style, and, putting them in his window, trust to a purchaser. he cut them out, intending to begin his work early the next morning, and went to bed, soon falling asleep. imagine the good man's astonishment when, on the following morning, he found the shoes already made, and in such a manner that he could not take his eyes off them. he put them in his window, though he could hardly make up his mind to part with them, and, half hoping to frighten purchasers away, he set twice as high a price upon them as it had been his custom to charge. however, a customer was soon found; and though it was with regret he parted with those master-pieces of work, yet, when he held so much money in his hand, he was delighted, for not only could he buy leather to make two pairs of shoes, but he could get his wife a few necessaries she had been long obliged to dispense with. that evening he cut out two pairs of shoes, ready for the next morning, when, on getting up, he found those finished, with workmanship no less excellent than that of the night before. for these, also, customers were speedily found, at equally good prices as the previous pair; and that night the shoemaker cut out four pairs of shoes, which he again found made to perfection the following morning. thus it went on, the work that was prepared at night being finished by the morning, so that our good friend soon became a flourishing man; but he and his wife remained as simple in their habits as of old, preferring to spend what they could spare on their more needy neighbours. curiosity seems part of a woman's nature, and the shoemaker's wife certainly felt very curious to see who their friends were that did the work so beautifully; so she proposed to her husband that they should hide themselves, and, leaving a candle burning, watch for their nightly visitors. they did so, and at midnight saw two dwarfs come in, who immediately set to at the work left for them, stitching and hammering away so fast that the shoemaker felt quite bewildered by their rapidity. not one moment did they stop, but worked on till all was finished, and disappeared long before daylight. now, if the shoemaker's wife was curious, she was kind-hearted as well, and was much grieved to see that such good, industrious little fellows should be so neglected by their families and friends, for they had not a stitch of clothes on, when it was winter too. had they no wives or no sisters to look after their comfort? and she proposed to make them a decent suit of clothes each. the good man was delighted at the proposal; so she bought the stuff, and gave herself but little rest till she had made them a coat, waistcoat, and a pair of trowsers each, as near their shape and size as she could guess. as soon as finished, the clothes were left for them instead of the customary work, and the shoemaker and his wife again watched their coming. about midnight they appeared; and when they found the clothes in place of their usual work, they stood for a moment irresolute, and then took up each article, examining it on all sides. they then began to try on the things, not without making several mistakes, for one of the little fellows had got his arms into the legs of the trowsers, whilst the other was putting on the waistcoat over the coat. but at length they were dressed; and having examined each other, and then themselves, they were so delighted that they set to capering and dancing about the room, and playing all manner of antics, jumping over the chairs and tumbling over head and heels, till at last they danced out of the room hand-in-hand. [illustration: _the dwarfs' capers._] they did not appear again; but the shoemaker continued to prosper, and became a rich man; he and his wife being respected and loved by all who knew them. [decoration] xxv. _the countryman and the jew._ there was once a farmer, a great miser, and he had a servant as simple as he himself was close, for he had served his master, three years without being offered any wages, or asking for any. after the three years, however, the man thought he would not work any longer without pay, so he said to his master, "i have worked for you diligently and faithfully, and hope you will now give me a fair reward for my services." knowing that his man was a great simpleton, the farmer gave him three-pence, saying, "i not only reward you fairly, but splendidly--here is a penny for each year; but, now that you are rich, do not squander your money and get into idle habits." the poor fellow thought that he was rich indeed, so determined that he would not work and slave any longer, but travel and enjoy himself. with his fortune in his purse, and his purse safely in his pocket, he set out; and as he was going along, singing merrily, a little dwarf came up and asked him why he was so merry. "why should i not be merry," he answered, "for i am rich and have nothing to do but to enjoy myself? i have worked hard for three years, and saved all my earnings." "and how much might they be?" the little man asked. when told that the amount was three-pence, he said he was very poor, and begged hard for the money. the countryman did not make him ask long, and cheerfully gave him his three-pence, when the little fellow said-- "you have a kind, generous heart, and shall not suffer for your liberality. you shall have three wishes, which shall be granted you--one for each penny." the countryman was highly rejoiced, and said, "many thanks, my good friend, for your offer; and, first of all, i would like to have a gun which will bring down everything that i shoot at; and, secondly, i choose a fiddle, to which, when i play, every one must dance, whether he will or no. these will satisfy me, so i will not trouble you with a third wish at present." "your wishes are soon granted," said the dwarf, and gave him the desired gun and fiddle; after which he went his way. our friend was happy before, but now his happiness knew no bounds; and he only wanted an opportunity to try his fiddle, for the gun he had already tried several times as he walked along. the desired opportunity was not long wanting, for he soon met a jew; and just where they met stood a tree, on one of the branches of which sat a plump wood-pigeon. "i wish i had that bird," said the jew; "could you not shoot it for me, my friend?" "that is easily done," was the answer; and the same instant the bird fell amongst some thorn-bushes at the foot of the tree. the jew crept in among the bushes to pick it up; and no sooner was he in the middle than the countryman took his fiddle and played the sprightliest of jigs. the first sound no sooner reached the jew's ears than he began to dance; and, as the tune went on, he jumped and capered higher and higher, at every leap he took leaving a piece of his clothes hanging to the thorns. the thorns soon began to enter his flesh, and, in pain, he cried out-- "for heaven's sake, leave off playing! what have i done to deserve this?" "what have you done?" said the countryman. "how many a poor wretch have you not ruined! and the duty to avenge them has fallen upon me, so i will just play you another tune, and mind you dance well to it." the jew then offered him money to give over; but, as his offer did not rise high enough, he had to dance on till, in despair and worn out by fatigue and pain, he said he would give a hundred pieces of gold, which he had in his purse. as the purse was thrown down the countryman's heart was softened; so he gave over playing, took up the purse and went his way, highly delighted with his day's work. [illustration: _the jew's dance._] no sooner had he gone than the jew crept out from among the thorns, half naked, and his heart full of bitterness and revenge. the loss of his money smarted even more intolerably than the wounds in his flesh, and he hastened to the nearest judge, to whom he complained how he had been robbed and ill-treated, giving a description of his tormentor. the judge could not refuse justice to the jew; so he sent out his officers, who soon caught the countryman, and, brought back, he was put upon his trial. the jew's evidence, and the sorry plight he was in, were too convincing to be got over, though the defence was that the money had been given of his own account and not taken from him. the countryman was condemned to be hanged. he was led off to the gallows at once; but just as the rope was about to be put round his neck he said-- "my lord judge, i cannot complain of the sentence passed upon me, since my accuser swears that i robbed and ill-treated him, and i only ask to have one favour granted me before i die." "anything excepting your life," was the answer. "i do not ask my life, but only that you will order my fiddle to be restored to me, and allow me to play once more upon it." "no! no! for heaven's sake, no!" cried the jew. "don't let him have that infernal fiddle, my lord, or misfortune will come upon the whole of us." but the judge said his word had been given; so he ordered the fiddle to be given to the prisoner. the countryman no sooner had the instrument in his hands than he struck up a dance, and at the very first note even the judge's feet began to shuffle about as he sat in his chair, and as for the others they fairly danced. in vain the jew caught hold of the clerk's desk, for his legs flew out on either side; and as the height of his capers was checked they only became the more frequent. the judge's clerk, the officers of the court, the hangman, as well as all the spectators, were dancing with all their might, and soon the judge himself danced out of his chair into the midst of them. at first all seemed good humour and enjoyment, and no one, excepting the jew, wished to check the general merriment; but as it went on there were no bounds to the capers, and there were cries of pain, as one alighted on another's toes, and cuffs and blows were exchanged as one jostled the other. the jew, who had broken away from his hold of the desk, was the maddest in his capers, and he shrieked for mercy; the others soon joining in the cry, begged the player to leave off, but he fiddled away faster and faster till the judge promised him a free pardon. the countryman said, "i already once earned the hundred pieces of gold, and i deserve them now again for the dance i have played; so pray, my lord, order the money to be restored to me, or i must think that you are not yet satisfied." the judge then said the money should be given him; but the countryman, without leaving off playing, addressed all the other dancers thus, "you all hear how handsomely his lordship rewards me, and i expect that each of you will show your gratitude, for the amusement i have afforded you, by a present; each according to his means." so anxious were all to put an end to the dance that every one offered what he could afford, but the countryman said, "i did not hear the jew's voice. now, of him i have to request a full confession of how he came by the hundred pieces of gold; and till he has made this confession i must trouble you all to continue the dance." all threatened the jew with instant death if he did not confess; so the rogue was forced to condemn himself by confessing that he stole the hundred pieces of gold; for which he was punished with as many stripes, when the dance was over. [decoration] xxvi. _my watch._ i must tell you my story myself, that is the story of my watch, and bad luck to it, for it was small comfort to me; and what have i now left of it, but to tell the trouble it brought upon me? one day of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-three, tim looney, the parish schoolmaster, a mighty learned man, from whom i got my learning, went up to dublin, to get his lease renewed with 'squire beamish, who is now dead and gone, rest his soul. well, as i was saying, tim looney went up to dublin, and had just come back, when of course all the neighbours came to hear the news from the big city, and molly mahone, as you can imagine, thrust herself before them all, saying-- "come, you auld pictur card, when are you goin' to tell us the news? what is the good of you, you auld worm, if you canna even speak?" you know moll is rather hasty. "och, and it's more wonders i have to tell than one of you will believe. i saw the great boneparte riding on a flea, and the dook of wellington by his side, quite friendly like." "and was boneparte a very big man?" said i. "i don't know," said tim; "i've heard say he was a little man, but they call him the great boneparte for all that." "he was a great man," said moll to me, "just as you are a great fool, so hauld yer tongue, will ye, and let tim go on." tim did go on, and told us many other great wonders; but it's of myself i want to speak. well, then, after tim had told us all he had seen, he gave me such a fine large silver watch, and a thirty shilling note, which my sister, biddy, had sent from merica, for me to buy a new fiddle with, for she had heard that i was great in music. i put the watch in my pocket to keep it safe, and then i examined the note all over, thinking all the while how beautiful i would play on my new fiddle; but tim soon stopped me by asking me what o'clock it was. after looking at the sun, which he himself had taught me, i told him it must be about two; when he said, "and why can't you look at the watch, and tell me the exact minute it is?" i didn't look at my watch, for i thought it was making game of me he was, but i said, "and how should she tell me the time of day? can she speak?" "you are a big fool, paul," he said; "look at her face, and see where her hands point to." that she should be able to tell me the time, and have a face and hands, with which she points, was too much, so i burst out laughing, but i took her out of my pocket. "there," tim said, "don't you see something sticking out on her face? those are her hands, and you see they point to numbers; but may be it's your numbers you don't know, after all my teaching." this provoked me, so i looked at what he called her face, and saw the numbers, sure enough, and the things he called the hands too. "well," tim went on, "and what number does the short hand point to?" "none," said i, "for it points just half way between the two and the three." "then the long hand points to six, and it's half-past two it is," tim said. "and how does all this happen?" i asked, for i was sorely puzzled, tim knowing too where the long hand pointed, without my telling him. "put her up to your ear," he said, "and she will tell you how she works." i did as i was told, and heard her go "tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick." as i listened to her a mighty fear came over me, and i flung her from me, crying out, "the crittur does talk some unnatural language, and perhaps she'll bite too." tim caught her, and exclaimed, "what a fool you are, paul!" for he was now quite angry; "if i had not caught her she would have been done for entirely." after he had held her some time in his hands, seeing there was no harm in her, i took her again and went home. i was half afraid of her, so did not look at her again till night, when the big varmint, pat molloy, came in, shouting fit to frighten the life out of one. "is it a watch i hear you've got, paul?" "those ugly long ears of yours heard right," i answered, for i did not much like pat. "and may be then you'll be after telling one the time it is." with that i pulled out the watch, and looked at her; but i had clean forgotten what tim had told me, though i recollected something about her hands pointing to a number, so seeing something pointing to seven, i said at once, "it's near seven o'clock," for i did not like to be looking too long, to be laughed at by that fellow. "and it's near seven, it is," pat said. "you're a fine fellow to have a watch. it's a turnip you might as well have in your pocket, for it's long past eight, it is." the pride of the o'moors and of the o'doughertys was taken out of me entirely quite by that rascal, for i felt it rush from the soles of my feet into my head, but i wouldn't get into a passion, for him to see that i was in the wrong, so i said, "and if you know the time so well, why do you ask me?" pat only burst into a hoarse laugh, and ran out of the cabin to tell every one, he could show his ugly face to. i went to bed to drown my troubles, but it was one long night-mare i had; first the watch and then the fiddle dancing on my chest, grinning at me all the while, with pat molloy looking on. my first thought on waking in the morning was my watch, and looking up to her, for i had hung her on a nail, as i had been told, i said, "good morning to you, how are you this morning, my dear?" for i thought it best to be civil to her, but no answer did she make me. i spoke to her again, and as she was still silent i took her down from the nail and held her to my ear. "och, it's dead she is," i cried, as she still gave no signs of life, and i rushed across to tim's. i knocked at his window, shouting, "are you awake?" "no," he said; "why should i be awake at this time o'morning?" "then," said i, "you must listen to me in your sleep, for it's dead she is, and what will i do at all?" "i hope she had the benefit of the clergy," tim cried, starting up and coming to the window. "it's not that i mean, it's not my mother at all, it's the watch that's dead," i explained. "leave me in peace then," he said, going back to his bed; but as i would not leave him in peace, but kept crying out, "what will i do?" he growled, "wind her up, you fool; she's not dead at all; but give her here, and the key, or it's ruin her you will." so i gave him the watch and the barn-door key, which i happened to have in my pocket. it was well for me that i turned my head on one side, as i thought i heard some one coming, for just then the key came whizzing past my ear. "i wish it had broken your lubberly head," tim cried, in the biggest rage i ever saw him. "it's the little key i want; the one with the bit of red tape i gave you yesterday." i fortunately found the funny little thing in my pocket, but it was not a bit like a key. as soon as i gave it him he twisted and twirled it about in her, till i heard her cry, and then he said-- "there, take her away, for she is all right again, and mind you don't let me see you for a whole week, or surely it's murder you i will." now, mind this and you'll see how strangely things come about. if it had not been for this what tim said, i should not have had to tell you the story of my watch, or it would not have ended as it now must. if tim had told me about winding her up the night before i should not have disturbed him in the morning, and he would not have been so angry, and would not have told me not to see him again for a week. he has since said that he did not mean a word of that; and, had i but known it, that tarnation pat could not have cheated me; however i will tell you how it happened. [illustration: _the death of the watch._] directly after i left tim, whom should i meet but pat, who spoke quite civil, saying, "well, paul, and how's the watch? i've been thinking since i heard her 'glucking' last night that it's to lay she wants, and that if she had a nest you'd have some young watches in a day or two." "do you think so?" said i. "i'm sure of it," said he; so we went along to the barn together and made her a nice comfortable nest of hay. "now," he said, as he laid her in it, and covered her up quite warm and snug, "you must not go near or disturb her for five days, or it's desert her nest she will, and you'll have no younguns." well, to finish with my story, after five days i went to the nest, and what do you think i found? no younguns, nor the old watch neither, but a big turnip. i ran to pat's, but he had gone off to america. i never saw my watch again; but up to this day the boys call out, when they are out of my reach-- "paul, tell us what o'clock it is." [decoration] xxvii. _fittletetot._ there was a good woman of kittleroopit, but where kittleroopit is exactly i cannot tell you; so it's of no use pretending to more than one knows. her husband was a vagabondizing sort of a body, and he went to a fair one day, from which he not only never returned, but never was anything more heard of him. some said that he enlisted, and others that he had fallen into the hands of the press-gang; certain it is, anyhow, that the press-gang was about the country ready to snap up anyone, for our good dame's eldest brother, sandy, was all but smothered in the meal-tub, hiding from these man-stealers; and after they had gone he was pulled out from the meal wheezing and sneezing, and was as white as any ghost. his mother had to pick the meal out of his mouth with the handle of a spoon. well, when her husband was gone the good woman of kittleroopit had little left but her baby, and there was not much of that; for it was only a wee thing of a few weeks old. everybody said they were sorry for her, but no one helped her, which is a case of constant occurrence, as you know. the good woman, however, had still something left, which was a sow; and it was, moreover, near littering time. but we all know that fortune is uncertain; for one day, when the dame went into the sty to fill the trough, what should she find but the sow lying on her back groaning and grunting, and ready to give up the ghost. this was a blow to the poor woman, so she sat down with the child on her knee and fretted more sorely than ever she had done for the loss of her husband. i must tell you that the cottage of kittleroopit was built on the slope of a hill, with a small fir-wood behind it; and as the good woman happened to look down the hill she saw an old woman coming up the footpath, dressed almost like a lady. she had on a green dress, and wore a black velvet hood and steeple-crowned hat. she carried a staff in her hand as long as herself--the sort of staff that old men and old women used to help themselves along with long ago. they seem to be out of fashion now. well, when the good woman saw the green lady near her she rose up and began courtesying, and said, "madam, i am one of the most misfortunate women alive, for i have lost--" but the green woman interrupted her, saying-- "i don't wish to hear piper's news and fiddler's tales, my good woman. i know that you have lost the good man of the house, but that is no such great loss; and i know that your sow is very ill, which is worse; but that can be remedied. now, what will you give me if i cure your sow?" "anything your good ladyship likes," answered the good woman, for she little knew whom she had to deal with. "let's shake hands on that bargain," said the green lady; so they shook hands, and madam then marched into the sty. she looked peeringly at the sow, and then began to mutter something which the good woman could not well understand, but she said it sounded like-- "pitter patter, holy water." then she took a little bottle out of her pocket, with something like oil in it, and rubbed the sow about the snout and on the tip of the tail. "get up, beast," said the green woman; and no sooner said than done, for up jumps the sow with a grunt and goes off to the trough for her breakfast. the good woman of kittleroopit was now as happy as need be, and would have kissed the very hem of the green madam's gown-tail, but she wouldn't let her, and said, "i'm not fond of any such nonsense; but now that i have set your sick beast on its legs again let us settle our agreement. you'll not find me over unreasonable. i like to do a good turn for a small reward. now all i ask, and will have, is the baby at your breast!" the good woman of kittleroopit, who now knew her customer, gave a scream like a screech-owl, and falls to begging and praying, but it wouldn't do. "you may spare yourself all this trouble and screeching as if i were as deaf as a door-post; but this i'll tell you, by our laws i cannot take your child till the third day from this day, and not then if you can tell me my right name." hereupon the green lady goes her way, round the back of the pig-sty, and the good woman fell down in a swoon where she stood. that night she could not sleep for fretting, and the next day she could do nothing but hug her baby, that she nearly squeezed the breath out of it; but the second day she thought a walk would do her good, so she went into the fir-wood i told you of. she walked on far among the trees, with her baby in her arms, till she came to an old quarry hole all over-grown with grass. before she came close up to it she heard the "bizzing" of a spinning-wheel and a voice singing, so she crept quietly among the bushes and peeped down into the hole. what should she see, but the green fairy spinning away as fast as possible and singing awhile-- "little knows the good old dame that fittletetot is my name." "ah, ha!" laughed our good woman, and she was fit to jump for joy, when she thought how the green old fairy would be cheated. [illustration: _the good woman discovering the fairy._] she was a merry woman when there was nothing to weigh too heavily on her heart, so she determined to have some sport with the fairy when she came the next day, as she little doubted she would. that night she slept well, and found herself laughing in the morning when she woke. when she saw the green fairy coming up the hill, neither lazy nor lame this time, she put the baby under her stool on which she sat so as to hide it, and turning one leg over the other she put her elbow on her knee, resting her head in her hand as if she were fretting. up came the old fairy, and said, "you know what i have come for, so let us waste no time." the good woman pretends to grieve more than ever, and wringing her hands as she fell on her knees, "good, kind madam," she cried, "spare my only child, and take the old sow." "the foul fiend take the sow," the fairy said; "i came not here for swine flesh. now don't be troublesome, but give me the child at once." "oh! my good lady," the good woman again said, "leave my dear child and take myself." "what does the old jade mean?" the fairy cried, this time in a passion. "why, you old fool, who do you think would have anything to do with the like of you, you ugly old cat?" this, i promise you, put the good dame's back up; for though she had blear eyes, and a long red nose, she thought herself no less engaging than the vainest; so up she jumped, and making a courtesy down to the ground, she said-- "we cannot all be as beautiful as your own sweet self, and i might have known that i should not be thought fit to tie even the shoes of the high and mighty princess fittletetot." the old fairy could not have jumped higher if she had been blown up; but down she came again, and roaring with rage ran down the hill, followed by the laughter of the good dame of kittleroopit. xxviii. _the wee bannock._ there was an old man who had an old wife, and they lived by the side of a hill. they had two cows, five hens and a cock, a cat and two kittens. the old man looked after the cows whilst the old woman knitted stockings for him, and when she let her ball of yarn fall the kittens sprang upon it, and after it as it rolled away, till it got twisted round all the legs of the chairs and of the table, so that the old woman had plenty to do without knitting the stockings. one day, after breakfast, she thought she would have a bannock, so she made two oatmeal bannocks and put them to the fire to bake. after a while the old man came in and sat down by the side of the fire, and when he saw the bannocks he took up one and snapped it through the middle. no sooner did the other see this than off it ran as fast as it could, and the old woman after it; but the wee bannock ran away and out of sight, and ran till it came to a pretty large thatched house, into which it ran boldly up to the fire-side. there were three tailors sitting on a table, and when they saw the wee bannock come in they jumped up and off the table, and ran behind the good wife who was carding tow on the other side of the fire. "be not afraid," she cried, "it's only a wee bannock. catch it, and i'll give you a basin of milk with it." up she gets with the tow-cards, and the tailor with the goose, and the two apprentices: the one with the shears and the other with the sleeve-board, but it eluded them all. the one apprentice made a snap at it with the shears, but he fell into the ash-pit. the tailor threw the goose and his wife the tow-cards; but it wouldn't do; the bannock got away and ran till it came to a little house by the road-side, into which it ran. there was a weaver sitting on his loom, and his wife was winding a skein of yarn. "kitty," said he, "what's that?" "oh," said she, "it's a wee bannock." "it's welcome," said he, "for our pottage was rather thin to-day. catch hold of it, my girl; catch it." "yes, that i will," said she. "how now! why that's a clever bannock. stop it, willie; stop it, man." but it wouldn't be stopped, and away it went over the hillock and ran into the nearest house, straight up to the fire-side. there was the good wife churning, and she said, "come along, my wee bannock. i have cream, but no bread." however the bannock dodged round the churn, and she after it, till she nearly upset the churn, and before she could steady it the wee bannock was off, down by the side of the stream into the mill. the miller was sifting meal; but when he looked up and saw the bannock, he said, "it's a sign of plenty when you're running about like that and no one to look after you. but i like a bannock and cheese, so come here, and i'll give you a night's lodging." but the bannock wouldn't trust itself with the miller and his cheese, so it turned and ran out again, and the miller didn't trouble himself about it. this time it rolled on gently till it came to a smithy, and in it ran up to the anvil. the smith, who was making horse-nails, said, "i like a stoup of good ale and a well-toasted bannock, so you are just the thing for me." but the bannock was frightened when it heard him talk of the ale, so it ran off as hard as it could split, and the smith after it, but all to no purpose; for it was out of sight in a crack, and it ran on till it came to a farm-house. in it went up to the fire-side, where the farmer was plaiting straw ropes. "why, janet," he cried, "here's a bannock. i'll have the half of't." "well, john, and i the other half." but neither could get hold of it, and off it was, up one side of the hill and down the other, to the nearest house, and in it went up to the fire. the good folks were just sitting down to supper. "shut the door," cried the good woman, "for here's a wee bannock come in to warm itself by our fire, and it's just in time for supper." when the bannock heard this it ran all about the house, and got out at last, when it ran faster and faster till it got to another house. as it ran in the folk were just going to bed. the goodman was taking off his breeches, and his wife raking out the fire. "what's that?" cried he. "it's a wee bannock," said his wife. "i could eat the half of it for all the supper i had," said he. "catch hold of it," cried she, "and i'll have a bit too. throw your breeches at it--there, stop it--stop it!" the goodman threw his breeches at it and nearly buried it, but it got away and out of the house. the goodman ran after it; and now a regular chase began, round the house, through the garden, across the fields on to a common among the furze, where he lost it, and he had to trot home again half naked. it had now grown quite dark, and the wee bannock could not see an inch before it, so by mistake it got into a fox's hole. now the fox had had no meat for two days, so it made a snap at the bannock and it was gone in an instant. it would seem as if there were little use in the wee bannock having escaped so many dangers, but not so, for all its pursuers could do very well without it, whereas the poor fox had fasted two days and must have been really hungry. [illustration: _the bannock hunt._] xxix. _jock and his mother._ there was once a widow who had a son, and she called him jock. now, one day she said to him, "you are a lazy fellow, but now you must go out and earn something in order to help me." "i'll do that willingly," said jock. so away he went, and fell in with a pedler, who said to him, "if you'll carry my pack all day, i'll give you a needle at night." he carried the pack all day, receiving the needle at night; and as he went on his way home to his mother, he cut a bundle of rushes and put the needle in the middle of them. when he got home his mother said to him, "what have you done, and brought home to-day?" "i met with a pedler," said jock, "and carried his pack for him, for which i received a needle, which you may look for among the rushes." "out upon you, for a blockhead," said his mother, "you should have stuck it in your cap." "i'll mind that another time," said jock. the next day he overtook a man carrying plough-shares, and the man said to him, "if you'll help me to carry my plough-shares during the day, i'll give you one for yourself at night." "agreed," said jock. so at night he gets a plough-share, which he sticks in his cap. on his way home he was thirsty, so he went down to the river to have a drink, and as he stooped the plough-share fell out of his cap and was lost in the water. he then went home, and his mother said to him, "well, jock, what have you been doing to-day?" and when he told her she cried out, "how stupid you are, jock! you should have tied a piece of string to it and trailed it after you along the ground." "well, i'll mind that another time," said jock. off he started the next morning and fell in with a butcher. "if you'll be my servant for the day," he said, "i'll give you a leg of mutton at night." "that is a bargain," said jock. and after serving his day out he got a leg of mutton, to which he tied a piece of string and dragged it after him through all the dust and dirt. when his mother saw him she exclaimed, "will you never grow wise? you should have carried the leg of mutton on your shoulder." "well, mother, another time i shall know better," was his answer. the next day he went out as usual, and he met a horse-dealer. he said, "if you will help me with my horses during the day, i'll give you one at night." "i'll do that," said jock. so after serving him he received a horse as his day's wages. he tied the animal's feet together, but was not able to lift it up; so he left it and went home to his mother, whom he told how he had tried to do as she bid him, but that he could not lift the horse on to his shoulder to carry it. "oh, you born idiot!" she cried; "could you not have jumped on its back and ridden it home?" "i'll not forget that the next time," he promised. the next day he overtook a drover driving some cattle to a neighbouring town, and the drover said to him, "if you'll help me safely to the town with my cattle, i'll give you a cow for your trouble." this jock agreed to; and when he got his promised cow he jumped on to its back, and taking its tail over his shoulder, he galloped along, in high glee, towards home. [illustration: _jock's cure for melancholy._] now there was a very rich man who had an only daughter, and she had such fits of melancholy that it was sad to see her; so that, after trying every remedy and consulting all the quacks in the country, he had it publicly announced that whoever could make her laugh should have her for his wife. though she was young and beautiful no one had been found to cure her, and she was sitting in a very melancholy state, at the window, when jock came galloping along on his cow, which seemed so highly ridiculous to her that she burst out laughing. well, according to her father's promise, she was married to jock, and a grand wedding it was, and a grand supper was prepared for the guests; but of all the delicacies jock was most pleased with some honey he had eaten. now, after all the company had departed, excepting the old priest that had married them, and who had fallen asleep by the kitchen fire, jock, who could not forget the honey, said to his bride, "is there any more of that delicious honey we had for supper?" "yes," she answered, "you will find plenty more in jars in the kitchen cupboard." so he went into the kitchen, where the lights had been put out, and all had gone to bed, excepting the priest, who was sleeping by the fire; and he found the honey jars. he thrust his hand into one of the jars to get at some of the honey, but his hand would not come out again, and he did not know what he should do, when he bethought him of breaking the jar on the hearth-stone. now, as already said, the kitchen was in darkness; and jock, mistaking a large white wig, which the priest wore, for the hearth-stone, gave the poor man such a whack on the head with the honey jar that he screamed out murder; and jock, frightened out of his senses, ran out and hid himself among the bee-hives. that very night, as luck would have it, some thieves came to steal the bee-hives, which they bundled into a large plaid, and jock with them without knowing it. off the thieves ran with their booty on their backs, and when they came to the brook where jock had dropped the plough-share, one of them kicking his foot against it, cried out, "here's a plough-share in the water." "that is mine," jock cried from out of the plaid; and the thieves thinking it was a ghost on their backs, let the plaid, with its contents, fall into the water, and it being tied up jock could not get out, so was drowned with all the bees. [decoration] xxx. _the irish highwayman._ it was before the introduction of railways, into ireland at any rate, that a certain irish bishop had occasion to visit dublin. there was, no doubt, a public conveyance of some sort or another of which the good bishop might have availed himself, but his lordship was a portly gentleman and fond of his ease; besides which his wife and daughter wished to make the journey with him, and they never would for a moment have listened to travelling in a dirty car or coach, so their own comfortable carriage was got ready. i said the bishop was portly and fond of his ease, but by that i did not mean to infer that all bishops are stout, for i knew one who was a very lean man; nor did i mean that portly personages are all fond of their ease, that is, not more so than the rest of us are; nor do i now mean that a lean man does not appreciate comfort. be that as it may, the bishop in question had a handsome comfortable carriage which he thought he might as well use; and, indeed, as his lady and daughter were going with him, he had no choice, so the carriage was used and his lordship's horses too; and to save both, as well as the ladies, the journey was performed in easy stages. now the bishop was an advocate for a moderate amount of exercise, and for this reason, as well as to spare his horses as much as possible, he made a point of alighting from his carriage at the foot of the hills, and walking up to the top, unless, indeed, the hill proved too steep. on one occasion he had loitered behind admiring the scenery, which was particularly wild and beautiful, and the carriage had got out of sight. however, as it always waited for him at the top of the hill, that did not trouble him as long as he had only the difficulties of the road to contend with; but soon danger appeared in the shape of an ugly looking fellow, who, suddenly starting up from behind a heap of stones, stood right in front of him, effectually stopping his progress, which was particularly vexatious. from the appearance of the stranger the bishop felt very much inclined to quicken his pace. [illustration: _the bishop and the highwayman._] "what can i do for you, my good man?" said the bishop very civilly, and in his softest voice, for he did not like the look of the man, nor of a dangerous looking club he held in his hand. "as your honour is so civil as to ask," the fellow said, "you may first of all give me your money, for i'm sartain sure so kind a gintleman would not like to see a poor fellow in distress, when you can relieve him by only putting your hand in your pocket." civilly as he spoke he was a determined looking rascal, with whom it would evidently be of no use to argue, so the bishop gave him what silver he had about him, hoping to get off with that; but he was mistaken, for the fellow had no sooner put it into his coat pocket than he said-- "your honour has made a mistake, for it's sure i am a thorough gintleman like you could not intend to give only a few paltry shillings. but i beg your riverence's pardon, for i see now that you are an ornament of the blessed church. it's some gold pieces you intended to give me; but it will save your riverence trouble if you give me your purse." this was accompanied by a scarcely perceptible movement of the club, which however seemed a very convincing argument, for his lordship immediately produced his purse, which as quickly followed the silver into the capacious pocket. "i'm sorry to trouble your honour, your riverence i mane, any further, for i see you're in a hurry, and it's beg your pardon i do for the same; but i judge you're going to dublin, and you can have everything in the big city for the asking; but here nothing can be got for love or money, and you see that i want a new coat and hat. now i'm sure so kind a gintleman won't mind changing yours with me." "this is too much, my good man," the bishop said, driven to resistance by this extraordinary demand. "recollect that you are breaking the laws of god and man, and think of the punishment in this world and the next. be satisfied, for you have taken all my money, and my clothes i will not part with." "now, sure," was the answer, "your honor's riverence makes a mistake, for you gave me that bit of money, and it is that very kindness makes me not believe that you mane to refuse me now. pray consider, and i'll wait with pleasure for another answer, for i know you'll be sorry." he stepped back a few paces, and, as if to while away the time whilst waiting for the answer, he flourished his cudgel about, first over his head, then on one side and then on the other. what was to be done? the poor bishop saw that help was hopeless and resistance equally so, and, after a few moments' hesitation, he took off his coat and hat, laying them on the heap of stones by his side. "now, bless your riverence," the fellow said, "i knew you would not refuse me; but after all your kindness i cannot allow you to be without a coat and hat. it would be neither comfortable nor dacent, and, therefore, just put on my coat. indeed i'll not take a refusal," he continued, as the bishop hesitated, and he helped his lordship on with his tattered garment. he then removed his unresisting victim's wig and placed his old hat on his head. "now i hope you intend to let me go," the bishop said. "i have one more favour to ask, and then i will bid your riverence a very good morning. i must beg the loan of your watch till i have the honor of seeing you again, for there is no watch or clock for miles around, and it is very awkward, for i don't know when to be at my work, and i'm afraid of cheating my employer out of some of the time due to him. your honor can easily get another." "will you never be satisfied? but beware of keeping me any longer, for there is my carriage close by, and the servants, whom i have only to call to my help." this the bishop said in despair, pointing along the road as he spoke, but he had a quick reply. "don't trouble yourself to call, for i saw your riverence's carriage pass, and it is far out of hearing." this his lordship knew well, so he gave up his watch, and was at length allowed to depart. he hurried on, for he was afraid of another demand being made upon him, and it was not long before he reached his carriage. much astonishment was caused by his extraordinary appearance, and after he had related his adventure his wife said to him: "throw off that filthy coat, my dear, for we shall soon reach a town where you can buy something more befitting you to wear." "not so easily, my dear," was his reply, "for i have not a shilling of money left." "well, never mind," his wife said, "take off the nasty thing, for positively you cannot come into the carriage that figure. i'll give you my cloak to cover your shoulders." the good man was not used to resist his wife, so he took off the coat, throwing it upon the road. as he did so some silver fell out, which induced him to make his servant examine it, and to his joy and relief all his property was found in the pocket. the party reached dublin without any further adventure, and a few days after received intelligence of the capture of the highwayman. xxxi. _fiddling jackey._ there was once a little boy, who led a very unhappy life, for his father was tipsy from morning till night, and he had no mother to soothe and console him when he had met with ill-treatment, which happened almost daily. i cannot tell you exactly how long ago this was, but it must be a long, long time, for there were fairies then, and the birds, trees, and flowers sang and spoke, which you know has not happened within your recollection, at all events. jackey's father, for jackey was the little boy's name, was village musician, and had once played the violin remarkably well, but since he had taken to drinking had grown so careless that his scraping was a horror to all who could hear at all, that the dogs even howled in disgust, and probably in pain, for the noise they made was piteous in the extreme. now, when the drunken fiddler reeled home at night, accompanied by the most dissolute of the village, the shouting of these, the horrid scraping of the fiddle, and the discordant chorus of some twenty or thirty dogs, made the more steady and respectable portion of the community tremble in their beds, with some undefined fear. all this, you must know, happened in germany, where in every cottage of the villages there is, at least, one dog, and where the watchman, who is generally the swineherd as well, no doubt was not over sober himself, and more likely to add to the noise than stop it. though the fiddler was a sad reprobate, and his playing of the worst description, he was tolerated; for the fact is that the most of the elder portion of the villagers cared only for drinking, and the younger ones thought of nothing but dancing; so he was good enough for them after all. his disorderly life and cruelty had killed his poor wife, jackey's mother, who would have looked upon death as a real blessing, had she not feared for the future of her young son; however, jackey, who was eight years old, had the thoughtlessness of youth and good health to support him, though, it is true, he cried bitterly after his father had been beating him, and felt sorrowful enough when he had not enough to eat, which happened but too often. jackey still remembered the time when, though at rare intervals, his father played really well; and the sweet sounds of music had so entered his very soul that he felt a secret consolation within him, amidst all his troubles. this love of music, though it consoled him, occasionally caused him more bitter sorrow than the most cruel beatings; for when he looked at the violin, hanging against the wall, neglected and covered with mud, he thought of the sweet sounds that were still within it, though there was no one to bring them out. now, one day, when jackey had been staring longer than usual at the violin, and his mind was filled with sad thoughts, his father happened to come in, and the poor boy, mustering up all his courage, said-- "my dear father, do not be angry if i ask what the poor fiddle has done to you that you neglect it so? take care or it will die too, as my dear good mother did, of a broken heart." the only answer to this was a sound thrashing; and, as the beating had been more severe than usual, so jackey cried longer and more bitterly, all by himself, for his father had gone again; but, as the pain grew less, his crying was not so violent nor loud; then he thought he heard a voice, like sobbing, come from the wall. there was no mistaking it, the sobbing proceeded from the violin, and jackey's tears burst forth afresh; but there must be an end to all things, and when he had become calmer, he got on a chair, so as to be nearer the instrument, and whispered-- "my dear fiddle, you pity me, and now i have a friend in the place of my good lost mother. but you, too, i am afraid, are not more happy than she was. tell me if i can do anything for you." "i do pity you," the violin answered, "for you are a good boy, and i wish to console you for the loss of your mother, and make you forget all the hardships you have to suffer. at the same time, you can do me a very great service. take me down, and when you have cleaned me and put me in proper order, i will teach you how to make me sing again, better than ever i used to do. then i shall be happy, and you, my poor boy, will forget your sorrow, for i know that sweet sounds will console you in all your troubles." [illustration: _the neglected fiddle repining._] jackey said, sorrowfully, "oh, how i wish to make you happy! but if i take you down, my father will beat me, and, what is worse, perhaps, in his passion, throw you against the wall, and dash you to pieces." "be not afraid, but do as i tell you," the violin answered; "you know that your father is at the tavern all day long till dusk, when he comes to fetch me, and if, by chance, he does come in, he never notices anything. i promise you no harm shall happen to you; so take me down and carry me, with the bow, into the forest, where, by the side of the stream, i will teach you how to make me bring forth sweet sounds." "you know better than i do what is safe to do, so i will take you to the forest, as you tell me." as he said this, jackey took down the violin, and having cleaned and tuned it, according to its own directions, he carried it and the bow into the forest, where he seated himself by the side of the rivulet. the breeze played between the leaves and branches of the trees, the leaves and branches rustled, the birds sang sweetly, the stream murmured softly, and all seemed to say-- "welcome, jackey! welcome to the forest!" "oh, how delightful it is here!" jackey cried; "and now, my dear fiddle, teach me to imitate all these sweet sounds." the violin told him how to hold the bow and where to place his fingers; and all the birds came round him, first one whistling a note till he could imitate it, and then another giving him the next note, and so on; the rivulet, too, and the wind assisted; and then came the nightingale and taught him how to join the different notes together, that they might harmonize and form sounds agreeable to the ear. jackey was so attentive, and did all so well, that the trees, the flowers, the stream, and all the birds cried out-- "bravo, jackey!" as soon as evening began to draw near jackey put up his fiddle and prepared to go home, when all the voices, with one accord, cried-- "come again soon, and we will sing together." jackey went the very next day, and every succeeding day, and he made the flowers join in the universal harmony. his dear fiddle seconded him in all his endeavours, so that very shortly he imitated all the voices of the forest with the greatest accuracy. it happened about this time that the landlord of the village inn died, leaving a widow, who wished for nothing better than to give him a successor as speedily as possible; but though she was rich, and the business most thriving, yet no suitors appeared. jackey's father, in his drunken moments, thought he would propose to the widow, for he said to himself that, when master of the inn, he could have as much drink as he liked without paying for it; but when a little more sober his courage failed him, for she was the veriest shrew, and the charms of her person were no more engaging than those of her character. her hair was neither red, brown, nor black, but a sort of dirty coloured mixture of the three, and each hair seemed to go a different way. her nose was very, very long, not projecting, but hanging down, like the beak of some of the small tribes of parrots. i think the love-birds have such beaks, but i can scarcely compare her to those, for certainly she had nothing of the love about her. well, her nose, anyhow, was like a parrot's beak, but flattened down, and that on one side, or else it would have covered her mouth, which would have been no great harm, for that was as ugly a feature as any other, and not improved by having only half the due number of teeth, which, unlike the nose, stuck out instead of hanging down. her eyes were like those of a cat, and one squinted awfully. shaggy eyebrows and a pointed hairy chin complete her portrait. her figure was long, lank, and shapeless--shapeless not meaning no shape at all, but an ugly shape. most people have some redeeming qualities, or quality at least, but no one had yet discovered hers, and no one had been found bold enough to propose to the interesting widow, though she let it be clearly understood that she wished to remain a widow no longer. jackey's father had so often made up his mind to make her an offer that at last his mind became familiarized to the horror, and if not in love with the widow, he was decidedly so with her beer and spirits; so one evening, having screwed up his courage to the highest pitch, he, in a few words, offered himself as a husband. the widow took but a few minutes to consider, that, though he was a drunken, worthless fellow, he was better than no husband at all; so she did not give him time to draw back, but accepted him with all his faults. the wedding followed with the least possible loss of time, and the guests drank deeply to the health and happiness of the bride and bridegroom, but the happy husband drank more than any of them. this was a happy beginning; but how short-lived is happiness, for to his this was not only the beginning but also the end. how changed was everything the very next day! beer and spirits were carefully locked up, and the poor fiddler was put under the water-cure treatment, and this was the first of a series of strictly sober days. he did not resign himself to petticoat government without a struggle, but in every way she was more than his match. adversity is the bitterest of all medicines, but frequently acts most beneficially on the soul, if not on the body. so it proved with the fiddler, for though, during the first few days of his new life, his temper was sourer than ever, by degrees his spirit was broken, and the outbursts of passion became less frequent. passion was of no avail, for it never gained him his object, and his amiable spouse still remained his better half. example had its effect also, for as he daily suffered from his wife's intolerable temper, her unamiability, which at first roused his anger, now caused disgust and horror, and occasionally he could not help reflecting that in many respects he had been like her. as yet the improvement in his character was involuntary, forced upon him, as it were, and failed to soothe his mind and feelings; but jackey, being treated with less harshness, began to feel for the first time that he had a father. the good boy, looking on his father now without fear, saw the dejection he was constantly labouring under, and, as much as he had dreaded and almost abhorred the harsh brutal man, he now pitied his suffering father, so that he took every opportunity to get near to him, sometimes venturing a remark; and one day, when he saw him in a particularly desponding mood, he fetched the violin and played the voices of the forest to him. jackey's father was at first bewildered by the tender emotions to which his heart had so long been a stranger, but as the sweet sounds continued, it seemed as if his nature were changed and a new life dawned upon him. he clasped his son to his breast and burst into tears. when he became a little calm, he said-- "how beautifully you play, jackey! how did you learn? but why inquire? you have always been a good boy, and kinder, better spirits than those of the earth, seeing you so neglected by your unnatural father, have taken compassion on you. i have led a bad life, but now i see my faults, and i will be always kind to you, my son. oh, jackey, your good mother will forgive me for all my past cruelty when she sees how i watch over her dear child!" "dear father," jackey said, "my dear, good mother, who is in heaven, forgives you now. oh, if she were but here to share our happiness!" "play me that tune once more," his father said, "and then we will go to your step-mother, and i will beg and pray of her to send you to school, for i can do nothing, my poor boy." they went to that amiable lady, with whom, however, all prayers were in vain. she said she would not spend a farthing of her money on father or son, but that jackey should be a shoemaker; that she would send him to her brother, who was a shoemaker in a neighbouring village, where he would soon be broken of his idle habits. jackey said he would not be a shoemaker; whereupon she gave him a slap on the face, which made his ears sing and bright spots dance before his eyes, promising at the same time to break his fiddle over his head. jackey, however, was none the less determined not to be a shoemaker, and his only trouble was how to keep the dear fiddle out of her way. the next morning very early he was waked by a kiss from his father, who said-- "get up quickly, my boy, and dress yourself, for i cannot do anything for you here, not even protect you, and it will be better to trust to the kindness of strangers than go to that cruel woman's brother, who no doubt is as bad as herself. we must part, my dear jackey, but i do not fear for you, for wherever you play the airs you played me yesterday, you will be sure to find friends. take your fiddle then, and wander forth into the world, and if you remain a good boy, as you have hitherto been, god will watch over you and protect you. make haste; and in the meantime i will see what i can find to eat for you to take with you." jackey was ready when his father returned with some provisions done up in a bag. "now follow me," he said, "and take care that you do not make any noise, so that no one may hear us." they got out safely and went straight to the forest, where jackey's father stopping, said to him, "you are now safe out of the clutches of your wicked stepmother, and we must part; but, my dear boy, we will put our trust in providence, and, if my life is spared a few years longer, i shall see you again, for when you prosper in the world, and prosper you will, my son, you will not forget your old father." "let me remain with you, my dear father," jackey said, "for you are not happy, and i will try to cheer you with my fiddle. i do not mind my stepmother's cruelty." "no, my child, it must not be," his father answered, "i have deserved my fate, and will try and bear it with resignation; but fortune awaits you in the world, far from here. do not cry; and now, with my blessing on you, we must part." he pressed his son to his breast, and turned back without uttering another word. jackey watched him till he was out of sight, and then sadly went on his way into the forest, he knew and cared not whither. after a time he reached the very spot, by the side of the rivulet, where he had first sat with the violin and listened to the voices of the forest; and as he seated himself, the rustling in the trees and the murmuring of the stream joined with the different notes of the birds in forming the harmony of music. the sadness of his heart gradually became softened, and, taking the violin out of the bag in which he always kept it, he again imitated the various sounds he heard, the birds vieing with each other to teach him something new. returning cheerfulness and the freshness of the air reminded jackey that he had not yet eaten anything, so he made a good breakfast off the provisions put up by his father, not forgetting to give some crumbs to the birds that gathered about him; and with a light heart he continued his journey deeper into the forest. he thus wandered on all day, and neither found the time long, nor was he weary; for there was constantly something new to see, and hear, and imitate upon his dear fiddle. the sun had sunk below the horizon, tingeing a few feathery clouds with a beautiful pink, and the little wanderer saw no end to the forest; but that did not trouble him, and he chose a soft mossy spot for a bed, on which he lay down, and was soon fast asleep, forgetful of time and everything else. nothing disturbed his quiet slumbers till about midnight, when a sudden light flashing across his eyes awakened him. he started up, and saw it as light as day all around. yet it was not daylight; it was more like the light of the moon, but milder and warmer. he looked through some bushes, where the light seemed strongest, and stood transfixed with amazement at what he saw. hundreds of the most lovely beings were dancing in a circle, whilst thousands of others seemed to fill the air around. some were sitting, swinging backwards and forwards, on the different flowers, whilst others, in countless numbers, appeared gliding up and down the rays of light. he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as the little aerial beings before him. though so very small--for they were not nearly the size of jackey--their forms were fully developed, and of the most exquisite elegance and grace. the maidens in particular, who seemed all of the age of seventeen or eighteen, were lovely in the extreme. jackey knew they must be fairies; and two of the number who were a little taller, and, if possible, more beautiful than the rest, besides that they wore silver crowns, he judged to be the king and the queen. dazzled by the light and the beauty of the scene before him, he was for a time lost in admiration; but gradually the sweet tones, as the fairies sang, gained the ascendancy, and all the other senses seemed absorbed by that of hearing. as the fairies danced, they sang, and were joined by thousands of other voices--in sounds, now of the most lively merriment, then softly till they became solemn, when again they burst forth in the wildest strains. the dance never ceased; but as some withdrew from the ring their places were taken by others, who began the song anew. jackey had no knowledge of time, whether the music continued for minutes only or for hours; however, it became fainter and fainter till it melted away, and he found himself in darkness; but long, long after he lay down again it seemed as if he still heard the fairy song, and when he awoke in the morning it still sounded in his ears. [illustration: _the sight jackey saw._] "how lovely!" jackey exclaimed; "oh, could i but imitate those sweet sounds!" "try," the violin said from its bag. "well thought," jackey cried; and taking it out, immediately began to play the fairy song. he played it over and over again, and each time better, till at length he said, kissing his dear violin, "well done, fiddle, we can do it now." then jackey ate his breakfast, and having tried the song once more, he resumed his wanderings through the forest. he stopped several times to play the fairy song again, trying also his other tunes, to see that they had not been driven out of his memory by these still sweeter sounds; and having had his breakfast very early, had made a finish of his stock of provisions, but that did not trouble him, though there seemed no end to the forest. about mid-day, however, he began to feel hungry again, and hastened his steps, in hopes of finding some outlet from the forest, or at least some woodman's hut. he began to feel some anxiety for the future; but he did not despair, for he was a good boy, and put his trust in providence. the birds sang merrily, as if to cheer him; and soon he saw that the forest became lighter, nor was it long before he found himself on the highway, and at no great distance stood a village. anxious as he was to reach some human habitations, when he was outside the forest he turned round to bid it farewell, and thank his dear birds for their kindness to him. a farewell sounded back, and cheerfully he went on his way to the village. he remembered his father having said that wheresoever he played he would be sure to find friends; and no sooner did he reach the first houses, than he took out his violin and began to play. first he played the voices of the forest, and soon all the people were at their windows and their doors, listening to him; but when he played the fairy song, they came out and surrounded him, and he had to begin again and again. there was now a contest amongst the principal inhabitants of the village who should take the wonderful boy to their home, when the clergyman and his wife carried him off. jackey would not accept their kindness without telling them that he could not stay long, for his father had sent him to seek his fortune in the world, that his father was not happy at home, and that he was going back to fetch him as soon as he had made his fortune. the good people promised that they would not keep him longer than he felt inclined to remain with them. they were, however, so kind that week after week still found him there, and he was so intelligent and docile that every one loved him. living now with people of good education, jackey soon felt his ignorance, and applied himself so diligently to his studies, in which he was assisted both by the clergyman and his wife, that he made rapid progress. he did not neglect his music, and frequently went back into the forest--no one interfering with his wanderings. neither did he forget his father, nor give up the intention of seeking his fortune in the world, though he was delayed by the persuasion of his kind protectors, who, however, gave their consent to his departure after he had been with them about a year, providing him with every necessary for his journey, as also with a small supply of money. jackey had improved as much in person as in mind, but retained his former innocent simplicity of heart and kindly feelings, so that his feathered friends loved him still, and he was as happy as the day was long. he visited one country after another, passing from village to village, and from town to town; and wherever he played, both old and young surrounded him, and every one was ready to befriend him. thus year after year passed away, and jackey had grown to be a tall, handsome youth of about nineteen, with flowing black hair, large dark eyes, and an expression of cheerfulness and good humour. his playing was celebrated far and wide, but, more particularly, when he played the fairy song every one was carried away by admiration and surprise. in each country he visited many inducements had been held out to detain him; but a secret impulse drew him on till he came to a large and powerful kingdom, which he found plunged in the deepest mourning; for not only had the queen just died, but the most beautiful of princesses, her daughter, was brought to the very verge of death by grief at the loss of her beloved mother. her royal father, whose only child she was, in the utmost despair, had promised half his kingdom to the physician who should save her; but the only remedy the most learned could propose was any excitement that would distract her from her grief, for it was that alone that was consuming her. this remedy was beyond their art, and the king proclaimed that whoever cured the princess should be the inheritor of his throne and the husband of his daughter, if she consented to marry him. jackey, on hearing this proclamation, determined to try what his art could do to cure the princess, since all that was required was to enliven her, and make her forget her grief. he trusted that, with the help of providence, he should succeed; and that, if even the princess would not marry him, which he scarcely dared to hope, he might still receive a reward sufficient to secure his old father's future happiness, besides having the consolation of saving the life of a young lady universally beloved. he went boldly to the palace, where he was immediately admitted, on stating what his errand was; for the king had given orders not to refuse admittance to any one, however humble, who came to cure his daughter. [illustration: _jackey playing to the princess._] the king was much surprised and disappointed when he saw jackey; but after he had received an explanation of the means intended to be employed, he became more reconciled, and ordered him to be conducted to the princess's apartment. jackey gazed with admiration at the beautiful form before him; and to the interest he before felt was added pity, for the princess lay in bed with closed eyes and so pale as if death had already laid its icy hand upon her. he felt that he would willingly lay down life itself to restore colour and animation to that lovely face, and determined to exert his utmost skill in her behalf. first he played the voices of the forest--the soft breeze gliding through the leaves, the low murmur of the stream, and the gentle warbling of the birds; then, as the princess's attention was attracted, he made his violin speak louder and louder, and the princess exclaimed, "how came i into the forest? oh! how delightful it is! sing on, you darling birds!" at length she opened her eyes, and sitting up in the bed, looked about her in amazement. jackey now played the fairy song; and when he had finished, she said--"go on, gentle youth, i entreat you. you have been sent by heaven to call me back to life." she sank back upon her pillow, and as jackey continued to play, she fell into a soft sleep, with a smile on her lovely face. the king, having been informed of all that had happened, hastened to his daughter's room; and the calm expression of her features, together with the assurance of the head physician that all danger had now passed over, made him, for the moment, forget all his sorrow; and embracing jackey, he assured him of his everlasting gratitude. the next day the princess awoke, restored to health; and when her preserver was presented to her by the king, she received him with the sweetest smile, and thanked him in the kindest terms. but that was not all jackey's reward; for when the princess was told of the promise made by her royal father to whoever should save her life, she declared herself ready to fulfil that promise, as soon as the time of mourning for her departed mother had passed. they were, however, betrothed before the whole court, and the king publicly proclaimed that, next to himself, jackey should be the first in the land. an establishment in every way befitting a prince of the royal blood was appointed him, and he lived in the closest intimacy with the king and his amiable daughter. jackey, however, in all his splendour, and by the side of his future bride, did not forget his old father, nor the promise he had made him; so he begged permission of the king to go and visit him, which was immediately granted. he set out on his journey to the village where he was born, attended by a numerous retinue, travelling day and night till he reached the forest where he had learned the first notes of music, the foundation of all his fortune. he remembered all the trees, but the whole generation of birds that had known him had long since died. in his heart, however, he thanked them for their kindness, and in remembrance of them he passed on in silence, having left his attendants at the beginning of the forest. his heart beat with anxiety and fear, lest his father should no longer be living, for it was more than ten years since he had left his home; but when he reached the stream where he had first sat in the forest he saw an old man sitting by its side. jackey immediately recognized his father, but the old man did not see him, for he was plunged in sorrow. wiping a tear from his eyes, he said, "am i never to see my dear jackey again? for how many years have i come here every day, till gradually all his friends have died off--and he, too, i am afraid, must be dead; and i am the cause of his death, for it was i persuaded him to go out into the world." jackey now took out his violin, which he had carried with him, and played the tune with which he had first soothed his father's grief. the old man recognized the notes, and he cried out, "that is my own jackey! come to my arms, my dear boy!" it was long before either could find words; but then the old man told him that his stepmother was dead; and jackey related all his adventures, and his present happiness and splendour. jackey went with his father to the village; but the next day he had him removed to where he had left his followers, and they all returned, without loss of time, to the king, and jackey's future wife. jackey and his father were received with great rejoicings, and when the time of mourning for the late queen was over, jackey was married to the lovely princess, with whom he spent a long life of happiness and peace, reigning with justice and wisdom over the kingdom after the king and his own old father were dead. [decoration] xxxii. _teeny-tiny._[ ] [ from halliwell's "nursery stories."] once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman, who lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village. now one day this teeny-tiny woman put on her teeny-tiny bonnet, and went out of her teeny-tiny house to take a teeny-tiny walk. and when this teeny-tiny woman had gone a teeny-tiny way she came to a teeny-tiny gate, and went into a teeny-tiny church-yard. and when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard she saw a teeny-tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, "this teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper." so the teeny-tiny woman put the teeny-tiny bone into her teeny-tiny pocket, and went home to her teeny-tiny house. now when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her teeny-tiny house she was a teeny-tiny tired; so she went up her teeny-tiny stairs to her teeny-tiny bed, and put the teeny-tiny bone into a teeny-tiny cupboard. and when this teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep a teeny-tiny time she was awakened by a teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard, which said--"give me my bone!" at this the teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head under the teeny-tiny clothes, and went to sleep again. and when she had been asleep a teeny-tiny time the teeny-tiny voice again cried out from the teeny-tiny cupboard a teeny-tiny louder--"give me my bone!" this made the teeny-tiny woman a teeny-tiny more frightened, and she hid her teeny-tiny head a teeny-tiny further under the teeny-tiny clothes. and when the teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time the teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard said again a teeny-tiny louder--"give me my bone!" [illustration: _the teeny-tiny woman's fright._] and this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny bit more frightened, but she put her teeny-tiny head out of the teeny-tiny clothes, and said in her loudest teeny-tiny voice--"take it!" [decoration] xxxiii. _the cannibal cow._ it was in the year ----. but why should i insult you by being more particular in date than that it was during the irish rebellion, when, one dreadfully stormy night, old goff, with his wife, daughter, and only son, tim, were sitting in the kitchen, which not only served as general sitting-room, but was also the old couple's bed-room? the wind howled and blew in gusts, shaking the windows and doors as one without, in a hurry to get in, amongst whose virtues patience could not be numbered. "this is a fearful night," old goff said, "and fearful work, may be, is going on just now; for i heard from neighbour flanagan that the red-coats have been seen in the neighbourhood. go, tim, and see that all the doors are well fastened; and when the old woman has given us our supper, we'll get to bed, for that is the safest place these times." the old man had no sooner spoken than there was a tap at the door--at first, gentle; as, however, neither father nor son moved, but sat staring at each other in fear and trembling, the knocking grew louder and louder. at length tim whispered, "hadn't you best go to the door, father, for that will impose upon them more, if it's thaves they are, and show more respect, like, if it's the red-coats?" "no, no, my son!" the old man whispered back, "you go; for then they will see that you are safely at home, like a steady lad, and not out with those wild boys, who are the cause of all these troubles. go, my son; but don't open the door, for the life of ye, but ask the gintlemen, civil, who might be there, and what they might be wanting?" there was no help for it, so poor tim crept to the door, and, after listening whether he heard the cocking of pistols or the clanking of swords, mustered courage to ask who was there. "and who should it be, sure," was answered from without, "but paddy, auld paddy the piper? och! then let me in, darlint, that i may warm and dry mesel', for it's caulder than the 'squire's greetin', and as damp as the say itsel'." [illustration: _a terror-stricken household._] without answering him, tim ran back to his father, who, in the mean time, had put out the light, and had got as far as the kitchen-door to listen. now tim, in his hurry, rushed upon the old man, who went rolling down, and tim, to save himself, caught hold of the table, which he upset, and he himself fell sprawling upon the floor. not being hurt, he went to help his father, who was shouting thieves and murder, and it was some time before his son could convince him that the place was not full of thieves, but that it was only paddy the piper who wanted to come in. "nay, lave me in pace," he said, as tim tried to raise him up, "for i'm dead, sure!" "but what about paddy?" tim asked. "and are ye sure it's paddy it is, and that it is by himself he is?" and then the old man added--"if it's the piper himself, i think bad not to give him the bit and the sup; but ye mustn't let him in, tim, for sure it's paddy has a baddish name, and if he's found here we shall all swing for't. but take the kay, my boy, and let him into katty's shed, where he can be as comfortable, like, as the priest himself in his own bed, and he shall not go without his supper." now katty, you must know, was old goff's best and favourite cow, and as such had a shed to herself, to which tim led the piper; and when paddy had a good large mug of whisky, he forgot that he was wet and cold. we will not assist at old goff's recovery from being "murthered quite," but suppose him, as well as the others, safely in bed; and as we shall be busy with the piper we will not disturb them till the morning. paddy was so warm and comfortable after his supper, but more particularly after the whisky, that he felt one drop more would make him the happiest man in all ireland; but he dared not risk offending old goff by disturbing him again, for he always found a good friend in him when his wanderings took him that way. what was to be done? he tried to sleep, but it would not do; though it was not the want of a bed that troubled him, for it was little paddy knew of that, except by name, and, indeed, katty gave him the best of accommodation; but yet the comfort was fast oozing out of him. now paddy had a friend who, quietly and quite in private, distilled the best of spirit, and there was no fear of his being in bed--at least, not at night. true, he lived full four miles off, and most of the way lay across a dreary bog; but now that paddy was once with him in imagination he found less rest than ever. tim had carefully locked katty's door; but, though old, the piper was still active, so made nothing of clambering up to a hole in the roof--for where is the shed or cabin to be found in ireland that has not a hole in the roof? if, indeed, what should be the roof is not one big hole. in dear old ireland everything is old, excepting the hearts and spirits of its people. once outside the shed, paddy made the best of his way towards his friend's; and expectation giving strength and activity to his legs, he ran briskly on, when, all at once, he was brought to a stand--not because he was out of breath from running, but from astonishment at the fruit borne by a sturdy old tree he had just reached. a man, well and securely hanged, was dangling from a branch of the tree, with his toes most provokingly just beyond reach of the ground. paddy peered at him through the dark, to see which of his friends it was, and then addressed him thus:--"och! murphy, me lad! and is it yerself i run my nose agin here in the dark? but i forgie yer for not gettin' out o' the way, seeing that yer movements are not quite yer own. now tell me what has brought yer here in this ugly fix? but how's this?" he continued, examining his friend still more closely--"and was it for this dance yer put on them iligant boots? why, murphy, i shouldn't know yer if i didn't see that it's yerself! but now," paddy continued, talking to himself, "his dance is over, and what will he be wanting with his boots? i'm sartain he won't mind if i borrow them, for sure me own brogues are none of the best. but why, my auld friend," he said, again addressing the hanging man, "why didn't yer put on yer sunday best intirely, for yer no better than a scarecrow dangling there?" paddy examined himself from head to foot, and then, shaking his head, he muttered--"no, i canna better mesel', 'cepting with the boots, which i'll make bold to take, trusting poor murphy won't feel his feet cauld." after thus alternately soliloquising and addressing his friend, paddy set himself to work to pull off the dead man's boots, but they resisted all his efforts. he took it good-humouredly and out of humour, but with equally bad success, and at length went on his way; but he could not make up his mind to resign such a splendid piece of good fortune, so he returned after he had gone a few steps, and made another attempt. the boots, however, remained immoveable, and losing all patience, he exclaimed, "bad luck to them!" and taking out a large knife he carried with him, cut off the legs just above the boots, thinking that, more at his leisure, he would be able to clear them out. his plans were now altered, and instead of going on to his friend, he returned to katty's shed, carefully carrying his new acquisition under his arm. he found no difficulty in getting back into the shed, but the difficulty of freeing the boots from the feet and portion of the legs that remained in them was increased rather than lessened; and at length paddy fell asleep over his unaccomplished task. when he awoke day was already beginning to dawn, and as he wanted to be early at a small town, some six miles off, where there was to be a fair, he had no time to lose; so he quickly got out of the shed, leaving the boots behind him as useless--his friend murphy's feet pertinaciously keeping possession of them. not long after, tim went to fetch him to breakfast, to make up for the inhospitality of the previous night; for with returning light the courage of the family was restored, and, as is frequently the case with weak minds, day gave an appearance of security to that which night had shrouded in danger. what was his surprise to see the shed occupied by katty alone; for he had found the door locked as he had left it the night before, and yet paddy was nowhere to be seen. he never once thought of the hole in the roof, and was puzzled beyond measure. paddy must be somewhere; so he looked in all the four corners of the shed, under the straw, and even under katty herself, who was comfortably lying down. he now saw the boots, and was more puzzled than ever. he scratched his head, as people will do when the understanding is at fault, and during that process a horrible light burst upon him. he rushed out of the shed back to the kitchen, where, to the amazement of all, he let himself fall into old goff's, just then, vacant chair, his mouth open, his hair erect, and his eyes nearly starting from his head. all exclaimed with one voice, "what in heaven's name has happened! what is the matter with you, tim?" after gasping several times for breath tim cried out, "och, the unnatural baste! och, the blood-thirsty cannibal! poor paddy! och, the murthering brute!" "in the name of all the saints tell us what has happened!" his father said; and after a few more incoherent sentences, tim related how on going into the shed he could not find the piper, though he could not have got out, for he had locked the door the night before, and found it still locked; how that, after looking all about, he had discovered the boots, but that katty had eaten up poor paddy. [illustration: _tim's dismay at katty's cannibalism._] an exclamation of horror burst from all. "every bit of him," tim continued. "the blood-thirsty baste has eaten every bit of him. not a morsel of poor paddy is left but the boots." the rest were quite as much horrified as tim himself, and not a word was uttered till his sister, who first recovered something like self-possession, said, "let us go and look once more, for it is almost too horrible to believe that katty could do such a thing; she has always been such a good, gentle beast." "och, the cannibal!" tim muttered, with a shudder. "tim," old goff said, "i've heard that a cannibal is one man that eats another, and if so, perhaps katty is not a cannibal; but, mind me, i'm not going to defend the unnatural baste if she has eaten the piper. did you say his pipes and all are gone? take care and don't go too near the crittur, but take the pitchfork with you. oh, that i should ever live to hear the like!" most unwillingly tim went back to the shed; but as his sister led the way he was ashamed to remain behind. however, when they got there katty began bellowing with all her might, for she was unused to being neglected, and felt herself ill used that tim should have been in without taking her her morning's food, and now finding herself again disappointed, she stared wildly at them. both started back, and tim cried, "see there, how wicked she looks! is that the baste you say is so gentle? sure she's dangerous, let's go back." the sister ventured in and took the boots, which she carried to the house. these told the tale but too clearly, and poor katty had not a single voice raised in her favour. it was now discussed what should be done with the animal, for keeping her was out of the question. who would drink the milk of such a beast! besides, it was dangerous to go near her; and it was therefore settled that tim should take her to the fair, which fortunately was held that very day, and sell her at any price. suddenly they were startled by a loud bellowing from the shed, for during this time no one had thought of feeding the poor beast, and the next moment all were seized with the utmost consternation, for katty appeared at the shed door and walked straight up towards the house. the kitchen was now a scene of the wildest confusion, for in their eagerness to seize upon any article of furniture that might serve as a weapon of defence, they rushed against each other; but katty stopped at some fresh grass that was in a cart near the house, which indeed had attracted her. as soon, however, as she had taken the edge off her morning appetite she went to the window, for she was a sociable beast, and had always been accustomed to be noticed; but all the inmates of the kitchen were huddled together at the further end, and their terror is indescribable when she pushed the window open, for it had not been properly fastened. she, however, stood so quiet, and looked so gentle and mild, that after a time old goff mustered courage to say, "now that she has filled herself with grass she will perhaps not bite, so now is the time to secure her. take the rope that is hanging up there, tim, make a noose, and slip it quickly over her nose." as tim hesitated, his sister said, "i will go with you;" and then he did as he was directed, till, as he was about to slip the rope over her nose, she opened her mouth, thinking it was something for her to eat. tim started back so suddenly that, losing his balance, he fell flat upon the floor, shouting for help, but his sister, catching hold of the rope, put it round katty's nose; and when tim saw that there was no danger he finished the work for her, tying the rope at least half-a-dozen times round the unresisting creature's jaws. nothing now remained to be done but for tim to get on his sunday clothes, which did not take long, and poor katty was led off, receiving much rougher treatment than she had been accustomed to. for a time tim and katty had the road to themselves, and were not over-pleasant companions, for to poor katty all seemed strange; besides that she received many a blow from her guide, who was in anything but a good humour; and when they were joined by any one it made it none the more pleasant for tim, who now found out all the difficulties he had to contend with, for he was not prepared with an answer when asked what was the reason why katty was to be sold, or why her mouth was fastened up so. what could he answer, for, as he said to himself, "if i tell the truth who would buy the unnatural baste? and i won't let the people think we want money." his pride revolted at this; but it was evident he must be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than he had hitherto given, namely, that he did not know why his father intended to part with his cow, for he heard two farmers, who had lately joined the others, talking thus together. the one said, "why, that is old goff's favourite cow, sure it can't be it's selling her he is, for i heard that he was offered twelve pounds for her no longer than a fortnight ago, but he wouldn't sell her at any price." "may be it's gone dry she is," said the other. "no, she doesn't look like that." "then it's money he wants. may be the rint isn't paid, and--" "no, it's not that," the first speaker interrupted him, "for old goff is too close an old fist not to have plenty of money; but mark me, neighbour, there's something wrong with her, sleek and fresh as she looks, and it isn't i that would be buying her at any price." poor tim was sadly puzzled, for it was impossible he could escape being asked all manner of questions, and he knew no more than his heels what to say. then, too, he feared that no one would have her, and what should he do with her then. his worst fears were soon to be realized, for a new comer, who had heard the end of the conversation of the last two speakers, now said to him-- "well, tim, and what has the darling of your house done that you want to sell her? is it fits she has, for there is something wild in her eye? or it's vicious she is? speak, man, what is the matter with her?" to avoid unpleasant questions, tim said, "it's too much trouble to my sister to attend to her, for it's my sister's cow she is." "and is it washing her face of a morning that's too much trouble to your sister?" tim was now asked; "or perhaps combing her hair is troublesome, or may be it's cutting her corns your sister doesn't like; but come, tim, that won't do, man, for why is katty more trouble than the other cows? let me look at her, that i may see what ails her." he examined her all over; and, to tim's horror, taking the rope from round her nose, looked into her mouth, but he could not discover one single fault in her, which only excited his suspicion the more. "may be you'd take five pounds for her?" and, as tim eagerly assented, he continued, "you'll take five pounds for her, and your father just a day or two ago refused twelve. there's something in all this i can't make out, so go on with her, for i'll none of her. i'm not going to be tricked by you." tim was now in utter despair. he saw plainly he must say that it was money they wanted. but would even that do, for his father had other cows, and why sell the one which everybody knew was the favourite? his only chance was to get rid of her to some one who did not know him, and he therefore hurried her on to the market. the market was very full, and, when he found himself surrounded by strange faces, he felt more at ease; however, no purchaser was found, and tim began to feel not only impatient, but seriously uneasy, for katty looked about her in a very suspicious manner, and he dreaded the consequences should she grow very hungry. he shuddered as he thought of the fate of poor paddy, and, oh horror! just then he thought he saw paddy himself in the distance. he could not take his eyes from the spot where he had seen the horrid apparition, though he trembled at the possibility of its reappearance. there it was again, beckoning to him. this was more than poor tim could bear, and he rushed wildly out of the market, down the nearest turning, and out of the town. on he ran, not knowing where, pursued in imagination by poor paddy's ghost, till out of breath, when he ventured to look back. he could run no more, for he was now transfixed to the spot by horror. katty, with her mouth open, came full gallop after him, and quicker than the wind followed paddy's ghost. he stood motionless till they were close upon him, and then fell senseless to the ground. when he recovered he found paddy holding a pocket flask of whisky to his lips, whilst katty was looking at him with the mildest expression of concern. "what were you doing in the market with katty? and what, in heaven's name, induced you to run away as if possessed by a thousand devils?" paddy said. "what does all this mean, tim? have you gone clean mad?" "and is it you, paddy?" tim asked; "or is it your ghost? for if it's your ghost i beg your honor ten thousand pardons for all the trouble i've given you, in making your honor run after me so far. and i beg your honor to forgive my auld father and mother, and my dear sister, and to forgive me too. and i humbly beg your honor will not haunt us, for it will be the bodily death of us all; but if we can do anything to give your blessid soul rest, tell me what it is and it shall be done. where shall we bury your blessid feet? it was not our fault that this blood-thirsty baste, bad luck to it, ate you up last night, all but your honor's feet, bless them. directly we found out the misfortune that had happened to your honor, for i went early to fetch you to the most iligant breakfast my mother could get ready, we all settled that the cannibal brute should no longer be one of our family, and i brought her to the market to sell. this is every word the blessid truth. so i beg your honor to forgive us, and may your soul rest in peace!" "stop," paddy cried, "or yer'll be the rale death o' me." it was now paddy's turn to fall, and he rolled about on the ground convulsed with laughter, for he now saw what a mistake murphy's boots had led to. when he had recovered himself enough to be able to speak, he told tim how all had happened, and advised him to take katty home again directly, which he did, and katty became even a greater favourite with the whole family than ever she had been. xxxiv. _the three men of gotham on nottingham bridge._ you, of course, know that the good people of gotham have been particularly noted for their wisdom; but if, by chance, this should not form one of the items of your varied knowledge, the stories i am about to relate will leave no doubt on your minds as to the justice of the report. whether it may be something in the air that has made these people so peculiarly gifted i cannot tell, for i must confess that i have never been at gotham, and know absolutely nothing of the geological properties of the soil, or indeed of the neighbourhood in any way, excepting that nottingham is the principal city of that part of the country. you probably know, as well as i can tell you, what nottingham is noted for, so i will say nothing about it, particularly as what i might and could say would in no way help us in clearing up the mystery, namely, why the inhabitants of one particular place should be mentally gifted beyond others. if, indeed, we were considering nottingham itself i might attempt some sort of an explanation, by telling you that a great part of the business of the town being shoemaking would perhaps account for a contemplative turn of its citizens, for shoemakers are supposed to be men of deep thought. why this should be so is another mystery requiring to be cleared up, which i will leave to others to do, and only just remark, that there can be no doubt several cases of men of thought and talent among that class might be cited. i will only mention the german shoemaker, of whom perhaps you have heard, who wrote up over his shop,-- "hans saxs shoe maker and poet too." that's not bad, particularly for a german. but to return to gotham, with which a consideration of nottingham has nothing to do. we all know particular individuals who are shining stars, and even families of stars we know, but still that does not tell us how and why there should be a whole community of such extraordinary lights. we have confessed our inability to explain this in the case of gotham, and therefore let us take a liberal view of the matter, and suppose that from generation to generation the children inherited from their parents such a happy development of brain, that it was utterly impossible they could be anything but wise. it might be worth a phrenologist's while to go down there. but mind, i am only speaking of what the people of gotham were, for, as i said, i know, personally, nothing of the place, and at the present day all may be materially altered. i cannot tell you exactly when it happened, but on a certain day, in a certain year, two men of gotham met on nottingham bridge. "well met, neighbour," said the one man, "whither are you going?" "i have just come from the market at nottingham, and am going home to fetch my wife and child, whom i forgot," was the answer; "and pray where are you going, neighbour?" "i'm going to the market at nottingham to buy sheep," said the first man. "and which way do you intend to bring the sheep home?" asked the man who had come from nottingham. "over this bridge," answered he who was going thither. "but you cannot," said the one. "but i must," said the other. "but you shall not, neighbour," said the man who was on his way home to fetch his wife and child. "and why shall i not, neighbour?" asked he who was going to nottingham to buy sheep. "you see," said the one, "that there is not room for my wife and child to pass, so keep them back, man." "i care not," said the other, "my sheep shall pass, so let your wife and child stand back." "they shall not pass." "but they shall pass." "woo! woo! back there," shouted the one man, spreading out his arms and legs, as is done to keep sheep back. "woo! woo! get on there," shouted the other, flourishing his stick, and striking the ground first on one side and then on the other. "take care, or you will drive them over my wife. but if she is hurt you shall pay the doctor's bill." "i will not pay the doctor's bill. but you take care, for if you make my sheep jump over the side of the bridge and they are drowned you shall pay for them." "i will not pay for them." "but you must pay for them." whilst this dispute was going on another man of gotham had ridden up, with a sack of meal behind him on his donkey, and hearing the quarrel between his neighbours about the one's wife, whom he had just seen safe at home, and about the other's sheep, when there were no sheep there, he got off his donkey and called to the two disputants to lift the sack of meal upon his shoulders. when they had done so, first untying the mouth of the sack, he emptied the meal over the side of the bridge into the river. then, holding up the sack with the mouth down, before his astonished neighbours, he said,-- "will you tell me how much meal there is in this sack?" [illustration: _the three wise gothamites._] "why, none," both said, "since you have just emptied it out." "well," he answered, "just so much wit is in your two heads when you dispute about wife and sheep, and neither wife nor sheep are here." now which was the wisest of the three? [decoration] xxxv. _the man of gotham and his cheeses._ one hot summer's day a man of gotham was on his way to nottingham market to sell his cheeses, which he carried in a bag slung across his shoulder. he found the heat oppressive, and his load so troublesome, that he could not help bewailing his lot in the following words--"unfortunate man that i am, why have i not a cart like neighbour dobbins, or even a barrow like old mathews? my good woman will make so many cheeses that i have no rest any market day. but now i have it; she is a shrewd woman, and i will propose to her to make the cheeses so that they can walk to market, and then i need only walk by the side of them, to see that they do not loiter or play by the way. i wonder she never thought of that." this bright idea consoled him and made him forget even his load for a time, but it weighed so heavily upon him that he was soon recalled to his misfortunes, and as he trudged along he constantly changed the bag from one shoulder to the other. now with these frequent changes the mouth of the bag had got loose, and just as he reached the top of the hill, looking down upon the bridge and nottingham in the distance, one of the cheeses fell out and rolled down the hill. he watched it for a time, and as it kept so well to the road, neither turning to one side nor the other, but jumping over the stones that lay in its way, he exclaimed in delight, "well done, well done, keep on like that, my good friend, and you'll soon be at your journey's end! it was foolish of my old woman not to tell me that they could run by themselves, but now that i have found it out, i'm not going to carry the lazy things a step farther." having come to this wise resolution he bundled the cheeses out of the bag, and, as they rolled down the hill, cried after them, "there, follow your companion; but you need not run so fast, for i shall rest myself a bit and then walk leisurely after you. now, mind you all meet me in the market-place." he watched them with the greatest satisfaction as they ran down the hill and over the bridge, when, the road turning suddenly, they were lost to his sight; and then, too, they all left the road, some running into one bush and some into another, whilst the rest got no further than the ditch by the roadside. [illustration: _the gothamite and his cheeses._] after a short rest the worthy man went on his way to nottingham, without troubling his mind about the cheeses, as he fully expected to find them waiting for him in the market-place; but when he got there he was somewhat astonished to find that they had not yet arrived. "no doubt," he said to himself, "as soon as they were out of my sight they got to some of their games in some field or another. that is always the way, but they'll be here soon." when, however, the market time was nearly over, and the cheeses had not appeared, he inquired of the market people whether they had seen them. no one had seen his cheeses, and when he was asked who brought them he said,-- "no one brought them. sure they were quite able to come by themselves, as you would say if you had seen them running along the road; but now i think of it, they were going at such a rate that they are no doubt half way on their road to york by now." so he hired a horse and rode off towards york to try and overtake them, but strange to say he did not overtake them, nor indeed did he ever see them again, nor hear any tidings of them. [decoration] xxxvi. _twelve men of gotham go out fishing together._ twelve men of gotham settled to go out fishing together; and, as the anticipation of pleasure is nearly worth the pleasure itself, they fixed the time a fortnight off, and each day during the interval made some preparation for the great day. the appointed day came in due time, and it was cold and drizzling; but the twelve met, for what true sportsman would allow weather to stop him? they were all in the highest spirits, and their conversation was of the wittiest and most brilliant description, as you will judge it must have been when you know more of the men. i do not attempt to give it you here, being well aware that i could not possibly do it justice. when they got to the river-side, after a lengthy consultation, they settled that the fish would feel shy of coming to them, seeing so many together; and it was therefore agreed they should separate, all to meet again at the same place in five hours' time. after they had fairly divided their provisions into twelve parts, each took his share, and went whither his fancy guided him. exact to the time, the twelve again assembled together, and adjourned to a tavern, where it had been arranged the day should be finished in conviviality. they were cold and wet to the skin, but all declared they had had a delightful day, each reserving his adventures till they were comfortably seated together. most extraordinary adventures they had all had; for one related how, immediately that he had thrown his line, well baited with a worm, he hooked the most wonderful fish he had ever seen; for though it only appeared on the top of the water for a moment at a time, he could plainly discover that it was hairy, and had a long tail. he had given the creature line enough to play, but, when he had followed it more than a mile, the line unfortunately broke--for the beast was strong, being quite as large as a cat. "that is extraordinary," another then cried, "for i, too, followed a hairy fish, such as i never saw before. you must know, as i went along looking for a likely spot, i frightened the creature from the bank, and it swam across the river. as quick as possible, i threw my worm just before its nose, but it would not bite, so, like a shot, i was in the water, and waded across after it. it took refuge in a hole, and when i put in my hand to catch it, it bit me so that i have not been able to use that hand all day, and no doubt that is the reason i have not hooked a single fish. the beast appeared, for all the world, like a rat." a third then told his companions how he had wandered along the side of a river till he came to a mill, where, by the bubbles under the wheel, he could see that the water was swarming with fish. he threw in his bait, and almost immediately had a bite. he felt convinced that he must have hooked several large fish at the same time, for no single one could have pulled the line with such force. the line was strong, so that it did not break, and at length the rod itself was fairly dragged out of his hands, and for a moment disappeared under the water. the fish, however, must have broken away, for the rod appeared again entangled in the wheel, and was whirled round till it was dashed to pieces. finishing the account of his startling adventure, he said, "i am sure, my friends, that at that spot there will be plenty of sport for the whole twelve of us together; and had it not been for that unlucky accident of losing my rod, i should have brought fish enough for all our suppers." various were the adventures narrated, several of them having narrowly escaped drowning, as they said--only that the water was not deep enough. amongst the whole twelve only one fish was produced--a small one, which its fortunate captor had found floating, dead, upon the water. when the last of the twelve had finished his account, he said, "i am sure, my good friends and neighbours, that no twelve men ever had such an extraordinary day's fishing as we have had; and, had we not met with these unfortunate accidents, we should have brought home such strange fish, and in such quantities, that the account of our day's sport would have been inserted in all the newspapers. but, my dear brethren, we have been in many great dangers, and i shudder when i think of it, that perhaps one of us has been drowned. let us count, and see whether the whole twelve of us are safely here." "yes, let us count!" all exclaimed; "for perhaps one of our dear brothers is drowned, and what will his unfortunate widow do?" each of the twelve counted in turn, and each only counted eleven, omitting himself; and then all cried out, "it is but too true that one of our dear brothers is lost! who shall carry the sad news to his widow? but first let us go back to the river, and look for the body." these twelve wise men went down to the river, and searched every place where, during the day, either of them had been, but no body was found, which they bitterly bewailed, as it was deprived of christian burial. they then drew lots which of them should inform the unfortunate widow of her dreadful loss; and when he on whom the lot fell inquired of the others to whose widow he should go, and no one could tell him, they bewailed still more bitterly that they could not discover which of their dear brothers was lost. [illustration: _the lost fisherman found._] it happened that at this time a gentleman from the court was passing, and seeing them in such distress, asked the cause. they said, "this morning twelve of us came down to the river to fish, and one is missing, whom we cannot find." then the gentleman said, "what will you give me if i find your missing companion?" to which they answered, that they would gladly give all the money they had if he could restore their lost brother to them. he then made them stand in a row, and riding along the back of them gave each such a smart cut with his whip that they cried aloud with pain, and as they did so he numbered them; but when he came to the twelfth he thrashed him till he and all his companions cried out for mercy for him; and the gentleman said, "this is the twelfth of you!" whereupon they thanked him for restoring their lost brother to them. xxxvii. _the cobbler's wager._ one fine summer's day a strong, active young man was sauntering along the exeter road, with apparently no immediate object in view but to pass away the time, for he certainly seemed in no hurry to reach the place of his destination--if, indeed, such a thing was in his thoughts, as it undoubtedly should have been, for he was carrying home a pair of shoes he had taken the greater part of the week to mend. you will guess by this that he was a cobbler by trade, and from the way he was going on we may, perhaps, form an idea how it is that cobblers are proverbially so little to be depended upon in the performance of a promise--at least, when that promise refers to their work. the young man we are talking of was not fond of work, but, being a merry, jovial fellow, was much liked in the neighbourhood where he lived, more particularly as he was always ready to give a helping hand to any one who required the assistance of a strong arm, and never hesitated to neglect his own business to help others. perhaps, too, that sort of occupation was more profitable than mending boots and shoes, for he always seemed to have money to spare when he met any companions of his own stamp at the different road-side inns. he was now coming near to such a house, and was trying to find a good excuse to turn in--for the landlord, according to his words, was a man of the right sort--when a butcher, in his cart, carrying a calf he had just bought, whom he knew well, overtook him. no excuse was, of course, required now to drop in at tom turner's, the landlord just mentioned, if even he had not been standing at his door, where, however, he was, ready to welcome them. the three were soon merry enough over a jug of foaming ale; and the butcher, in particular, was in high spirits, for he had not only made a good bargain, but one he prided himself upon. the landlord said to him, "i'm sure you've been playing your pranks off on some one, or that you've overreached some poor wretch in a bargain, makes you in such high glee this morning." "well, i've not done so badly, i think," the butcher answered, rubbing his hands. "a little mother's wit in one's head is worth having, and where's the good if one doesn't use it? you must know i particularly wanted a calf this morning--indeed, i couldn't do without it, whatever price i had to give; and as i happened to hear yesterday that old farmer hagan had some very fine ones, i went to him. now i didn't tell him that i wanted a calf--leave me alone for that--but i said i wanted some sheep, which i knew he just happened not to have. he told me that he hadn't any, and, as i expected, then said he had some first-rate calves which he wished me to see. "'i am very sorry to hear it, neighbour,' i said; 'for calves are falling down to nothing in value since the celebrated doctor tweedle came into these parts. you know that he has declared veal to be the most unwholesome meat there is, and that eating it is little short of eating poison; so that no one will touch it. i have two of the most beautiful calves you ever saw, which i am but too happy to be able to get rid of at thirty shillings each--just half what i gave for them. a friend of mine has occasion for three, which he is going to send off to a distance; so i am glad to be able to do you a good turn, if you are willing to part with one of yours on the same terms; but it must be a good 'un.' "old hagan was loath to part with one of his calves at such a price, but was so frightened by what i had told him, that he let me have the one that is outside in my cart, saying, 'i know, neighbour, that you are not a man likely to be over-reached, and that you would not sell at such a price if you saw a chance of getting a better one.' "now," the butcher continued, "does either of you think he could make as good a bargain as that?" and he chuckled, again rubbing his hands, as they both confessed that they gave in to him. shortly after, the cobbler rose to go, saying, as the butcher offered to give him a lift in his cart, that he was going another way; and as he went out, he made a sign to the landlord to follow him. when they were outside together he whispered, "i should like to play our boasting friend a good trick." "i wish, with all my heart, you could," the landlord answered; "but he is a cunning fellow." "cunning as he is, i've a great mind to steal the calf he's so proud of having cheated old hagan out of, and then sell it him again, but at double the price," the cobbler said. "he's too deep for you," said the landlord; "you can't do it." "what will you bet?" the cobbler asked. "anything you like!" was the answer. "well, then," the cobbler again said, "let it be a gallon of your very best ale. now you go back, and manage--as if without any particular motive--to tell our friend that you have a calf (that can be easily done as he is getting into his cart), when you may as well say that it is just like the one he has. you do this, and leave the rest to me." "i hope, with all my heart, that you'll succeed," the landlord said, as he went back into the house; and the cobbler hastened along the road which he knew was the butcher's way. when he had got some distance from the house, he dropped one of the shoes he was carrying home by the side of the road, where it would be sure to be seen, and then ran on some distance further, where he dropped the other shoe, choosing the spot close by an opening in the hedge by the road-side. shortly after, the butcher came the same way, still chuckling over his morning's bargain, and when he saw the shoe, drew in his horse. he was about to get out, when he thought better of it, saying, "there's some of that careless cobbler's work. he evidently has come this way, and dropped one of the shoes i saw him carrying--but i'm not going to take the trouble to carry it after him. let him come back, and that will teach him not to refuse a civil offer again. if he had but dropped the pair, i should not mind getting out to pick them up--though certainly it would not be to give them to him, but to keep them myself." with these friendly thoughts he drove on, and, before long, saw the other shoe. "hallo!" he said; "why, that lazy rascal of a cobbler, rather than go back when he discovered the loss of the one shoe, has thrown the other away as useless; but i'll not be such a fool, and won't begrudge a little trouble for the sake of a good pair of shoes." so saying, he jumped out of his cart and picked up the shoe, and, finding it was a good one, ran back for the other, leaving his cart standing in the road. no sooner had he turned a corner in the road, than the cobbler jumped out from behind the hedge where he had hidden himself, and having lifted the calf out of the cart, took it on his shoulders, and hurried back with his load, as fast as possible, a short cut to tom turner's house. tom received him with an acclamation of joy; and as soon as they had stowed the calf away in a shed, he produced some of his very best ale, over which they discussed what was further to be done. the cobbler said, "as soon as the butcher finds that his calf has disappeared, and that there are no signs of it, he will be sure to come back to you, having heard you had one; but be sure you do not let him have it a farthing under three pounds, for you know that was the price named by himself, and that he said he must have one to-day at any price. when we have had our joke out, we will give him back his money, making him pay the amount of our wager, and another gallon to boot. but he is a slippery rogue, so mind you do not part with the calf without receiving the money down. and now, what will you bet that i do not steal this very calf again?" the landlord, enjoying the joke, betted another gallon, and his companion continued, "to prepare for another sale, tell him, as he is driving off--tell him you have another calf, the twin brother to this one, and so like it that no one can tell one from the other." after all that had been arranged, the cobbler related every circumstance of the past adventure--not forgetting the butcher's soliloquy--to tom's infinite amusement, and added, "take particular notice whether he says anything about finding the shoes; for if he intends to act dishonestly we may alter our determination about giving him back his money." he had scarcely finished when they saw the butcher's cart at the door, so he hastened away to his former hiding-place. [illustration: _the cobbler carrying off the calf._] the next moment the butcher was in the house, and he cried out, "tom! you must positively let me have that calf of yours, for mine has played me an infernal trick, and has run off! i saw the brute, and ran after it. but it doesn't matter, for i know where it is, and can easily catch it again. but i'm in a hurry, so i thought it better to come back for yours." "how did it happen?" tom asked. "why, my horse got a stone in its hoof, and as i had to go a few yards off to get a dry stick to pick it out with, the brute took advantage of my being away, jumped out of the cart and got into a field by the side of the road. when i got back, though i saw it, it had the start of me, and i was not inclined to run far after it. but, now, i'm in a hurry; so tell me at once, tom, what you want for your calf." tom answered, "you know that i do not quite believe in veal being poison, in spite of the great doctor's opinion; but, to accommodate a friend, i don't mind parting with it cheap, though i really can't take less than three pounds." the butcher, finding that his own words were used against him, made no difficulty, but, paying the money, carried off the calf, tom calling after him that if he lost that he had his twin brother for him. he congratulated himself, as he drove along, that, though he paid dearly for the calf, he had, at least, got a good pair of shoes for nothing. to make up for lost time he put his horse to its best trot, but drew in suddenly when he got to the spot of his misfortune, for he heard a sound like the bleating of a calf. he listened for a moment, and then exclaimed, in glee, "oh! it's you is it, my runaway? now, take my word for it, you shall suffer for this." he jumped out of the cart and got into the field, but the bleating seemed to proceed from the next field, and when he got there from another, till he was led on to a considerable distance from his cart. the cobbler, who had imitated the bleating of a calf, when he had led on the butcher till he got confused, hurried back to where the cart was, and hastily taking out the calf, got safely back with it to tom turner's. tom, who had scarcely expected success this time, was fit to split his sides with laughter, when he heard an account of this last adventure, and in his turn told what had passed between him and the butcher. "why, the rascal!" exclaimed the cobbler, who was a honest fellow himself, "so he intends to steal the shoes, for he knows well enough that they belong to me. we'll give him another chance when he comes back, for i'll tell him that i lost the shoes; but if then he does not restore them, why i'll sell them to him for his calf and the money we get out of him. don't you think it will serve him right?" the landlord agreed, that if he persisted in dishonestly keeping the shoes, he would deserve to pay dearly for them, adding,-- "if we could manage it, it would be well to let him have his calf this time for nothing." but the cobbler, who was very indignant at the fellow's shuffling dishonesty, said, "no, no, he deserves no manner of consideration, but i hope he won't prove quite as bad as i think him." the butcher soon returned, and this time told the truth of the manner in which he had lost the calf; but when the cobbler told him of his loss he was far from confessing that he had found the shoes, and that they were then in his cart, hidden under some straw. he was out of humour at his own losses, and said, rather brutally, "you are so careless that your loss serves you right. what is your loss to mine? i have now paid four pounds ten for a calf, and still haven't got one for my customers. come, tom, my good friend, you must be merciful this time, and let me have your other calf a little cheaper. if you'll let me have it for two pounds here's the money, but if not i must go back to old hagan's for one." whilst this bargain was being concluded the cobbler went out, and looking in the butcher's cart soon found the shoes, which he took, replacing the straw as he found it. tom accepted the two pounds that were offered him, and the butcher was this time allowed to get his dearly-bought calf safely home; but i'm sorry to say the owner of the shoes had to wait another day for them, as the cobbler spent the remainder of that one with his friend, and merrily they spent it. xxxviii. _the miller and his donkey._ there was a miller, never mind in what part of the country, who had a tall, gawky son; but their combined wit had not proved sufficient to keep their business in a flourishing condition, for the poor man got poorer and poorer, selling one thing after another that was not absolutely required to keep the mill going, when, indeed, there was work for it to do, till the turn came for the donkey to be sold. this donkey had been a faithful servant to the miller, who looked upon it as a friend, and being a kind feeling man, it was with a heavy heart he made up his mind to take it to the fair to sell--but there is no resisting necessity. on the day of the fair, having some distance to go, he started early, and took his son with him, that they might both see the last of their friend. the donkey walked on in front, thoughtfully and demurely, as donkeys are wont to do, whilst the father and son followed sorrowfully. they soon got into the high road, which was crowded with people going to the fair, and the two poor simple fellows soon became the butt of the different wits. "that is a hopeful son of yours," one would say to the father; "you must feel proud of him i should think." and another would say to the son, pointing with his thumb to his father, "the old 'un looks a tartar; does he whip you much?" many of the like remarks we made to father and son, loud enough to be heard by both, though pretended to be in a whisper; but the principal shafts were shot at them in conversations carried on round about, not a word of which could they fail to hear. "did you ever see such an old fool as that," said one, "to be walking along this hot road, and his donkey going on in front with nothing to carry?" "oh," another said, "that's the donkey behind, for he in front is much the wiser of the two." "i wonder," another joined in, "the old fellow doesn't take more care of himself at his time of life, if not for his own sake, at least for his baby's, for what would become of the poor child if anything were to happen to him?" stung by these remarks the old man got on to the donkey, though he regretted giving the poor beast such a load to carry, and he sought to lighten it by partly walking, for his long legs easily reached the ground. this made matters worse, for he soon heard one of his tormentors say, "look there, was there ever such an old brute? he's taking it easy, and lets his poor boy toil along as best he can. such an interesting child, too! oh, if its mother did but know how cruelly her darling child is being treated." hearing this the miller made his son take his place, and wondered, as he walked by his side, whether he was now doing right. he was as far from it as ever, poor man, for he very shortly heard an exclamation, and this time from an old man, whose opinion should carry some weight. "well, this is too bad; what will the world come to next? here's a big lout of a fellow riding whilst his old father's walking. it's disgraceful, that it is, for if even the fellow's lame, at any rate he should make room for the old man. the donkey's strong enough to carry the two." [illustration: _the burdened beast._] now the miller got on the donkey in front of his son, to whom he whispered not to weigh too heavily on the poor beast's back, and they got on for some distance in peace. but it was not to last long, for when the donkey happened to stumble, from kicking against a stone, there was a general outcry: "they want to kill the poor beast. is there no one to interfere? but it's one comfort that cruelty to animals can be punished. who'll inform against these two big brutes? why either of them is strong enough to carry the poor little thing, instead of breaking its back, as they are doing with their weight." "when shall we do what's right?" said the poor miller. "get off, my son, and so will i, and we'll carry the donkey between us. surely then we shall not be blamed." [illustration: _the beast a burden._] having borrowed a strong pole, they tied the donkey's four legs to it, and each taking an end of the pole across his shoulder, they managed, though with great difficulty, to carry it; but it seemed impossible to please the people. there was a general shout of laughter as the two poor fellows toiled along, nearly weighed down by the load they were carrying; but that was not enough, for the most insulting epithets were showered upon them, till worried and distressed beyond endurance, the old man exclaimed, in despair, "i see there is no doing right, but as long as we remain together fault will be found, so we must part, my old friend;" and as they just then came to a bridge, with his son's help, he threw the donkey over the side into the river below. [decoration] xxxix. _doctor dobbs, and his horse nobbs._ doctor daniel dobbs, of doncaster, had a nag that was called nobbs. one day, in the middle of winter, the doctor having been summoned to attend a patient at some distance from his dwelling, and being anxious to return home before it was dark, rode poor nobbs very hard. on his arrival, not finding his man in the way, the doctor fastened nobbs by his bridle to a rail in the yard, and went into his parlour, where he sat down to warm himself by a good fire. it had happened that the doctor's dairy-maid had brewed a barrel of strong beer, which had been drawn off into the cooler; and the dairy-maid having been called away to milk her cows, she had carelessly left the door of the brewhouse open. the steam of the beer proved wonderfully inviting to poor nobbs, who had been hard rode, and now stood in the cold extremely thirsty. after sundry efforts he got loose from the rail, and repairing to the brewhouse, drank so heartily of the beer, that, before he was aware of it, he fell down dead drunk. the doctor's man coming home, ran into the yard to convey nobbs to the stable; not finding him at the rail, he looked about, and at length discovered him stretched upon the ground, cold and insensible. bursting into the parlour, where the doctor was seated with mrs. dobbs, he communicated to them the news of poor nobby's decease. the doctor and mrs. dobbs were both good-natured people, and of course were much concerned; but as the doctor never suffered misfortunes to get the better of his discretion, he immediately gave orders that nobbs should without delay be flayed, and that his skin should be taken next morning to the currier. the doctor's man accordingly set to work: poor nobbs was dragged to the dunghill, his skin was stripped off, and he was left to be eaten by the hounds. he had not, however, lain long before the novelty of his situation had a considerable effect upon him. as he had lost his skin, of course the coldness of the night operated with double activity in dissipating the fumes of the beer which he had swallowed; and at length he awoke, got upon his legs, and trotted away to the stable-door, which happened to be close by the parlour. not finding it open, and being both cold and hungry, he began to whinny for assistance. the doctor and his wife had just done supper, and happened at that moment to be talking of the accident which had befallen their nag, over a hot bowl of brandy-punch. no sooner had nobbs whinnied, than mrs. dobbs turned pale, and exclaimed, "doctor dobbs! as sure as i live, that is nobb's voice--i know him by his whinny!" "my dear," said the doctor, "it is nobb's whinny sure enough; but, poor thing, he is dead, and has been flayed." he had hardly said this before nobbs whinnied again--up jumps the doctor, takes a candle in his hand, and runs into the yard. the first thing he saw was nobbs himself without his skin. the doctor summoned all his servants, ordered six sheep to be killed, and clapped their skins upon poor nobbs. to make a long story short, nobbs recovered, and did his work as well as ever. the sheep-skin stuck fast, and answered his purpose as well as his own skin ever did. but what is most remarkable, the wool grew rapidly; and when the shearing season came, the doctor had nobbs sheared. every year he gave the doctor a noble fleece, for he carried upon his back, you know, as much as six sheep; and as long as nobbs lived, all the doctor's stockings, and all mrs. dobbs' flannel petticoats, were made of his wool. [illustration: _doctor dobbs on his horse nobbs._] xl. _the brownie._ there was once a farmer whose name was john burdon, a kindly, industrious man, who lived happily with his wife and children, in an old house, where his father had lived before him. his five children were thriving and merry, with no more quarrelling than is usual amongst children, and altogether there was a quiet in the old house, in spite of the games that were going on within. of a sudden all this changed, and every thing seemed to go wrong. whatever the game might be, one of the children was sure to be hurt. if they were playing at ball, the ball would be sure to strike one or the other on the nose or in the eye, on which a bellowing followed; or if the game was puss-in-the-corner, or blind-man's-buff, two or more of the children were certain to run their heads together, or tear their clothes, so that the good dame, whose boast it had always been that they never got into mischief, had now enough to do to repair the daily damage. the farmer, now hearing constant complaints, said some evil spirit must have crept into the house; and he was right enough. a brownie or goblin had taken up his abode there, and not finding the quiet within which the outside promised, bestowed his ill-humour upon the inmates, and daily invented some new scheme for tormenting the children. in one corner of the kitchen in which they generally played there was a closet, where the brownie had located himself; and that he might watch them, and see at what moment he could best torment them, he had thrust out a knot that was in the closet door, thus making himself a little window. now, it happened one day that the eldest boy had the shoe-horn in his hand, and merely in play stuck it in the knot-hole, whence it was immediately ejected, striking the boy on the head. [illustration: _the brownie's revengeful pranks._] as often as this was repeated so often it darted out, such good aim being taken that it invariably struck one of them on the head, and generally the one who had put it there. though one always suffered, it was sport to the others, and therefore the horn was frequently stuck in the hole, so that the brownie became more and more irritated, not confining his pranks to the children, but making the parents suffer in various ways. there would be noises in the night, and things that were in daily use would all at once be mislaid, and, after ever so much trouble and worry, found in places where they had already been a dozen times looked for. there could be no doubt this was the brownie's doing, and there could be still less doubt when the chair was moved back, just at the moment when one of the old couple was going to sit down, and he or she went rolling on the floor, for then a laugh was heard proceeding from the moved chair. this trick was played them more particularly when they had anything in their hands, such as a cup of tea, which would be emptied in the falling one's face, and the laughing on such occasions was louder and longer. at length, unable to bear it, the farmer determined to leave a house where there was no longer any comfort, and, if possible, to let it. the last load of the furniture was being removed, and the farmer, following with his wife, said-- "i'm heavy at heart at leaving the old house, where, for years, we were so happy, and perhaps we shall not find the new one half as convenient." "the new one will not be half as convenient," was uttered in a strange, squeaky voice, which seemed to be in an old tub at the back of the cart. "oh! oh! are you there?" cried the poor farmer, "then we may as well turn back." "yes! turn back," said the squeaky voice. they did, in fact, turn back, and from that day peace was restored to the house, for the brownie no longer tormented any of its inmates, nor, indeed, gave any signs of being there, excepting by immediately darting the shoe-horn out whenever it was put in the knot-hole. the end. chiswick press:--printed by whittingham and wilkins, tooks court, chancery lane. transcriber's note text in italics has been surrounded with _underscores_, and small capitals were changed to all capitals. a few punctuation errors have been corrected silently, and an extraneous space was removed. otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. for example: the river pegnitz is also spelled as pegnetz, this has not been changed.